stella, ella, ella (sang to the song umbrella)

It's is finally just us and stella. Not much has changed really, now she mainly plays with us and deuce and occasionally harley. Miller is still the big bad dog that no one plays with and probably never will. Playing is beneath miller anyway. She still wakes up at either 4:19 or 4:30 am on the dot and takes forever to go back to sleep after potty time.

I actually miss training sessions with two puppies. Stella is much like her human mom and dad as she is very competitive and likes to be right. So, today I let fergie join in on the training sessions of shaping behaviors and she did rather well. For Fergs, downs are not her forte but she was offering them so well today and of course so was stella (i cheated though, got her good and tired first). So far we have basically worked on sit, down, hand touches, tug and restrained recalls with some gos to toys mixed in. I am hoping while tony's brother is here this week we can get out to the farm and get our tunnel and our a-frame back to the house. We have been working on some banging of the teeter board with deuce helping her bang it down but nothing serious. I will have to say that tony has not been doing as much training here lately with her or else he is doing it when I am not around. I wanted to take her to agility class with me last night and he told me he wanted to keep her at home so i complied. Again, this is not my puppy so I have to take a step back and let him train at his own pace. He doesn't seem to mind me working with her in the morning so I will continue to do so until he says anything different otherwise.

We are also working hard on impulse control. Deuce still has major issues with impulse control so we are working really hard on getting this right this time. Stella has to sit before the food bowl is put down, even now at 11 weeks old. She also has to sit before we let her out of her crate or her ex-pen or before we throw her wubba. So far so good as she has gotten this down pat quickly. It just seems to me that she gets things really quickly, alot quicker than deuce did for some reason. maybe it is because she is a she? Anyway, she definately has the climbing gene in her and the water gene as she is always on top of something or in the water bowl or pool. I was really surprised that at 1o weeks old, she was already jumping on the bed and on the couch unassisted. I am super excited to see what tony and this little girl can do!!!!!