What a good boy

I was thinking about how good Riley is. :)

I've trained him to sit before getting his food (so he doesn't knock the bowl out of my hand or anything). I've even tried letting him lose in the kitchen as I prepare his food and if I say SIT, he'll sit and watch me, no barking, no fussing. Outside I say "go potty" and he stops playing and goes to his poo corner to poo. After he poos he sits so that I can bag it up without him pulling on the leash. When we come inside he goes up exactly 3 steps on the staircase so that I can take his harness off without having to bend all the way over. He knew Sit at 9 weeks old, and Down at 10 weeks old. I blogged on 11-18-04 that he conquered stairs, and let me check his age then... 13 weeks.

He's calm during baths and he lets me cut his toenails. These last two things I accomplished after learning that to dogs, excitement is excitement, so trying to sweet-talk him through a bath or toenail clipping session will simply get him excited. So I say nothing. No sweet talking, no sooth talking. Just silently pick him up and stick him in the bath or go to work his nails. Also, Riley doesn't like warm water. It has to be room temperature or barely warm or he will cry. Otherwise he's so silent and good. No shaking, not nervous. Just calm.

Now, he's not perfect, he'll break the above rules once in a while. But most of the time, and I do mean MOST of the time, he really does the above things (or I wouldn't have listed them). But man, what a good boy he is!