Nemo Bootcamp

(Nemo sleeping under his bowl 3mos old)


So we met with Dr. Johnson on Monday and started our "action plan" to cure Nemo of his fear issues. In a nut shell it's a regimen of "watch me's" and down-stays, and lots of work on this around other dogs. Also he must learn that every good thing comes from me, so his attention gets more focused on me and less on his enviroment. So our day yesterday went like this:
5:30 am - hand feed breakfast, work on "watch me" without distractions, up to 1 minute
4:00 pm - played fetch one-on-one for about 30mins, but require a down-stay, watch me, or spin before each toss.
7:00 pm - 45 minute walk - moving across the street when other dogs or people approach and request a down-stay and watch me. Across the street is the closest distance for now at which he won't react to another dog or person.
8:00 pm - hand feed dinner, some more watch me's, but some fun stuff to relax too. Spins, rollovers, go on's etc.

He cannot get ANYTHING without doing SOMETHING - sit-stay if he wants to go out, down-stay when he wants to come in, sit for petting, watch me for fetch, etc...

We're going to do some work with JH tomorrow. I'm excited about that! Plus I get to meet her new baby Cheetah (a puppy, not an actual cheetah :)

Everything went pretty well yesterday, the only "incident" was on our walk we were rounding a corner and some people were coming around it whom I could not see. They startled Nemo, and of course they walked right up to him to try and pet him and he threw a fit. They said how cute he is and blah blah blah... Sometimes it stinks having a cute little dog, everybody and their brother wants to pet him - kids are the worst! :) I'm not sure when he got so nervous with people all of the sudden, but there it is...

Today we hand-fed breakfast, and tomorrow I plan on getting up earlier (eeck 4:30 am) and walking him some.

So that's it in a nutshell. There's more but I'm too tired to think of it all right now :)