Day 3

I got up to use the bathroom around 5 AM and Larry thought we were awake for the day. It's nice to see him so excited to see me, but it's the wrong time. Unfortunately for me, I figured that if I had to pee, he probably did too, so I suited up and took him out for a quick bathroom session. He did great and realized that in Erie in late December, it's more than a little crisp out at 5AM. So he did his business and we came back in (I was sure to give him a few spots to piddle in, since it appears he likes to save some for marking purposes). After one jump up on the bed, he did fine and went back to sleep.

At 6:30 though, I heard him bark for the very first time. He actually did a few short bursts of two barks. We don't know what startled him, but Heather was nice enough to get up with him.

I got up about an hour or so later and fed him, played for about 10 minutes and then I took him outside, not wanting to repeat last night's accident. We went down the stairs, got outside and he did a number 1 in his favorite spot, and then, he did a number 2 outside. Hooray for Larry! I guess there really is something to this scheduling thing. (Thanks Helen!).

So we took a pretty good walk (almost a half hour) and dropped his baggie of doo in the dumpster (like a good owner and dog). The only problem we had was *gasp* I lost the leash at one point! I had to blow my nose and somehow the leash got off of my wrist. Not thinking, I made a quick move to try to step on the leash, but sure enough, he noticed and started trotting away. I did have a moment of sense amidst the panic and instead of trying to chase him, I crouched down and call "come here Larry" and sure enough, he turned around and raced toward me and let me get control of him. I gotta say I was pretty scared.

He had a mid-day walk and a morning training session where I did crate acclimation (he's ready to move to the next step; he was waiting patiently in the crate with the door open and then didn't mind when I closed the door). He's not getting the sit command too well yet. He gets up on his hind legs like a gopher, but when I move the treat backward over his head, he doesn't drop his hind legs. Instead, he's agile enough to dance around and keep it in front of him. More work on that today.

That's all for now.

That's most of the news for today. More later