Going to the mall - Take 2
- Apr 5, 2025
- 3 min read
After having a "resting" day the day before I wanted to give Seraphina a "busy" day.
So we started our day at the mall again, but this time - I let her walk with a leash on so she could really experience the atmosphere.
It was so nice to see her exploring and observing every detail; wheel-chairs, baby strollers, kids, really... everything! Some things took her more time to process, and others she was super cool with from the first second.
she was able to take food, and play with me and we walked through the mall until I found us a nice spot to have a "real session".
Our session was great and she even met a young kid who came to pet her with his father at the end of it. of course, she could get distracted every once in a while because it's a lot for such a young puppy but I tried to reward her for making a right choice and coming back to me whenever it happened!
For me the best part was to see what a great progress we are making with the toy as I know it will be our greatest tool in the future.
When we arrived back home I wanted to take advantage of the fact that she was tired so she can rest outside the crate and decided to spoil her and the other dogs with a bunny ear, she loved it, but unfortunately she is still not quite able to think about resting when Bailey is somewhere in her sight so my pan didn't quite work. I asked her to go back in the kennel and she slept for about 5 hours!
After she woke up we trained a bit and had a really nice time.
We started with some food work, where I mostly did the motivation and focus games with a tiny bit of luring. I could already see how she is slowly gaining more speed and confidence by the fact I have to move faster to keep up with her natural speed.
When I lure a dog, I can tell if my speed is in sync with his speed by watching his body in one straight line with my hand. if the body of the dog is curving, I know I am too slow, if he is not able to keep up with my hand - I am to fast.
This is super important because in my opinion, while the dog is growing it's important to first of all let him work in the speed that is natural for him and not to try and change it so it will work better for us and later on, when the dog already has confidence, we can slowly start playing with his tempos.
Afterwards, I brought the platform we worked on a couple of days before and had a very short session with it where my main goal was to start planting seeds for "self control" and "zen" exercises that she will learn in the future.
I changed to the toy to switch the energy a bit because I felt she needs to be extra active after the platform work and she was so sweet. I love how her grip is getting stronger and she starts to make small noises 🥹
The grand finale was another short session with food; this time I brought a stick to start teaching her to go around it as preparation for circular moves such as spin. sometimes with puppies, you can teach the spin immediately, but with her I feel she needs more physical preparation for it so she could spin nicely while taking care of her body. I used many rewards on the ground for it because I don't want her to chase my hand with the treat and change her natural move. I then took away the spin and did some eye contact exercises.
At night before going to sleep, we played with the ball but it was a different game then normal. it was a "coffee session" (without coffee); this is what I call a training when I sit and drink my coffee and every time my dog will bring me a toy I will throw it for him again. it's really good to build a retrieval without putting pressure on the dog since you are not demanding much, just waiting. so most dogs can really enjoy it.
overall, this day was AMAZING and I was such a proud mommy at the end of it!