Ebony is absolutely delighted that she has discovered puppy treasure chests in the house. Of course to us mere humans, these puppy treasure chests are just wastebaskets whose contents we would prefer to stay buried! 

Thank goodness she is well versed in the “leave it” and “drop it” commands.  This little Goldendoodle puppy is getting lots of additional practice in obeying these commands.  The funny thing is, I can tell her to leave a yummy lamb treat in the backyard and it will still be there lying on the grass an hour later.  Her head is back in that wastebasket 10 minutes later nosing for a clump of Fergus hair or a piece of paper.  This week I have heard about two dog trainers who admitted defeat over training their dogs to stay out of the garbage. They have  decided to keep their garbage up high or in another room.  Maybe I am being naive, but I refuse to do that. I won’t say that Fergus, my golden retriever, never gets into the garbage but it is maybe twice a year and always when something like a paper towel used to drain bacon grease is at the top of the garbage can. I expect at least that level from Ebony, the Goldendoodle, since she will be a service dog.

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I purchased a multi-function lead today. It can a double dog leash, short leash, long leash or cross over my shoulder. The shoulder functionality is why I purchased it. I was having really a hard time trying to navigate the cane and a puppy on the leash.  With the shoulder function, the leash is a little shorter than average which helps keep her at my left side. She is much less likely to dig her heels in and try to stay put when it is time to “let’s go!”  That has been our biggest walking struggle to date and this shoulder leash is really making a difference. 

To help train her to stick close to me, we tried keeping the leash on in the house for a bit. It worked really well. If I was sitting, she laid at my feet. If I was ambulating in my house my little Goldendoodle stayed at my side.  I was also able to introduce the concept of “working”. She is not allowed to play when on this shoulder leash.  The only drawback so far has been that it is relatively heavy for her. It doesn’t work  to have it attached to her while we are training on the come command.

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Well, we are halfway through puppy training and I am feeling pretty good about our progress. Although she still sometimes struggles with loose leash, she consistently follows the other commands that she has learned. Last night she got a hold of a washcloth that had dropped on the floor. She dropped it immediately on command. Later when she threw up pieces of semi-digested washcloth, she immediately obeyed the command to leave it. I figured that those were unfortunate but realistic tests of her ability to understand and follow the commands.

In class today, she was the star of the stay command.  While other dog owners struggled to get their dogs to stay even 10 seconds, Ebony was quite content to just sit and stay.  To train the puppies to stay, we instructed them to sit and they held our hands out and gave the command to stay. They received a treat right after the command and 15 seconds were given a release command.  Although we weren’t supposed to walk away from them at this stage, Ebony seemed bored. She had no difficulty staying while I walked away to the end of the leash length. Everytime, she stayed until I released her. Again, I was praised on my selection of Ebony as a service dog. She was totally focused on me and awaiting my command.

The come command was another story.  Jennifer the trainer, would hold the puppies while the owners got them excited about a treat in their hand. Then the owner was supposed to go to the end of the training arena and call their dog enthusiastically. The puppy was to get abundant and exhuberant praise when they followed the command.  Jennifer encouraged us to use a word or phrase other than come to prevent confusion at dog parks etc.  Every other dog bounded to their owner when Jennifer released their leash.  Ebony would continue sitting and look at me quizzically.  When she would decide to come check me and the treat out, she walked slowly and seemed to be wondering what all the fuss was about.  We moved out to the store aisles. Every other puppy would run pell mell to their owners the entire length of the store aisle but not my Goldendoodle puppy.  She would come when called, albeit slowly, if I less than 10 feet away. If I was farther away, she would stay sitting at Jennifer’s feet.  She wouldn’t take her eyes off of me but she wouldn’t come to me either.  Frustrating and confusing. We have work to do!

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Ebony has taken to sleeping on my feet whenever we are someone else’s home.  When we are at home, she and Fergus like to nap on one of the dogs beds together.  I have no idea what to do when my wee Goldendoodle gets too big to share a single bed with Fergus.

We were all working hard this weekend.  After all of this work, my niece takes a ‘cat nap’ with the dogs.

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Woohoo, Ebony finally has the down command down pat.  Although she has learned most new commands quite quickly, she struggled with this one. I had to cut up chunks of lamb dog training roll and let her sniff and lick the treat from a sitting position down to the lying down position. I must admit that I was complaining to the neighbor about how much she struggled with the down command. To demonstrate, I pointed down and said “down”. She immediately laid down even though I didn’t have a treat. I thought it might be a fluke so I took her home and had my housemate distracting her. I said “Ebony, watch me”.  She sat at my feet, looking intently at me. Then I pointed down and said “down” and down she plopped. Woot!

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Fergus, my male Golden Retriever, was a breeze to house train.  One of the things that expedited his training was he started using the Christmas bells by the door to let us know that he wanted out. Some of the reading that I have done, including The Goldendoodle book, have mentioned using bells for house breaking Goldendoodles. We set up hooks inside and outside the backdoor and hung bells. We attached bells to dowels to prevent injury, instead of string or rope.

