This is me with Bell on my lap. If she intends to be a lap dog much longer....I'm going to need a much bigger lap!Training continues with both pups. I now call Bell (affectionately)....Dumbbell when we are "working". I call it work...Bell calls it screwing with Mom's mind. I know from experience that you have to repeat constantly to get a puppy to finally "get it". And I'm perfectly willing to do that because the end result is an adult dog with great manners, that's pleasant to have around. But Bell is definitely a challenge.
Every day her training is different...not the stuff we go over...only the way she responds. At one point I was convinced she finally knew what sit means. But today it was nothing but blank looks and loving tail wags. She was pretty good with heeling..even better than Nicki was today. But every time I said sit she just stared straight ahead or looked at me with that adorable blank look in her eyes and wagged her tail. It's like she thought she had already done it! I just had to laugh at her. She's such a sweet little dip stick some times I just can't help but crack up.
On our way back home she was heeling really nice, I was praising her all the way, telling her she's a good girl, talking nonsense in a silly voice...she was eating it up. Then up ahead of us I saw a woman walking a big bruiser of a Lab with a harness on him. That was my first tip off. People that use a harness usually do that because the dog isn't trained and their walk time is all about who's got the most muscle...her or the dog. I was a little nervous when I saw him coming. He had seen us and he decided to drag his woman over to see us. She made an attempt to drag him to the side away from us but I called to her that if he's friendly I'd like them to meet. (can't believe I said that!) I was shaking in my shoes as we got closer. He was such a big hulk of a dog and my poor Bell is so tiny and shy. But I'm determined that my dogs will be much better socialized than my Allie was. Allie had a lot of problems and one of them was not being socialized enough when she was young. I didn't understand how important it is to socialize a timid dog until it was too late with Allie. So I'm not going to make that mistake again. You have to address the fact that the dog is lacking confidence. Bell is a timid dog too but at least she is willing to try.
When we finally met "Bruiser" (my name for him. I never got his real name) he was fine with Bell. She sat down and didn't move a muscle. (sure, NOW you know how to sit!) I gave her a lot of credit for not trying to bolt away from him. He was at least 6 or 7 times her size...hell, he was almost bigger than me! Well he decided that Bell was wonderful and started sniffing and prancing around her like they were old friends. (he liked her because he isn't neutered). Bell just continued looking at him and sitting quietly but sort of in a stiff way. (do I even KNOW you dude?) Bell tends to do the statue thing when she's nervous too. Eventually he had sniffed his fill of her and we were on our way. Bell gave it all away at that point because she kept looking behind her..watching him walk away. (Bell, you have to play hard to get girl!) We discussed him all the way home.
