[011] 3 month milestones

Oh my, it's certainly been awhile since I've been able to post an update about Rufus. To make it up, I'll have to be extra sure to post some adorable pictures of him that I've been taking over the weekend.

At just shy of 15 weeks, Rufus and our "family" have definitely made leaps and bounds in understanding eachother - although we're still not perfect or comfortable yet! I can't believe we've had our "little monster" (as he is affectionately known around our house) for close to 7 weeks now!

Exciting new developments: with his parvo vaccinations complete, we've been able to take Rufus out for long walks around the neighborhood - and it seems that our little guy likes to run - which is great for Daddy, since he's the runner in the family. While there's still a lot of tug-of-war going on with the leash when Rufus wants to wander into the middle of the street, it's getting less and less.

Second - we finally started puppy kindergarten at our local PetSmart! We went into the store and met our trainer, Shelby, who's got 4 dogs at home of varying shapes and sizes, and promptly decided that she was qualified to train Rufus (the fact that she has a daschund and is biased towards low-riders went in her favor ;) ). We had our first class last Sunday and Rufus was joined by 3 other puppies that we hope will become his friends - Leiba, Bella, and London. Rufus was struttin' his stuff and getting plenty of attention - he's the only male in our class ;). Leiba is a gorgeous, extremely sweet pit bull, Bella is (I think) some kind of maltese, and London is a tiny little Yorkie. Rufus was a bit scared of the other dogs at first, but quickly he was romping and playing, and getting into all sorts of trouble! He's still afraid of Leiba though - I think even though he thinks he's a big dog in a small body, he's not sure if his big dog is as big as Leiba! We learned "Look at me" and "Sit" in class, and I was very impressed with how well Rufus listened and obeyed. We are still having some trouble with him at home, but having "look at me" as a mantra to fall back on has helped immensely! For homework we were supposed to practice giving the "look at me"