Independence day weekend

December 6th was Finnish Independence Day so we had a long weekend. On Saturday I went to visit a friend of mine and we also did some alert training. Riva's bark alert is coming along nicely but we have not tried victims that lay down on the ground, only standing ones. His alert behavior needs to be very solid before I dare to have victims lying down so that he doesn't harass them (even though it is out of friendliness). In wilderness search the victims can be out in the open so the dog must know how to behave nicely when alerting so it doesn't frighten or hurt people.

On Sunday we did some obedience stuff with my friends and I was very satisfied with Riva. We have not done a lot of training under distractions, it has been mostly at home or private sessions. Still, he did very nicely, we did figure eights around people and small stay excercises with my friends standing around and talking as distraction. Riva would focus nicely while working and waited untill I released him and then visited with people.

And he is still doing well with being loose in the bedroom. He spent three days free last week and I left him free this morning again. I still put him into the pen occasionally for nights etc.

Home alone part 2

Yesterday was the second day Riva spent free in the bedroom with Jambi. Nothing destroyed :-), I left them a couple of rawhide chews to entertain them in the morning.

Big boy priviledges

Yesterday was a big day in our lives. Riva got to spend the day free in the bedroom for the first time. So far he has been in the x-pen to protect both the house and himself but he had wiggled his way out of the pen on both Monday and Tuesday. After that I decided that maybe it is time to let him try being free for the day. He has been spending shorter times free alone but 1.5-2 hours at most.

After work I headed home wondering what is waiting for me when I open the door. Since Karma is in heat, the boys were confined to the bedroom. I was pleasantly surprised, only the newspapers that I had left on the floor (just in case) had been shredded and there were a few teethmarks on the foot of the bed but that's it. Even Jambi didn't look too tormented after spending a whole day with Riva. My puppy's a big boy!