Those words keep on spinning in my head. 1 year... 1 year. Is it really true? Where did the time go? To tell the truth, I have no clue where the time has gone. Puppy raising mentors have reminded me that he's not that old and still needs to be shaped into the service dog that he will hopefully become. Sometimes I treat him like he doesn't know the things he should and sometimes I throw my expectations higher and expect Dembre to be perfect. He is kind of in between. He needs me to direct him on being good and I need other dog trainers to remind me not to confuse him.
It really feels like a couple of weeks ago I was picking Dembre and that my heart was pounding with the new excitement of taking a new, life-changing step in my life. Now I feel like I'm a novice with a little bit of experience. Now I can laugh about some of my early mistakes. In the first week that I had Dembre I watched the CCI instruction video on training and began to freak out. I thought I was doing enough, he wasn't learning fast enough, I wasn't being consistent enough, I wasn't doing anything right. I soon realized that the best way to train a puppy is to give them time and not to stress them out with boot camp style training. I realized that It was necessary to just sit back and watch Dembre grow into his skin and along the way introduce new things for him to master. Now almost 10 months later he's learned about 25 commands and has pretty good manners. He knows when he's supposed to play and when he's supposed to be calm and perfect. I couldn't ask for much more!
~Elijah & Dembre
It really feels like a couple of weeks ago I was picking Dembre and that my heart was pounding with the new excitement of taking a new, life-changing step in my life. Now I feel like I'm a novice with a little bit of experience. Now I can laugh about some of my early mistakes. In the first week that I had Dembre I watched the CCI instruction video on training and began to freak out. I thought I was doing enough, he wasn't learning fast enough, I wasn't being consistent enough, I wasn't doing anything right. I soon realized that the best way to train a puppy is to give them time and not to stress them out with boot camp style training. I realized that It was necessary to just sit back and watch Dembre grow into his skin and along the way introduce new things for him to master. Now almost 10 months later he's learned about 25 commands and has pretty good manners. He knows when he's supposed to play and when he's supposed to be calm and perfect. I couldn't ask for much more!
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| 3 months old and learning to fly :D I accidentally used flash in this picture |
Happy Birthday Dembre! Love mama Caro.
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