Blank Canvas

How odd it is to start with a dog without any real "issues"! Tim is just a blank canvas ready for a nice, responsible doggy citizen to be painted on it. Already he's doing nice sits, downs and recalls, and today I tried the scarey thing of really letting him go and hoping he came back! (He was on a long line in a safe place.) I let him go and he ran and I called him and ... back he galloped, crazy happy boy, and literally bowled me over in glee at the re-union!!! We worked on it some more till he came back into a pretty sit :-) He does seem to fixate on sounds and sights in the distance so it will be a while before we perfect the Recall With Distractions, but a good start nonetheless. And he's got the rudiments of a tiny short down-wait already. What a clever baby.