Boy oh boy am I gonna miss this guy. Maitri goes home tomorrow evening and he has been such a joy to work with. Certainly he had his stubborn moments and he is not perfect but he tries very hard (most of the time) to get the answer right (the rest of the time he flops over and shows you his belly and tries to get you to play instead of work). 
Today we pushed the Stay command. I had him wait by the fence while I walked around the garden. He struggled a little but eventually took a nap in the clover. We worked on his Autosit also because even though he has been doing it for a week without a problem today he was trying to lay down instead of Sit. He was being very silly so I think he is just a little bored with the repetition of his workouts. When his obedience becomes a way of life and he is back with his people I am certain he will blossom into a wonderful adult dog. He will make mistakes but he is willing to work and he enjoys a challenge so I think he will be able to achieve whatever goals his owners set for him.
Tomorrow I am taking his go-home video and letting him get some good play time with his buddies before he leaves in the evening. I hope his owners are as pleased with his progress as I am. He will be thrilled to see his people again and I am sure he won't miss his kennel. He greatly prefers a comfy bed in the house.

Maitri had a good day today. We broke up the monotony by spending the morning doing Placemat while I caught up on some emails and some other boring office work. It ended up being almost 2 hours that he snoozed on his mat or chewed on his bone. We worked on "go get it" and he does much better with a dragon toy that Ace left out in the rain because it slaps on the ground when it lands and so he knows exactly where it is. If a toy lands quietly he has a much harder time finding it it seems.
In the afternoon we worked our obedience but not how we usually do. He was my helper in a couple lessons that required distractions. He was a very good helper even with other (untrained) dogs carrying on around him. His only mistake was that he wanted to lay down instead of sit when told to. I think he may have been a bit overwhelmed by the car ride and then the other dogs and the busy place we were working. But his Heel, Down, Come, and Implied Stay were all pretty good. The lessons were in town. 
He was a very good ambassador for Free State K-9 today and I was very pleased with how he did. He also made friends with a Toy Poodle today. Though the Toy Poodle is a bit of a curmudgeon. We will say Maitri wanted to be friends and the Poodle spurned his advances. Maitri is really rounding out nicely as we near the end of his stay with us.  

Maitry is now a week into his training and he is doing well. He was a little stubborn today and mostly tried to get out of work by pretending to be busy with other things. When asked to lay down he would army crawl to a clump of grass and start snacking or if he was told to stay he would start searching for something to distract him. I always made sure he complied with what he was asked to do and we would repeat things he didn't do up to his standards. In the afternoon I took him on a long romp around the property and kept things very low key and after that his obedience was better so maybe he was just getting bored with the monotony of his workouts.
I have introduced all of his commands and he has been getting more and more responsive. I have worked on "go get it" and "leave it" a bit and he is improving but "go get it" is still not holding his focus very well. I have not been able to work on "quiet" because, bless his heart, he has been silent as a mouse this whole week. He has barked maybe once. I don't know if it is because he is out of his element or because we don't have anything worth barking at (no goats here) but he has not been very talkative. He hasn't even barked at the horses or the donkey. We will see if I can get him to bark here in the next few days but if not I will have to just send his owners home with some things to try and we can cover "quiet" in a follow-up lesson.
Tomorrow we will be getting more work done but I fear with the weather we will mostly be working on Placemat and other things we can do in the house because the weather is supposed to be a bit soggy tomorrow. Overall, Maitri is still a star pupil. Good boy, buddy!

Sweet Leo goes home tomorrow and I will miss his lovable face. I am pleased with his progress. His only real sticky moments come during the Heel. He occasionally likes to ooze over to the right side instead of staying on the left. I know this stems from walking with his sister and sometimes going over to the right to avoid pug collision but I still correct him for it and redirect him back to my left. He is doing great on Placemat. He stayed on it for an hour and a half today with only one verbal correction when he woke up from a nap and forgot he was supposed to stay put.
Tomorrow Leo gets an easy day. He gets to enjoy some play time and a couple easy workouts to make sure he is ready for his mom. For now I am off to try to put a teething Noah to bed.

Keeping things short tonight as we deal with a fussy baby. Maitri is doing great. He had very smooth workouts today and his obedience looks great. He gets a little feisty sometimes and tries to get out of work by just laying down and pretending not to hear me but a page from the collar (just a vibration) usually gets him up. 
He is doing great with "leave it" but "go get it" is still a work in progress. He simply loses interest in the toys I have to offer him too quickly. Also sometimes I toss the toy for him and he almost acts like he didn't see me throw it. He just tries to get it from my empty hand. What a screwball!
Tomorrow we are working some more on his "go get it" and his obedience. Maitri is doing great and making progress every day.

