Progress

Theo has made leaps and bounds of progress this week. It's really been amazing. I haven't talked much about his leash training, but I've been taking him on 1-2 walks a day around the neighborhood. At first it was very trying because Theo wouldn't walk. He would walk to the end of the street (pulling a lot and stopping at every front yard), then he would stop and refuse to move. I tried to get him to move through various means, but I never managed to get him more than 5 feet before he would sit down again. He still does it to some extent, but only when he's tired and needs a rest, which is fine of course. He's learned to "heel" like a pro! He still pulls a little sometimes, but I can now walk a good portion of the walk with lots of slack on the leash and he walks right beside me. What a good boy!

The house training is also going great. He still has accidents in his pen, but he's getting better, and he's great when we're home. I think when his bladder gets bigger and we don't have to rely on puppy pads it'll get better.

The walks have also made him much more handleable. He was starting to get very nippy to the point where I couldn't even play with him because my hands got so torn up. Well I've learned there's two things that make me able to have a nice cuddle time with Theo: first is, as I said, a nice long walk (or two medium walks) to let him get out some of his energy. Toward the end I usually run with him because he really seems to enjoy it. Second is letting him have a rough playtime. I tried getting him to play calmly and it was so frustrating because all he wanted to do was bite my hands...hard. I noticed that if I rough-house with him a little (not letting him bite my hand, but letting him try), a few minutes later he's mellow and ready for cuddling. It's been so great.

Today he's been such a good puppy that I can't think of anything but running home and playing with him some more! If this keeps up he's going to turn into such a dream dog. I know there'll still be setbacks, but it's such a morale booster to know that we're making good progress.

So far he hasn't been very des