Hound dog
Nana's are Beautiful
I know I'm probably boring you all with my Maggie brags, but I have to say.........this baby girl is amazing. I knew she was intelligent, but that is an understatement. I thought Molly was really intelligent, but Maggie is outpacing her by leaps and bounds. Which makes me grateful that I started training really early.
I've never ever, and I've worked with a LOT of dogs over the years, seen a puppy of her age master commands as quickly as she does. Normally at the age of 3 months I'm not working with very many commands because attention span is short, and memory is short...........but Maggie's list of commands is almost right there with Molly's already and I'm adding more complicated ones. Her new ones are Left Right Wait Go. These are commands for while we're walking on lead. I like my dogs out front most of the time or by my side. I want them to go where I go and I don't want to have to pull on the leash. Left and Right tells them which way when we come to a corner if I want them to turn. If we come to a street we need to cross, first it's Wait, to look for traffic or wait for the light, then Go, which means no dilly dallying get your fanny across the street. These Molly is helping me train her with because she already knows what to do and Maggie follows her lead.
We now make certain Travis takes along his cane (he needs it anyway) when we take the daily walks. Doesn't phase her a bit. First time she wanted to chew on it and try to catch it but I told her to Leave It and she stopped. Doesn't make her the least bit nervous. I'd like to start taking her to the nearby nursing home to visit patients soon as she no longer dribbles with excitement over meeting new people. I was going to call and ask them if it's ok first. I know they let pets come in to visit the residents, but still. I want to do it because I want her not to be afraid of walkers or wheelchairs, as well as socialize her and cheer them up with a cute puppy to love on. We have a couple of young people in the neighborhood who use wheelchairs that are electric.....and they don't bother her but she's not had much opportunity to get very close either.
I've come up with a hand command for Down (lay down) and another for Come, so we'll be working on those quite a bit for a while. Hmm. I need to do Stay too. Molly does come and stay with no effort......I never really trained her for either, so I didn't really have a hand command for it. Maggie does get that if Mom snaps her fingers, she needs to pay attention now and wait for the command to follow.
Oddly, she is not easily distracted during training, regardless of her energy level. With Molly I had to wait until after playtime and burn off some of her extra energy first.......well, with all the pups up until Maggie.
Two that crack me up are:
No Feets - stop digging in the water dish ( I told her this each time she did it and I'd take hold of her feet and make her stop, place them outside the bowl)
Night Night - open the fridge, take out a piece of cheese, say Night Night (she can be anywhere in the house if she hears that cheese wrapper) and she zooms into her crate at the speed of light. It took 6 months for Betsy to relate the two, Maggie was 2 days.
At the rate she's going..............I might run out of command ideas by the time she's a year old.
And loving? omg Once we got her completely over all the not being socialized very young issues..........she is over the top lovable, cuddly, patient. When not training or playing or walking, she naps under my computer chair about 4 inches from Molly. lol I have to be careful not to step on her when I get out of the chair. She adores the grandkids but does not jump up on them (the Off command stopped that quickly), loves to kiss them but doesn't chew (Leave It command stopped the chewing biting on people) and gets super excited when they come over. The cats adore her, she adores the cats. And the way they play together is utterly amazing Maggie doesn't get her nose bloodied, but the cats don't care and it looks rougher than it is.
House training is basically finished. Accidents are my fault, all are right smack in front of the door, and it's because I didn't see/hear her for some reason. Doesn't happen often, but there are times I'm distracted by chores or kids or something and don't spot her.
Maggie is no Molly. Maggie is Maggie and a truly wonderful amazing dog in her own right. I am a volunteer for the dog pound, so I am connected with their fb page and often post urgent notices for dogs who's time is running out for foster care or adoption. I spotted Maggie's sister. No doubt it was her sister, identical to Maggie and the exact same age. I was about to pick up the phone and tell them I'd come adopt her, when a rescue was found that would take her. I just couldn't stand the thought of a pup with Maggie's potential being put down for any reason, even if I had to train her and rehome her myself. But I was both relieved and glad she got into a good rescue who are rather strict on adoption and train the dogs with all the basic commands prior to adoption.
If we'd not worked on her social and had not kicked in her training right away, Maggie would be a difficult dog to deal with, even at this age. She was a bit stubborn and willful until the training really kicked in, now she's eager to please and enjoys learning new things..........and she loves her liver treats & cheese. LOL In some ways, she doesn't act like a 3 month old puppy, she is so darn well behaved already.
