YIPEE!

Tonight each dog individually walked on a loose leash clear down to the end of the block and back! Yahoo! I'm so PROUD of them!

With Taenzer the trick was to keep talking to her and hand out treats fairly frequently.

With Timber the trick was getting him to remember I'm there by asking him at intervals to sit, make eye contact, and wait to be released with "Okay! Let's go!" We only had to do that a few times tonight, but it really seems to help.

I won't be taking them out together for some time yet, but meanwhile I'm just SO proud of them!

Now I have to start planning the next steps. We've been going after dark, partly because there are fewer distractions. So I should continue that during the week, but on weekends, I could start taking them out during the day, and both inside and outside we should start working on very prompt sits and very strong stays, for polite behavior in meeting people. I should work on position more, too--Timber, particularly, tends to get out in front of me, and I'd like his default positon to be much closer to a traditional heel. Taenzer does tend to push him out of position--that's something we'll have to work out in the future, I guess.

I'm a proud mama.