Ellie seems to have grown up this month. She looks more like a dog than a puppy. She is very pretty and still quite petite. I consider her to be well house trained (I can't remember the last time we had any "accidents" in the house). I have cut down the number of feeds to 2 (breakfast and supper) and I am trying a different food in an attempt to cure the ongoing (but improved) coprophagia.

The problems with the car have gone away. Interestingly, she became much more confident as soon as she grew big enough to see out of the window. She is now a good traveller and settles quietly most of the time (unless she sees another dog out of the window - then she barks).

On the subject of barking. This has become a bit of a problem in the obedience field. Ellie doesn't bark a lot but she does when she is excited or frustrated. She is so keen to "play" at her obedience game that she often barks at me when she thinks I am not doing it right!!! I am now having to train her to bark on command. This should make it easier to communicate when I do and don't want the barking.

Ellie's new favourite toy is the tennis ball. She loves the chase the ball and we use it a lot in our training. She also spends many a happy hour ripping the yellow fuzz off the outside! We have also discovered the delights of water and have adopted the children's paddling pool!

I have started to "teach" Ellie the "leave" command. This can be useful for all sorts of things - not least, the numerous attempts to raid Laura's soft toy cupboard. I teach the "leave" command by kneeling down and putting a piece of food on the floor. As she goes to take the food I put my hand over the food and say leave. Initially she tried to get the food by nudging my hand with her nose and patting it with her paw. I didn't respond and eventually she backed off, a bit confused. I then praised her and gave her the food (from my hand, not the floor). I then repeated the exercise several more times. Each time she became quicker to "back-off" from the food. Each time, the word "leave" was becoming associated with "backing off" from what she wanted. A few more practices and she now knows what the word means. All that remains is to practice the exercise in different environments with different treats and toys.

Ellie went to her first dog show this month. Oxhey is quite a local show for us and Ellie went along "for the ride". It was a chilly day but Ellie had a great time. I was a bit concerned that she would be a bit fazed by the experience but actually, she really enjoyed herself. It was a real test to sustain our "loose-lead-walking" in that new environment. I think she is going to love dog shows...

We also went to a local village fete where there was a novelty fun dog show. I entered Ellie into the Best Puppy class as I thought it would be good experience for her to be handled by a judge in this way. She isn't trained for showing and it was hard to get her to stand up (she kept sitting and waiting for an obedience command). She was quite happy to be handled and won the class (it was a very small class!!!). As the winner of this class, she was eligible for the "Best in show" class which she also won (against more tough competition). So Ellie has won her first rosettes! She seemed quite proud!!!

This page was updated on 2nd May 2004