One Week

It's been one week with Addison and everything is going great. She has not had any accidents in the house yet but there have been some close calls where I caught her before she went. I will continue to keep a close eye on her when she is not crated. She has not been whining when in the crate except in the morning some when she hears me get up. I usually wait for her to stop though because I don't want her to think that if she whines I will let her out.

We have gone on two more runs and her pace has gotten faster. We're still doing 5K and our pace for 10/11 was 9:40 minute miles and yesterday 10/14 we ran a 9:07 pace. I'll probably run some more 5K runs with her and then maybe do 4 miles with her since we can loop onto a trail near my house for that route. I could never get the Gentle Leader adjusted properly for her. I think it's because of the shape of her head. I like to use Gentle Leaders when running because I don't want the collar to slip off but things have been fine with her using the martingale collar. The martingale collars are also not supposed to slip off so I'll keep running with that.

I finally found some treats that she responds to and they are the dried chicken livers. I wish she would respond to any treat like most dogs but I am really happy to find something. She also loves affection as a reward so that is really good that I don't need to use the treats constantly. I started trying to work on sit with her but she was resisting when I would try to put her tail end on the floor. She has been responding to "down" though when I have the treats and also is learning "place" where I have her go to her bed. We will keep working on the commands and I'll try to get her to understand sit.

She is getting better on the walks and is beginning to pay attention to me more and the corrections are always less as time goes on. The past few days I have gotten her to walk right at my side for fairly long periods with complete slack in the leash.

I still am looking for ways to play with her. I don't like to play tug of war, wrestle, or chase a dog because I think it teaches them bad habits. The problem is that she doesn't like to fetch a ball and doesn't respond to other toys I get for her. If anyone has suggestions on productive ways I can try to play with her please let me know.

She has not been eating all of her food lately but I'm hoping it's just because she is adjusting to her new environment. She is becoming more energetic and bounding around the house now so hopefully her appetite will improve too.