Puppy Preschool!

I got home from Korea yesterday morning and after a nice nap, headed to Berkeley to pick up the Hinckster. I swear at first I thought he had doubled in size (he looks so much smaller in pictures!) but then Tyler convinced me he's really the same as when I left. He seemed so at home in Berkeley which is great, now I know we can bring him there on the weekends and he won't be out of his element. He loved sitting on the porch and lying in the sun - so cute!

Then yesterday evening was our first puppy class! Thankfully, I seemed to heave beat the jetlag for the most part and was fully awake. It was a pretty crazy scene. Some familiar faces from puppy playgroup (Rudy the german shephard - probably Hinck's best pal of the bunch, and Angel, who grew a lot, but was at Hinck's mercy at the first puppy playgroup) and then some others, I think about 8 dogs in total. The reason it was a scene was because Cerena (the trainer) kept trying to talk and then dogs would start yapping or running around and it was just kind of hilarious. But we learned some good stuff - like at this stage I should be rewarding Hinck with a piece of kibble for just about everything. And since it's kibble, coming out of his dinner ration, its not going to make him fat. It actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it. If I tell him to get off the couch just by gruffly saying 'No' then he kind of gets it, but if I tell him to get off and then reward him when he does, then he really gets it. Other things we're rewarding are him looking at me when I say his name, him sitting still when I open the door, get home, etc., and him letting me touch his collar/ears/feet. All part of conditioning him so when he's huge, he isn't bothered by such things. Cerena said we should also bring kibble out on walks so that when people want to pet hinck, they can make him sit for a treat - which will hopefully keep him from jumping up (thats a big problem for us right now.) I'm also hoping in the next week or so she also teaches us about heeling. Because Hinck is terrible at it.

Like I said, it was a bit hard for her to get her message out, but she's promised she's going to send a lot of reading that will reiterate the same points. Also, she brought one of her dogs to the class and he was probably one of the best trained dogs I've ever seen...so she built a lot of credibility there. I'm looking forward to the next class! She also mentioned that Saturday's playgroup is being run by Parrish this week (who I work with) which should be interesting, albiet slightly awkward.

Today I bought Hinck a mondo bone - a real one since he destroyed the nylabones in about 60 seconds, and he is going nuts over it. I think I may take it away now since he's being chewing on it non-stop for 30 minutes, we'll see how that goes. And this weekend we have friends in town so I think it will be another good one for Hinck...who knows maybe we'll finally make it to the beach!