Within hours, Ebony figured out that ringing the outside bells gets one of those tall humans on the run to open the door for her and let her in. Getting her to ring the bells to go out hasn’t happened.  We ring the bells ourselves whenever we let ourselves inside or out.  To get outside, we wait for the dogs to ring the bells themselves but after several minutes we will nudge their nose or lift up a paw to ring the bell before opening the door. Hopefully, they will get the hang of it soon. Fergus still has not rung the outside bells. He seems to be perfectly content to sit while Ebony rings the bells for him! Initially, we talked about how smart Ebony is but maybe Fergus…

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Ebony continues to struggle on loose leash walking. That is until she sees that we are heading for the Puppy Class at PetSmart, then she happily prances beside me on the leash.

This week, we focused on three commands in class: leave it, take it, drop it and down. Jennifer taught us the leave it command in three steps.  First, we held a primo treat in one hand while holding a clicker and regular treats in the other hand. We were to show our puppies the primo treat in our hand and once they start sniffing or licking tell them to leave it. As soon as Ebony turns away from the treat, she gets a click and is offered a treat from the other hand.  I tell her to “take it” and from now she hears that everytime that she is offered a treat that she is allowed to have.  It didn’t take my Goldendoodle puppy long to figure out that she wasn’t going to get that primo treat in my right hand. 

Next we sat on the floor with our dogs and placed that primo treat on the floor and covered it with our hand. Once the treat caught her attention, I told my puppy to leave it. Again, as soon as she turned away from the primo treat she would be offered another treat from my left hand and told to take it. She figured out that she was not getting the treat under the right hand.  I had to keep switching primo treat to a different hand and moving it to different places on the floor to get her attention so I could tell her to leave it.

The third stage was trickier.  Standing on her leash, I put the primo treat down on the floor.  As the puppy lunges for it, we were supposed to cover it with our foot and say “leave it”. With my standing, that primo treat was looking and smelling REALLY good to  Ebony. It took alot more correction at this stage for her. 

I had my own issues with “leave it”.  My problem was trying to manipulate the clicker and offer her a treat with the same hand.  Although my hands were feeling better than average it was really difficult to manipulate both the treats and the clicker in the same hand, due to my multiple sclerosis. Jennifer suggested getting one of those stretchy wristband keyrings so I can drop the clicker to dispense treats and grab it again easily.

To teach our puppies how to “drop it”, they needed something in their mouth.  All the other dogs eagerly grabbed toys in their mouths, but Ebony’s favorite toy is Fergus. She will grab toys from Fergus but if he was not attached to a toy she shows very little interest.  I couldn’t get her to grab any of the toys.  For the other dogs, they were told to drop the toy from their mouth by holding a treat next to their mouth. The puppies were told to take it (the treat) when they dropped the toy.

We finished the class with the “down” command. To get the puppies to lie down, Jennifer had the dogs sit first. Holding a treat in one hand and the clicker in the other hand, use the treat hand to point to the ground and say “down”. Letting the puppy smell the treat and lean over so you are pointing closer and closer to the ground. Usually the dog will scoot his front feet down with the nose following the treat.  As soon as Ebony lies down she gets a click and hears “take it”.  After she has completed the command she is told “all done” to release her from the down position. If the puppy raises their rump off the ground before completing the down command they are told “uh huh, try again”.  The puppies are made to sit again and then given the down command again. Ebony struggled with this command. I switched to a chunk of lamb treat and let her lick on the treat while moving my pointed finger to the floor. If she lifted up her rump, I take away the treat and tell her to try again. She finally succeeded using this technique.

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Ebony had her first professional grooming today.  The vet, Dr. Flynn at Crown Hill Vet, was concerned about some ear wax build up. He said that this a common issue for Goldendoodles but is rectified by keeping the hair in front of the ear opening trimmed.  Since the some total of my grooming experience has been claw trimming and baths, he suggested that I have a pro do it the first time.  PetSmart has a puppy grooming special for $9.99 for puppies five months and younger.  They bathed her, cleaned her ears and trimmed the hair in front of the ear, as well as trimming her claws. When I picked her up, she was this incredibly soft and fluffy ball of fur.

Fergus had his bath earlier in the day.   When Ebony got home it was time for Advantage all around for Fergus, Ebony and Bandit, our cat. I use nematodes in the yard and that really cuts down our flea issues.  I usually only have to use a flea control medicine once a year of less. We have been lots of places though and had unfortunately picked up some fleas.  Since Fergus and I are both allergic to them, I wanted to get on top of that problem right away.

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Puppies are adorable, no doubt about it. It is a survival mechanism, allowing them to survive chewed shoes, dug up plants and puddles on the floor. Although Ebony is surprisingly well behaved, she is just as cute as the most mischievous of puppies.

But don’t let those big brown eyes fool you. She may look sad in the picture above but she is full of play!

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Ebony’s first visit to the vet was today.  She appears to be in great health.  The vet, Dr. Michael Flynn at Crown Hill Veterinary Hospital thought I had made a sound service dog choice in Ebony in terms of her intelligence and disposition. Since they have been caring for Fergus’ severe skin allergies for years, they welcomed the fact that I had chosen a dog with hybrid vigor. The only thing amiss on her exam was some discharge in her ears.  They say Goldendoodles are prone to it and the best preventions is careful trimming of the ear hair.  They suggested the first couple of times I take her to a groomer until she is a bit bigger and more use to it, then I should be able to stay on top of it. She also got her second set of vaccines.  Although Starview Kennels include lifetime vaccines for all of their puppies, the cost in time and gasoline far outweighed the cost of the inject ion at the vet while we were there in the office.

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