Pupdate: GRADUATION!

Finally! We are, in fact, rewarded with great pleasure at the end of our dramatic 7-week journey through Beginner's Obedience Class!Our last night was blessed by a talent show from each of the dogs. The kids did wonderfully leading up to the group photo of half the class shown at the bottom of the collage. Lily also played very well with the first group as you can see in the top left corner. Tucker did a great "focus" and wowed the crowd with his "dance" and "pawshake"! Lily did just as well with the typical commands and both got a houseful of smiles on their "up" in which they jump into our arms to be carried to departure!


This led to the resolution of both becoming graduates! Lily wore her cap and gown for the shot on the left.

Tucker hardly wasn't quite as agreeable to adorning the graduation cap but we did get a pic!








Both received certificates commemorating their accomplishment. However, the real work came from us. Not that we deserve all the credit but obedience training takes much more work and training for the parents than the pups! It took a lot of discipline to keep after at-home training sessions, repeat all the commands, and maintain the consistent rewards they need for good behavior while resisting the urge to correct unnecessarily.  We learned a lot. 


There are still plenty of tricks we could learn but we are very pleased with our progress. We think the issues we ran into had a lot to do with the leashes. Our dogs are friendly, fun-loving, people-pleasers who we believe are ready for puppy-mingling play dates and they're looking forward to one next weekend already! We appreciate the training, apologize to our classmates for the growling and are thrilled we had the opportunity to put that frilly dress on Lily (and promise not to make that a frequent occasion)!