Spur: Training the Beast, Part 8

Saturday & Sunday, April 27 & 28


Most of Saturday, we left Spur in the crate as we were busy cleaning the house. We had Doug’s daughter and granddaughter come to visit on Saturday. We had Spur crated, with his collar on. We reminded them to ignore Spur’s barking and Spur, in general. Spur barked loudly when he heard them enter; we had to “nick” him quite a bit to get him to settle down. Erica didn’t stay long; she had an event she was going to attend. However, Jalyn stayed overnight with us. Saturday night, as we watched a movie, Doug kept Spur on-leash in the den with us. Spur didn’t seem to even notice there was an extra little person in the house with us; he seemed pretty comfortable having Jalyn with us. When he was crated, if she needed to walk past the crate, she had a difficult time relaxing and walking “normal” past him, but he didn’t bark at her.

On Sunday, when Jalyn got up, Spur was crated with his collar on. He gave a small “oof” when she walked by. I don’t think we needed to correct him for that as he didn’t continue barking. We left the house to go get some breakfast. When we got home, we let Spur out off leash. He seemed to not notice Jalyn there on the couch. When he did, he gently put his paws up on the couch and stretched to give her kisses on the face. We told him “Off” and corrected him and he got down. After a while, I sat on the floor to play with the dogs and Jalyn came to sit on the floor with me. Spur trotted over to give her lots of kisses on the face. Not once was he inappropriate with her. For the most part, Spur and Denali were busy playing with a tug-toy and kissing Jalyn was just a quick, “I’m passing by; you need a kiss; see ya!” The only times on Sunday that Spur needed correction was when Erica stopped by to pick Jalyn up and once when I was holding a cat that Spur tends to regularly torture.