Puppy School

It's time to meet Rocco. Rocco is our 15-week old Black Lab/Beagle mix. He's a bundle of snuggly, chewy, smart, naughty puppy energy. Current weight: approximately 10 pounds. He goes to the vet next week, and we'll have an official count. His last official weigh in was a couple of weeks ago - then, he weighed in at 8.3lbs.

Rocco just started puppy school.

Yesterday was our third Puppy Education class and it's been an interesting adventure for us so far.

As Dana said after our first class, he was "more class clown than Teacher's pet."

Before we started Puppy School, we'd hardly ever heard Rocco's voice. He had cried the first night we had him home, but other than that, he'd mostly been a very quiet little pup. So, you can imagine our surprise when our quiet furbaby starting barking within seconds of being in class. He barked and he barked and he barked. For nearly the entire class.

He was much better behaved in the second class, but still, the naughtiest puppy there. We tell ourselves he has more personality than the others! He catches on quickly and we know he's very, very smart. He's a headstrong little guy and he struggles on a leash. He doesn't seem to have a problem whipping himself around when things aren't going his way. We've been working on the techniques that our Puppy School instructor armed us with and, after a pretty decent walk yesterday morning, I thought he might really be ready to impress at school that same evening.

And he almost was. He has sit down pat. He's good at "watch me", "leave it" and "go get it." We're working on "drop it." So far, so good. He even did well practicing a polite and calm way to say hello to other dogs. Yay! We're making progress!

And then, leash training. Even after our nice walk earlier that day, at Puppy School, Rocco turned into a naughty puppy walking on the leash. He pulls, he twists, he barks, he jumps...anything he can do except walk beside us.

At the advice of the instructor, we switched Rocco from a harness to a collar, in the hopes that it will discourage his pulling.

So, we'll see.