Ardella at 19 weeks

I missed Ardella's 18th week as she was with puppy sitters. I think she had a great time because she was with children, but I haven't really heard much about her stay yet. I was a little nervous since Ardella is NOT reliably housebroken and sure enough I had reports that she had a few accidents. Still, I'm surprised by how much she matured while I was away - not just in appearance. She seems calmer. I had her in the office with me all day today and she learned "kennel" and would go there when I asked her to! She grumbled a little bit, but it was great to have her with me all day!

Walking with her since I got the head leader has been wonderful, even though she doesn't like it, and riding in the car with her is great, too. No more crate in the car!

Ardella can wait before she gets her food and has learned "take it" before she takes food from my hand. I also taught her "leave it" which came in handy today when she knocked Aidan's food off the counter and tried to eat it. I was able to correct her and get her to stay until I got the food off the floor. Okay, that was a bad thing for her to have done, but I'm so pleased that she is learning commands!

Now if we can just get her housetrained! This dog has no predictable pattern.

Here's Ardella checking out the camera when I took it out the take her picture.



Ardella after she has just settled on the mat after the "go to bed" command.



Ardella bewildered that I'm taking a picture and not rewarding her for going to bed.



I'm so glad to be with Ardella again. I hope I'm home for the duration of her time with us. We've been separated a lot and I'm ready to have Ardella stay put for awhile. One of the things I did while I was in Florida was to reread the manual cover to cover. That was extremely helpful and I recommend doing that from time to time.