Toby is ready for anything! He's a quick learner, and eager to play whatever game we introduce, which makes training more fun and easy for him, and for his people too.
After several months living at the shelter, Gnarls Barkley was still afraid of everybody he saw except his two primary caregivers. I've been brought in to help, and with the dedicated staff we've started to make progress towards getting him confident enough to be adoptable. We won't know his ceiling until we get there, but our first session gave us all hope.
At about a year old, Gracie is a puppy at heart in a big dog's body. A formula for bull-in-a-china-shop outcomes unless she learns how to control her enthusiasm and direct her energy. But look how confident she is - she's got this!
What a great setup Maddie has! A big part of teaching your new puppy self-management and a solid sleep schedule is a good confinement system - some combination of crate, safe-play zone, and puppy-proofed areas for interactive time with you helps remove the opportunity to fall into habits like chewing furniture or scavenging the house while you're teaching what's ok to play with.
A common bit of bad advice I hear is to interfere with your puppy's meal, putting your hands in his dish or taking it away briefly, to prevent resource guarding problems later. It may not actually cause guarding, but it certainly can exacerbate a predisposition towards it. Better to hand-feed with no dish, or ADD BONUSES to the dish while your puppy eats, to make him welcome people near his food. Consider your mood when a waiter keeps grabbing your plate when you aren't done ("Are you through with that?") versus when the server keeps bringing more bread and topping up your wine. Which one causes food insecurity? Barney here will tell you the difference.
