I think Remus has pretty much gotten over the dog attack incident, he's a little skittish on nighttime walks but he's a lot less so and still improving. Like most kids, he's mildly afraid of what lurks in the dark. We've also continued our, if slightly haphazard at least frequent, training. Remus has finally mastered down, sit, and sometimes stand. We're doing puppy pushups running through the three commands in random order to see how well he remembers and reacts. He seems to like the game, though too many treats give him diarrhea. I'm also attempting to teach him "spin". He's still dependent on the lure for that one, but I'll keep working him. I'm also teaching him "up" to where he stands on his hind legs and puts his paws in my hands. The command is actually "dance" since he will soon be tall enough to be my dance partner if I need one :P I just gotta be careful lowering him down since I don't want to damage the growth plates in his forelegs.
Speaking of growth plates, half the material I read on wolfhounds seem to be pretty adamant about discouraging a puppy from rearing up on his hind legs and then dropping...but Remus thinks this is the most fun since he discovered chasing his tail. It's one of the reasons I haven't started really working on the "dance" command, since I don't want to hurt his legs, but the durn fool goes bouncing along like it's an aerobics excercise. None of the stuff I've read says HOW to discourage him either, it just says I SHOULD. Big help.
They also say not to do forced walks until he's sixth months, but at the same time I should lead train him really early. Well, lead training involves very short forced walks. I try to let Remus have a break, not walk him every day, and the walks are rarely even ten minutes long with copious amounts of relaxed sniffing. And he seems a heck of a lot happier when I take him on them, he's like a cranky baby without his pacifier if I don't.
In other news, he's still cute. He's eating close to five cups of food a day, sometimes more-sometimes less. Brian had to buy another fifty dollars worth of dog food. We're trying not to think about how fast he's going to be breezing through these giant bags of food, as he gets bigger, and as the weather gets cooler.
Right now he's outside on the deck, and I should be sleeping getting ready for night shift. We bought the wireless fencing system and he's wearing his little red collar. Not like he wanders anyway, he's sensitive and smart and likes to stick close to home for the moment. It only took a few tingles for him to avoid the white flags. He'll most likely stay on the deck for most of the day. I put plenty of toys out there since he's teething (he's got a little gap in the front teeth of his bottom jaw, it's funny) so he should be happy. I just hope it's not too cold for him since it's in the high 50's outside. Brrr! Too cold for me!
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