I've never ever, and I've worked with a LOT of dogs over the years, seen a puppy of her age master commands as quickly as she does. Normally at the age of 3 months I'm not working with very many commands because attention span is short, and memory is short...........but Maggie's list of commands is almost right there with Molly's already and I'm adding more complicated ones. Her new ones are Left Right Wait Go. These are commands for while we're walking on lead. I like my dogs out front most of the time or by my side. I want them to go where I go and I don't want to have to pull on the leash. Left and Right tells them which way when we come to a corner if I want them to turn. If we come to a street we need to cross, first it's Wait, to look for traffic or wait for the light, then Go, which means no dilly dallying get your fanny across the street. These Molly is helping me train her with because she already knows what to do and Maggie follows her lead.
We now make certain Travis takes along his cane (he needs it anyway) when we take the daily walks. Doesn't phase her a bit. First time she wanted to chew on it and try to catch it but I told her to Leave It and she stopped. Doesn't make her the least bit nervous. I'd like to start taking her to the nearby nursing home to visit patients soon as she no longer dribbles with excitement over meeting new people. I was going to call and ask them if it's ok first. I know they let pets come in to visit the residents, but still. I want to do it because I want her not to be afraid of walkers or wheelchairs, as well as socialize her and cheer them up with a cute puppy to love on. We have a couple of young people in the neighborhood who use wheelchairs that are electric.....and they don't bother her but she's not had much opportunity to get very close either.
I've come up with a hand command for Down (lay down) and another for Come, so we'll be working on those quite a bit for a while. Hmm. I need to do Stay too. Molly does come and stay with no effort......I never really trained her for either, so I didn't really have a hand command for it. Maggie does get that if Mom snaps her fingers, she needs to pay attention now and wait for the command to follow.
Oddly, she is not easily distracted during training, regardless of her energy level. With Molly I had to wait until after playtime and burn off some of her extra energy first.......well, with all the pups up until Maggie.
Two that crack me up are:
No Feets - stop digging in the water dish ( I told her this each time she did it and I'd take hold of her feet and make her stop, place them outside the bowl)
Night Night - open the fridge, take out a piece of cheese, say Night Night (she can be anywhere in the house if she hears that cheese wrapper) and she zooms into her crate at the speed of light. It took 6 months for Betsy to relate the two, Maggie was 2 days.
At the rate she's going..............I might run out of command ideas by the time she's a year old.
And loving? omg Once we got her completely over all the not being socialized very young issues..........she is over the top lovable, cuddly, patient. When not training or playing or walking, she naps under my computer chair about 4 inches from Molly. lol I have to be careful not to step on her when I get out of the chair. She adores the grandkids but does not jump up on them (the Off command stopped that quickly), loves to kiss them but doesn't chew (Leave It command stopped the chewing biting on people) and gets super excited when they come over. The cats adore her, she adores the cats. And the way they play together is utterly amazing Maggie doesn't get her nose bloodied, but the cats don't care and it looks rougher than it is.
House training is basically finished. Accidents are my fault, all are right smack in front of the door, and it's because I didn't see/hear her for some reason. Doesn't happen often, but there are times I'm distracted by chores or kids or something and don't spot her.
Maggie is no Molly. Maggie is Maggie and a truly wonderful amazing dog in her own right. I am a volunteer for the dog pound, so I am connected with their fb page and often post urgent notices for dogs who's time is running out for foster care or adoption. I spotted Maggie's sister. No doubt it was her sister, identical to Maggie and the exact same age. I was about to pick up the phone and tell them I'd come adopt her, when a rescue was found that would take her. I just couldn't stand the thought of a pup with Maggie's potential being put down for any reason, even if I had to train her and rehome her myself. But I was both relieved and glad she got into a good rescue who are rather strict on adoption and train the dogs with all the basic commands prior to adoption.
If we'd not worked on her social and had not kicked in her training right away, Maggie would be a difficult dog to deal with, even at this age. She was a bit stubborn and willful until the training really kicked in, now she's eager to please and enjoys learning new things..........and she loves her liver treats & cheese. LOL In some ways, she doesn't act like a 3 month old puppy, she is so darn well behaved already.
Sounds like she is off to a very good start! Have you come up with a name for her yet? 
