The One With Day Two at Peck Park

Well, today I caught a little of the greedy trainer syndrome. I tried to do too much too soon. Peck Park was packed tonight, but I parked as far from the action as I could. I wanted to stay in the same place so I could see if he was calming better. It was much better, actually. There was no pacing like Saturday when we arrived and the whining wasn't as bad. He calmed down in six minutes, an improvement from 12. On Saturday, I stayed two minutes after noticing the calm down, which I define as no whining and slower breathing, but I wanted to wait a little longer this time to see if I could get a down out of him. Nope. After five minutes, he had a meltdown, whining and panting, that lasted for 12 minutes. After he calmed down, I waited about 30 seconds and got the hell out of there. I was proud that a family parked next to us, and he didn't bark. He got rewarded profusely for that.

I still haven't worked with Muggsy that much on targeting, but tonight, I think we're going to practice muzzle and Door! because we haven't done that in awhile. Around December, I'm going to have to get his blood drawn again, so I don't want him to forget that important skill. He also needs some hard-core work on his recall. Chubbs needs work on heeling and down-stay, but I don't think I'm going to get to that for a couple of days. I'm going to start teaching Fenway some tricks, but I haven't gotten around to that either. Ugh. So many goals, so little time.