Leo was a little stubborn today but he did just fine. He got some extra house time today and so we pushed Place and Down Stay. He did okay on Place but sometimes got distracted (usually by the baby) and wanted to go play instead of sit still. I had him in a Down/Stay during dinner time with my family and after checking that everyone around the table was not going to fall for his big brown eyes he resigned himself to his fate and laid down to watch us eat. 
His obedience is cleaning up very nicely, even with the cruddy weather we've been having. He went on a little jog with me today and he is easily the most athletic pug I've ever trained. 
Most of his commands are pretty spot on at this point and so we focussed on distraction proofing today. We worked around his puppy friends and while I was tossing a squeakie toy around. His biggest obstacle is still people but his jumping up is getting much better. 
All in all, Leo had a solid work day and I hope to get him into town for a field trip either tomorrow or Monday. There won't be a blog post tomorrow but Leo will get the morning off while I am in church then we are back to work. He is such a special little guy!

What a fun day we had with Maitri today. He is now wearing his remote trainer so he is enjoying more freedom and more free play. We worked on his fetching which he enjoyed for maybe 3 tosses then he was off to the next thing. I brought another dog out to play with us and he did better fetching when there was some competition. His off-leash obedience is pretty good. As always he got a little sloppy as he was adjusting to the lack of a leash and he didn't really want to lay down in the wet driveway but he did hold a Down/Stay for about 50 minutes in the house today, so that was an accomplishment. However, at some point last night Maitri did decide he didn't want his bed any more and he pulled all of the stuffing out. I will pick up another bed for him to use as Placemat which his family can take home with them if they would like to.
We took a nice long walk downtown today and let me preface this by explaining that it was BUSY today. It is graduation weekend so all of the students' families are in town enjoying what Mass. Street has to offer. So when I walked Maitri down town I was expecting a chore but he was extremely pleasant. He heeled the entire time and autosat at crosswalks. He laid down and waited with me while a friend went into a shop and of course, he was stopped and greeted by adults and children alike and he was nothing but a gentleman. He pulled a little bit when we passed some huskies that were barking at him but a little tap from his remote and he caught back up with me and didn't waver again. He got a little hot and a nice man in the soda shop brought him a cup of water, which Maitri politely sipped from for a while before we were on our way. 
I was very pleased with Maitri today and he earned the little break he will get tomorrow. I have church in the morning so the boarders will get the morning hours off. There also won't be a blog tomorrow. 

Sweet Leo had another good day today. He got part of the day off today because it was too rainy to really get good work done outside. We did some Placemat and then just had some playtime/snuggle time on the couch. He is doing a good job with all of his commands and when we were able to get outside to practice his obedience he did just fine except when he could hear Maitri whining in his kennel. Maitri didn't want to be left out when I took Leo out to work and so he would occasionally start whining or barking.When Leo would hear his friend calling he would tear across the yard to go visit Mairti in the kennel room. He would come back when called but only after he checked on his friend. It is hard to argue with such a gallant young pug but we did work on his Heel work to try to make him a little more distraction proof. He did fine around the kitty and around the horses but the sound of his friend being lonely was his achilles heel and every time he would only come back after checking on his buddy.
I would expect no less from Leo who bonds strongly to other dogs. He has a great little personality and that will continue to shine through in his training. Tomorrow we are going to work some more on his obedience and distraction proofing, so long as the weather holds out.

Another good day for Maitri. We are still doing some refresher training bringing his known commands up to snuff. We had a lot of rain today and so we spent some time inside working on Down/Stay and when we got a break from the rain we ran outside to get some of his other commands practiced. We started him transitioning to off-leash today by using a 20' leash for all of his commands. He did pretty well but he had a hard time staying where he belongs with the Heel command. He kept floating forward and trying to walk in front. But a few corrections followed by chin scratches was all it took to get him to choose to walk where he belongs. He also struggled with Down from the Front where I stand in front of him at a distance greater than 6' and tell him to lay down. He is supposed to lay down where I've parked him but instead he really really wants to lay on my feet and so I would have to stop him when he got up and move him back to where I had originally placed him. He got it eventually but he was pretty pouty about it.
All in all, Maitri is doing fantastic for day 2. We will continue to push him tomorrow and work him some more on that long leash. I feel like he will be ready to transition to his remote trainer here in the next day or two. 

Leo the Pug is here for a week of refresher and clean up training. His sister Sophie was here a few weeks ago getting her refresher and I am excited to get this little fellow caught up. He already knows all of his commands, he just needs to be brought up to speed on the remote collar and to have everything refreshed.
I am hoping to get him into town a few times to practice quiet walks. This was helpful for Sophie as they both tend to talk too much while out on a walk. 
The workouts that Leo has had already have been very good. He has had a few off-leash workouts and one on-leash workout and other than wanting to lay down on my feet instead of where I parked him he has been performing very well. 
He has already made good friends with Maitri, his roommate and so he is getting some good playtime in as well. I always like working with my Pugs and so look for this guy's updates this week.