Puppy Class 9

My baby is already 7 months old!!!! Today we worked in a different environment, since we worked outside instead of on the living room. We worked on puppy jumping skills exercise #1 from Susan Salo, and Jovi did very well. We also worked on coming to heel, stay, place, tugging, and recall and working on Vira and aqui. The group is growing and it makes the class more fun but also more challenging. I think the pups will learn to work through distractions, which will be great for agility. Jovi and I really need to work on our heeling, since this is where we are having the most difficulty. Attached is the updated table of his progress at 7 months!

Training Progress – 7 months

In the afternoon, Oxalis came for a visit to introduce her new baby girl, Ziva. She is a beautiful red merle Australian Shepherd, whose name means light of god, very appropriate for one of the Golden Girls of the Jusino Clan We look forward to having her join the puppy class!

Puppy Class 8

Today we officially welcomed Zohan to the puppy class! He is a beautiful blue merle border collie with tan markings, owned by our good friend Nicole Pierce. Jovi had a great time playing with him. We also measured Jovi and he is already 19inches. Brisa measured 15inches.

Updated Training Table at 6.5 months

A month after posting the previous table, I’ve updated the table with Jovi’s progress! It’s great to see how much he has learned this past month. We added a column to document the age when the exercise should be started, although I should point out that I haven’t necessarily complied with the dates, since this will also depend on how much time you have to work. I will post the table tonight, since i haven’t figured out how to do it from my ipad. Yes, this is what I did today during my lunch hour

Puppy Class 6

For puppy class 6 we visitied Rosarito and Brisa at their home in Isla Verde. We worked on the stay, recall to heel, heeling, recalls, and on several tricks. Jovi is having trouble with heeling, since he doesn’t want to wait for me, and keeps speeding ahead of me. He is doing very well on the stay, and on the recalls, staying in place even when Rosarito is calling Brisa. I will have to work harder on the heeling.

After the puppy class, we took the puppies to the beach for the first time. Jovi was great, he played frisbee, tug, jumped waves, splashes around, and in general was a great pup! He came when called and followed me into then water. I also love watching him play with Daniel, they love to tumble around and play. Jovi and I had a great time splashing in the ocean!

Puppy Class 5

We focused on working on heeling and on the wait. We took turns leaving them in position and releasing them, or rewarding them for staying in position. Jovi and Brisa both did very well. We practiced tricks, and in general Jovi did very well. However, for some reason Jovi REFUSES to do the rollover. I wonder if we are going into the teenager phase We will practice this week to see if we can work it out

5to Dia Nacional Del Perro Purina

We took Jovi with us to the Purina National Dog Day in Caguas!

PRAT is invited every year to give shows in front of audiences and around 15,000 people visit the park with their families and their dogs! Jovi was AMAZING! I was so proud of my boy, he did tricks with TONS of distractions, met strangers and reacted to them as if he knew them! He was happy, friendly, and very confident. We had a big gated area for our shows, so I was able to work with him in between shows off leash outside. I would have expected some sniffing around and some distraction going off to say hi to other dogs and people while working, since he is a puppy and there were PLENTY of distractions… Instead he was focused and eager to work. We also worked on his catching frisbees and he can now catch them in flight. Now I have to be careful, since if I don’t throw them low he will try to jump and catch them and I don’t want him doing this until he is older

I am so grateful to my friend Annette for bringing Jovi into our lives, he is a truly exceptional boy!!!! Sweet, playful, confident, and just absolutely full of fun!!! We are just having a blast!!!

Puppy Class 4

Yesterday was our fourth puppy class and I am so happy with Jovi’s progress so far. I’m very grateful to Rosarito for motivating me to do this and to Rafo for taking the time to teach our puppy class! Though I’m sure there will always be things that I should have trained different or better, I’m trying to give my boy the best foundation I possibly can, and having Rosarito come over and ask questions has really made us work even harder and I see results daily. We worked on his tricks, in order to build our working relationship, and also to have him think (exercise his brain). We continued to work on the following:

1. Heeling – Jovi is doing better, though this is not his best behavior, since he is always in a hurry and cuts in front of me. Will have to work more on this.
2. Stay – he is doing very well, although sometimes he is releasing early when I am returning to him to reward. We need t work with distance and distractions and he is doing better in the sit, so we need to work more in the down. I also need to work it with the toughest distraction to him- the frisbee!!!
3. Come to side – he is doing very well on both sides.
4. Recall to heel – very well on both sides.
5. Target – he is doing it very well, need to add now going down stairs or ramp, and him moving forward. I need to work on me running past him and him staying.
6. Vira / Aqui – he is doing VERY well though he likes the Vira better.