Invasion

The biggest news the last couple days was that we made it into Chloe's house. She wasn't very happy about having her personal space invaded by a canine. After some initial fear she settled into her routine while keeping at one eye on Cooper at all times. We sat just inside the front door and Chloe sat at the other end of the house, as far away as possible while still in visual contact. Our plan is to repeat this with the hope that she will return to her normal routine quicker with each "invasion" and eventually accept his presence. It may take months.

On the training front, we had an Autism Assistance Dog training session at the mall this evening. Cooper was joined by the youngsters Porter and Juno. Everything seems to be going well; nothing extraordinary to report. Cooper did remember and performed his HEEL command in the real world. The five month old puppies are acting their age and progressing well with SIT, DOWN, and walking nicely. It is difficult to fathom that Cooper was just like them only a few months ago.

Bowl Goal: In a hurry to get to class, I had a lapse of brain function and feed Monte using his bowl :-(
Since Cooper proved that he knows the HEEL command, we can start to wean him off treats for this command. To keep mealtime interesting, we mixed things up a bit by doing pivots - we rotate 90 or 180 degrees and Cooper moves to maintain his position.