Day 14 -- Goodbyes

It's been really fun having this sweet boy here. He's been a very good boy. He's a very well behaved puppy.

He's always ready to work and very responsive.

I love how attentive he is. And how we can now tell that he's being attentive because we can see his eyes.

He's a fun, silly boy.

Everyone will miss him here.

But I'm sure we will see him again soon. And he needs to get to know his family even better.

Day 13 -- Groomers

Ubu went to the groomers and now we know what his eyes look like!

The groomer did a light trim around his face, feet, and bum.

She recommends this every six weeks.

And every 6 months shaving it all down.

She said he was really wiggly for his face trim. She recommended we handle his face a lot to get him use to it.

This is similar to what we did with his feet, ears, etc. I touch his face and give him a treat. When he gets comfortable with that, I'll try moving an object by his face (like clippers) and give him a treat.

That way she can get a better trim on his face and he is less stressed.

And, by the way, he weighed 20 pounds. He's catching up to the big kids.

And he looks pretty cute.

Day 12 -- Attention

Ubu is doing really well paying attention when asked to do so.

It doesn't matter what is going on around him, if someone says his name he snaps to attention.

He's also able to maintain attention when there is a lot going on around him.

It's very normal for dogs to be curious about what is in their environment and they should look around them. But a Service Dog cannot go inspect anything that peaks his interest.

You should easily be able to say his name and get his attention back.

At this age I'm rewarding him when he responds well to that. Otherwise there is not much in it for him to pay attention.

But, as he improves, I can mix in a lot more praise than treats and he's still able to maintain eye contact.

Opportunities are all around to practice this skill and it should be practiced regularly. It will make his other training go so much more smoothly.

Day 11 -- Play Time

Dogs need to play. In their litters, they use their mouth and paws a lot in play with their littermates. They don't come to us knowing they shouldn't play with us like that so we spend a lot of time teaching them; mouth on dogs is ok most times, mouth on people is never ok.

We can help him out by having toys around for him to chew on. As he is teething and his jaw is growing, he needs to chew.

We can also help him out by the way we act around him. Fast movements are going to entice his use his mouth so moving around him slowly will help.

If he is already revved up, we can avoid petting him. He is more likely to be mouthy when he's already a little hyper.

If he does get mouthy, we can interrupt the behavior with a loud "OUCH!" and redirect him to a more appropriate toy.

Praising him when he is using his mouth on the appropriate toy will help him learn what behavior you expect of him.

You can also catch him chewing on appropriate toys and praise/reward him for it.

If you are interacting with him, use slow movements. Pet him slowly so he's not fooled into thinking you are wrestling with him.

Find games that burn off energy but don't entice him to be mouthy. He LOVES playing fetch and it's a great way to exercise him.

If he is still being mouthy even with all the above precautions, you can put him in a quick time-out.

It's doubtful you will need many time-outs for that behavior though. He's a pretty good guy and quickly learned to keep his teeth off of humans.

Day 10 -- Increasing Difficulty

Now that Ubu is doing well with his downs, we can start to expect a little more from him.

Now we can start to expect him to respond even with distractions in the area. I know this is going to be a little harder for him.

I'm likely going to need to follow through with a hand signal to help him out.

But pretty soon he'll figure out that he needs to comply whether there are distractions around him or not.

I also know that I'll probably need to reward more often or maybe reward when, in low distraction environments, I may have already weaned off of the rewards.

We can keep increasing the difficulty level as he improves.

So he can function at home...

And away from home when there is a lot going on around him.

And even when there are obstacles in his way.

Day 9 -- Grooming

Getting Ubu use to having his teeth brushed is about the pay off. His big boy teeth will slowly be coming in and, if he has his teeth brushed every day, the likelihood of having dental problems later on decreases considerably.

As he gets a little bigger he can graduate to a toothbrush but, for now, we're still using the finger brush. We just brush the outside of his teeth, paying close attention to the back teeth. Normally I would be holding his lip up so I would have better access to his teeth but someone had to take the picture.

Once he starts to get regular grooming and they pluck his ear hairs, it won't be so difficult to keep his ears clean. Soak the cotton ball with ear cleaning solution and hold the ear up to straighten out the ear canal.

Gently massage below the ear until you hear a squishing sound (still holding the ear up which isn't shown in the picture because I had to have a hand free to take the picture).

Wipe the ear clean. The cotton ball should come out of his ear with minimal dirt on it. If you are getting a lot of dark debris or if there is an odor, you will probably need to take him in to the vet to have his ears checked.

And, of course, reward him afterwards for being such a good boy. This will help him associate ear cleaning with more positive things.

Other signs that things are amiss in the ears; shaking his head, scratching at his ears, yelping when someone touches his ears, red/irritated ears, and a bad odor.

I do his nails by laying him on his back on my lap. I gently hold his paws and breath. It's easy to get tense, hold his paw too tight, and hold your breath when you are doing nails. All of these things will cause him to worry. Stay as relaxed as possible, even if you accidentally hit the quick.

I need two hands to trim nails so I'm not able to take pictures of the nail trim process but I'm just taking the tips off. If his nails are trimmed once a week, you shouldn't need to worry about taking a lot off.

If you let the nails grow too long, the quick will grow as well and it will take a lot of work to get them short again. Best to just keep them short from the beginning. Luckily, he is really good about having his nails done so it should be easy to keep up with.

Don't forget to practice handling in between grooming sessions. It will make it so much easier for you and for him.