New Toy!

Fun things to do with Carpet Tape Roll*:

1. Roll it like a BALL (on the roll-y side)!

2. Slide it like a puck.

3. Bounce it 3 feet high, like the pink bouncy BALL! and then GET IT.

4. DROP IT off of the side of the couch because it falls on the floor and makes noise!

5. Try to fit the whole thing in your mouth by squashing it a little.

6. Hold it in your mouth with the round part above your mouth.

7. Carry it in your mouth with the round part below your mouth.

8. GET IT and DROP IT so someone will throw it and you can go GET IT.

The carpet roll kind of reminds me of Abby, because when we got her as a kitten, her people told us we should let her play with the plastic ring around the top of milk containers. She loved them. Paley does too. Carpet tape rolls are the dog-version of milk rings. It's going to stay an only-under-supervision toy for a little while, because it seems pretty durable (and Chalce doesn't destroy toys) but I don't know if she could break it or swallow it somehow. So, we'll see.

Chalcy is more and more fun to play with because we communicate better these days. Chalcy is learning so much! (Learning is a lot of fun because when you do things you get TREATS, which are Very Very Good, and Definitely Worth Sitting To Get One.)

We've been doing Puppy Preschool for a month now, and Chalcy is good at:
- Watch me.
- Sit.
- Get it.
- Down. (But we still have to do Sit first and then Down).
- Up [on the couch, usually].
- Off [the couch, but even though she knows it, a lot of times she doesn't obey for this one.]
- Kennel up! (Very good at this now.)
- Come here! (Usually obedient for this one, but not always. We still need to do "Come" in class, so I think that will help.)
- Drop it. (Learned this a week and a half ago, but she is very good at it.)
- Leave it. (Another new one that she is pretty good at, except if she is supposed to LEAVE IT [the cat or chickens] or LEAVE IT [the compost], and I don't have a treat with me.)
- Take it.**
- Fetch! (Not a class one, and sometimes she doesn't do it, or she gets it and brings it but doesn't give up the thing she fetched. But usually she does it.)

I forget what else she knows. She does not know how to politely walk on a leash, because we've only been on a couple walks--we mostly just play in the backyard. But knowing how to politely walk on a leash is important for big dogs, so we're starting to go on walks sometimes. She likes them more than I thought she would.***

This is just a little update (which ended up being longer than I thought it would) because

* It can’t be ROLL, because otherwise how will we teach her to ROLL over?
** But it usually means you're going to have to DROP IT anyway, so why take it if you can just LEAVE IT before you're asked? Shouldn't that be the same and get you a treat faster?
*** Which seems like OF COURSE, because all dogs love walks, but I just kind of figured that since she gets plenty of exercise in the backyard, walks were not really very important or interesting(it's not like she needs more exercise or fresh air...). Plus, if she knows that she needs to stay in the yard, she is safer. If she feels like she knows the neighborhood, maybe she will decide to go on adventures or run off sometime, and that's not fine. I like her not-run-over, thanks. But walks are probably about teaching her to stay out of the road, too, so they're probably good, anyway.