22 Weeks

She grows! We went through a bit of a fatty stage for a few days this week, but her legs have sprouted again (literally overnight, how crazy is this puppy growth businesS?) and she’s gone back to her usual slim self. Just over 17″ now. I’m going to guess that she ends up around 20″.

I have been really lazy the last few weeks about teaching new tricks and getting Rio to new places. I kept expecting to be back at flyball and that was going to be a big lots-of-people/dogs event, but it didn’t happen. Frustrating! We have Hare’n’Hounds next Sunday where she’ll be able to go indoors and interact with other people and dogs, but I want to try and visit the supermarket or at least the centre of the village this week as well.

We did some work on picking up a Yumove pot to try and encourage a nose-touch/pick up behaviour, but then I got impatient. So instead of bridging the gap we have started working directly with a tennis ball instead. We’re at the stage where she will pick up a dead ball and hold it for 1-2s before I clicker it, so I’m pretty pleased. I haven’t made the ball interesting or tried to play with it as a toy, I wanted to see if we could purely shape the hold. So far so good!

Also worked on fetch a lot. Traditional throw a toy and dog fetches it right back fetch. None of my dogs really do this properly, Dylan fetches and then promptly drops it as soon as any other dog approaches and lets them bring it back, and Kim gets snarly about sharing. Mollie will play if there are no other dogs, but that’s no fun. Rio is awesome, thankfully, and it’s crossing over to her other toys too, she will bring me things to interact with now. I really need to get a photo of her serious-play-with-me face, it’s adorable.

We’ve done some foundation agility heelwork stuff (handling on the flat, front crosses etc) which is fun, and I’ve also done a little bit of jump work consisting of 2 stride regulators. So far so good, she’s adjusting her stride and bouncing the bumps nicely. I think I’m going to borrow a jump from agility and see if I can start teaching her turns and adding some height to the jumps. I’m also keeping my eyes peeled for a wobble board or similar that I can buy/borrow/steal.