Quiet day

The second night of Kaline sleeping in the big crate in my room went better than the first. I ran him around with a "forbidden" toy, Juno's stuffed dragon—he's quite good at fetch! I call him my Doberman Retriever. Sometimes he doesn't want to give the toy up at the end, but that's the easy part to work on. He goes out to get the toy with great gusto and then comes lolloping back. So we did that until he seemed quite tuckered out, and then I brought him upstairs. He went right into his crate and set to work on the antler (doesn't make any progress whatsoever—that's kind of the point of antlers, I guess—but he seems to think he's doing well).

He only had to get up once during the night, really, and he made it across the street to pee. Then he didn't have to go until about 7 or so, which I feel like is a normal time for a puppy to want to get up. We went on our usual walk in Felton Gables for about an hour, thinking gleeful thoughts because Sam Mikulak and Jake Dalton, along with Jonathan Horton, made the Olympic team. (Chris Brooks and Steve Legendre, two other friends, along with Alex Naddour, are the alternates.)

Kaline is not having the runs as much, thanks to his cottage cheese. We just kind of hung around the house today, lots of naps. We had a really good training session, Kaline and I; I tried out Just Chicken, from Trader Joe's, and Kaline finds it quite acceptable as a high-value treat. (He also approves of Natural Balance Lamb, but that, I think, gives him the runs.) As the name might suggest, there is nothing added whatsoever to this chicken, so it should be very gentle on his tummy. I mean, when my dogs really have major tummy upsets, they get boiled chicken and rice. So this shouldn't be a problem!

I only had to use three pieces of chicken for a 15 minute training session, because he's so tiny and satisfied with itty-bitty shreds of chicken as rewards. We worked on sit, sit-stay, down, down-stay, watch, formal come, leave it/no mugging, and just for fun, the flip-finish and touch. My clicker was malfunctioning a little bit, which was very annoying, but Kaline did fine. Juno also did a great job "honoring" her little brother working, and got treats for that too. Bizarrely, the only one of those things that seems to really confuse Kaline is touch. But we'll get it!