Sorry for my disappearance, the Karen Pryor Academy has been eating up all of my free time. The great news is that as of last weekend I am now finished with the Academy and officially graduated and a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Parter. Hurray!!
Taran is now 5 months old. It is hard to believe I've had him now for about 3 months. He is growing so fast and becoming more of a character every day. He is truly a spoiled boy as he comes to work with me at the vet clinic almost every day so that I can work on his training and let him run in the field next to the clinic during my lunch hour. Now that I am finished with the Academy I finally have to time to focus on his training more seriously. We are taking an advanced training class that covers Canine Good Citizen and some early exercises for obedience and rally. We are also starting to learn the foundations for agility at a huge and beautiful property in Osteen. I know he is going to have a blast with that! He loves the clicker training and is such a fast learner. My instructor from the Karen Pryor Academy(who has setters and retrievers) is also pushing me to do some field work with him, so we may dabble in that a bit as well.
Another thing that I love about Taran is how amazingly social and outgoing he is. He is so confident in new situations, and he adores everyone and every dog he has met. I love having a dog I can take out and meet new people and go different places(my other dog is a rescue with
some serious fear issues). Last night I met with my business partner and her dog at a Panera Bread and Taran was so well behaved. He mostly sat at my feet during dinner and listened to all my cues when I asked him to sit or down when he saw new people. I am just thrilled with how he is turning out!Of course there have been plenty of frustating moment with Taran as well. We are still having some issues with him barking(and sometimes peeing!) in his crate but he is making progress with that. He is very excellent at putting everything and anything he finds in his mouth so we have to be extremely diligent about watching him and making sure everything is put away. He is a champion jumper as well, so I'm working hard on that one when he greets new people. I realized that the Academy was putting more stress on me than I had thought, as I was getting very frustrated with Taran for little puppy things. Now that I can finally relax again I am realizing what a truly wonderful dog he is turning into and can focus more on the fun stuff with him. I cannot wait to see what the future holds for us both.
