Presto's first water retrieves!
Presto is about a week shy of five months...I think. Time flies!
Yesterday I took him to his first independent obedience lesson. Usually I take my other dog and Presto gets 15 minutes of the hour. He loves to work and required "forced" breaks. Afterward, I took him to the river for some one on one time. He swam as a baby puppy with the breeder and he's been in the water since I brought him home, but not a lot of swimming. His love of retrieving has taken off the past couple of weeks and so when the bumper went into the water further than he could walk, he just couldn't handle it and swam. And, that was that! He didn't want it to end and kept bugging me until I put the bumper in my pocket. I think his tail is a little sore today from the swimming (not used to it) and even from the one hour lesson since he was wagging the whole time.
HERE is a video of Presto when we first arrived at the river. So excited! And HERE he is on his third water retrieve. With any luck, we'll have fun at dock diving, too. It's a big thing around here and just a good time for all, especially the dogs. Linus is more of a dock "plopper" so we haven't been able to try it.
In obedience we worked on go outs, jumping (well, "jumping", since he's a puppy), fronts, and he learned scent articles. He's such a smart puppy. His front are already looking up at my face vs. at my hands and he picked up scent articles in no time. My biggest challenge with him is that he is a total spaz and it can be really hard to mark the correct behavior. Some things are getting better now that he knows that I will tell him how to win and he'll mature and grow out of it, but sometimes I wonder who fed him the espresso beans!
Presto is becoming very loving and sweet these days, although I wouldn't call his new "pinching" behavior sweet! His adult front teeth have come in and he's trying them out, I guess. Ouch!
