@MadisonAvenue my ex had a Romanian rescue. We think she was a Carolina cross. I loved her so much, she was such a sweet little dog. I heard after we split that he had to give her up to his ex (before me) as she was being awful about trying to share her. Then I heard she wasn’t doing too well after that - just more anxious at home. I don’t know his ex too well, but I would rehome that dog in a heartbeat. She’d love Pablo and he would love her!
@soupmaker glad she still loves you! I bet she was so happy to see you!
For training, I concentrated on whatever was the priority - so toilet training first! He had that cracked very quickly followed very closely with crate training which he has taken to very well. I still sleep downstairs with him but he’s getting better at sleeping without me being in the same room so I suspect I will be able to head to bed soon! Because he’s bigger (5kgs ish when I collected him and probably about 8kg now) he can hold his bladder for 7 hours over night which was a god send.
Other training, I agree the info is so overwhelming. I started with a sit. And now he has lie down, stay, release command (break) knows ‘in your bed’ and ‘off’ and ‘leave it’ so I’m just going through and using these each day. I try to keep the sessions short but he is never wanting to finish after ten minutes! Today, we did a little session where I sent him to his bed, asked him to lie down, scatter a couple of pieces of kibble on the floor, gave him his release command and then introduced ‘find it’ so he could sniff the pieces out. We usually do training sessions not long after wake ups and then walks after so he’s already ‘switched on’ when we are out and about.
I think for me, I just tried to learn the basic logic behind training - reward for good, ignore bad, introduce a cue word at some point etc and largely muddled through it. Mainly because there is sooo many different opinions on the ‘best way’. I always start with easy commands he knows to set him up to succeed, do slightly more complex stuff in the middle of the session and then wind down back to the easier stuff at the end. I don’t know if that’s the right way to do it but it seems to be working!
The lovely bunch on the adolescent thread reminded me to work with his breed (working line Lab so VERY easy and eager with training) and remember to train the dog in front of you. They’re not all the same.
I will continue to increase the difficulty with what we are already doing, focus on nice lead walking and recall while we are out for walks and not bother to do anything else until he is a bit older I think. I want to get the basics down first. I have no doubt that I’ve probably mucked up somewhere but I won’t beat myself up about it. I’ve been considering taking him for gun dog training when he is older - just for a hobby.
Other than that - just lots of socialisation/acclimatisation - that’s been easier since he has had his second jabs. He’s done most things I wanted him to experience now (but would welcome any more suggestions of things I may have forgotten!) apart from livestock/horses/swans/geese which we will do over the weekend. I’ve had him in water, walking over different surfaces and have even played dog desensitisation videos to him on YouTube of fireworks, thunderstorms, barking dogs, door bells which I found absolutely hilarious