Sia has matured so much. It's so fun to watch all the changes in her. She still has a little ways to go before she is fully mature. It's important to keep that in mind when she is acting perfect one minute and naughty the next.
She's doing great with her socialization outings. We spend a little bit of time when we first arrive letting Sia take everything in. She likes to peak her head out of the kennel in my car and check out her surroundings. Once she is leashed up and ready to go, I spend a little bit of time getting her attention and rewarding her for eye contact so she is nice and checked in with me before we begin.
Today Sia went with me to a Veterinary Hospital so I could pick up some medications for my cat. It's really good for dogs to visit the vets when they are not going in for an appointment. This cuts down on the anxiety quite a bit (otherwise they only go in when they need to get poked or other less comfortable things happen). With all the smells in a vet hospital, they are well aware of where they are. But just going in to get love from all the staff that work there, now that's a trip anyone would like to take. Lots of compliments on her nice behavior and her greetings were beautiful!
Sia will probably always be a little distracted but each day I see improvements.
And she gets huge pats on the back when she has an opportunity to give into distractions and she choose to follow through with you instead. This seems to be a much more frequent occurrence these days!
And if she's being naughty, don't hesitate to use your time-outs. We've done so much work with making the collar grab a positive thing, I barely have to touch it to lead her to her time-out location. And now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure I had to put her in a time-out at all this week.
Sia is also learning to relax a bit more. She is not nearly as anxious if she is separated from people. This will go a long way towards helping her be a nice, well adjusted dog.
We kept her well exercised this week.
We wore her out as usual.
And she knows her favorite toys and friends will always be waiting here for her.
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