back to school

truly her father's daughter, our little girl started back to school (training classes) on february 17th. she has already attended two classes and seems to be doing fairly well. as you recall, she took the puppy classes before we got married and we promised to enroll her in further classes to teach her to be a well behaved little lady. this series of intermediate classes teaches doggies to listen even when there is distraction (i.e. other dogs, people, toys, plastic bags, bunnies, squirrels, leaves...whatever....) and more behavioral/socialization lessons like we learned during the puppy classes. we have already started to incorporate some of her new tricks into our daily routines (like "wait" which is less than a "stay" but similar) and are practicing rewarding her for things like coming when we call her so that she learns to come to use right away every time. we know the classes won't lessen her energy, but hopefully she will be able to follow the commands even when she is "wound up." and, just a few updates, on may 2 she will be ONE year old and at her last weigh-in she was 76.1 lbs! you can see from the picture that she is definitely bigger than the little pup we brought home, and she is most definitely a daddy's girl!