Bus Tour

Wednesday
The afternoon began with a farm visit.  The evening training class involved a bus ride.  We met up with Buck and took the free Madison Metro bus to the Memorial Union.  Well, that was the plan, but due to construction we were dropped off a few blocks away and walked through campus - practice walking nicely on a loose leash. 

Once at the Union, Hobey was presented with a crowd atmosphere. In addition to the people, he faced many animal and food distractions.  After greeting a few folks, we made our way to State Street and then back to the bus stop, which was the biggest challenge for the puppy - remaining in one spot with activity passing by.  At this age it is too much to expect a puppy to remain stationary.

Friday
Hobey has not seen our neighbor, who he regularly visits, for a couple weeks.  He suffered a broken femur and is rehabbing in Evansville Manor.  So we decided that a visit would be nice and it would provide good exposure to a new environment.  After his initial excitement, Hobey settled down and was not alarmed by any of the new sights/sounds.

Saturday
We continued Hobey's socialization at the weekly play group.  In preparation, we all went for a walk before to burn some energy. Again we started out with the older dogs where he met up with his old friend Parker.  At "halftime" we took a potty break and moved over to the younger dogs.  No issues this week and one milestone.  Hobey lost his first tooth.  We only noticed it after seeing the blood on the head of his playmate.

Hobey was exhausted and rested while we drove North for a birthday party.  After meeting hundreds of dogs, we met one that Hobey did not get along with:  Deja, a St Bernard puppy.  She is one week younger than Hobey.  He resisted her advances, but eventually could not tolerate them and offered an overzealous correction.  Not the time or place, I decided to avoid the situation and Hobey spent most of the day crated, which was good training, too.

Sunday
At times we have noticed a strong friendship between Hobey and Monte, which is good.  However, like most things there is a balance.  Sometimes he seems to dependent on Monte, so I walked them separately today.  This was needed because Hobey was constantly looking for his pal as we left on our walk.  After ten minutes, he figured out that he was alone and enjoyed our time.  He met up with a couple dogs and had friendly encounters.  This was a relief after the incident yesterday.

Hobey is doing well with the WAIT command that we started to introduce the OUT command.  Eventually he will learn to get out and stay out of the kitchen.