Baby!

This morning we went to Lake Merritt again, although this time I drove and we had time to walk along the lake. Got lots of leash walking practice in. Chimera kept getting the zoomies and we ran together a couple of times. We were passed by lots of joggers, and he saw lots of ducks and geese.

Back home, we played with a bunny fur toy on a long string, so he can chase it as well as tugging on it. That took care of the rest of his morning energy. Overall he was mellower since he spent all day yesterday at daycare.

In the crate while I hiked dogs, and he was energetic but not too barky or frantic when I returned. I ate dinner and then we visited my friend Miki, who has a baby girl who was born just a day after Cai was. He was quite calm about the baby. He sniffed her, and licked her ear, and tried to climb over her. He didn't react at all when she laughed or cried. We were all hanging out on the couch together for a long time.

Miki and her (very, very tall) husband both did some handling exercises with Cai for me. I'm happy with the progress he's making in tolerating handling. He's never shown fear; it's more of an attitude of "that's annoying, I'll leave" or "I have better things to do than get petting!" Treats are convincing him that it's something worth putting up with.

He was obnoxious about trying to get her Cavalier to play -- he'd demand bark, and I'd body block him away, or he'd mount him and get corrected by the Cav. And then he'd go back for more. He didn't have the ability to just leave the Cav alone unless I was holding him in my arms. Typical socially retarded puppy.

Here's a video of Chimera playing with his toys!


General training update:
He's making progress with learning various paw targets. One type is placing all four feet into a basket or bowl-shaped object. Another is stepping onto a low platform with all four paws. While sitting (which he frequently offers on his own), he'll paw at a coaster I hold in my hand, and I'm working on teaching him to alternate paws based on which hand I'm using. Finally, most recently I placed a ceramic tile on the floor and he figured out within a few tries to put both front feet on it. Woohoo!