Winston has been developing his place in our little pack for a few weeks now, and I feel like he is confident in his place and is completely comfortable around us. He has been exposed to lots of other dogs, and is friendly when approached. He still gets excited when a person approaches, but he will respond to a sit command when he catches his breath during the excitement. Getting there, but still a ways to go.
we tried to have a play date with Princess, Kerwin and Mike's Australian Shepherd. However, she was not trained at all, and ended up being very aggressive. we met them at the farmers' market, and then followed them home. Mike was busy dealing with all of his AirBnB things, so it was like he wasn't even there. Princess barked, pulled on the leash, and was generally a ball of pent up energy with nowhere to go. Their main method of getting her to behave? Showing her a shoe so she would be afraid. Wow. Whatever. We did get her to sit on command in literally five minutes with treats and a clicker. Hopefully, they take it as an example of the possibilities of training.
Winston did super well at the farmers' market, and that will be a good outing again in the future. He did take a somersault flip out of the basket once, and that was just because of his awkward elongated shape vs gravity and center of mass, flipping him over the front. No ill effects, but that was completely horrifying to Joel and me.
Roel and Steve invited us to their South Beach condo for memorial weekend, but there was no daycare available for Winston because of the holiday. We dont think it would be good to leave him in the apartment for that long. I hope we can visit their place when it is easier to get in and out, since the traffic would be awful this weekend. In the process, I found some nearby daycares that look like fun. However, Winston needs to be neutered before he can play with the others. He has a rabies shot Saturday, so we will book his procedure then for the following week or so. I have his info uploaded to SoMi and DOG. So we will try those next week. At the moment, socialization is paramount to get his behavior in place. He has sit, down, come, and fetch down. Still working on those amid distractions, and on dropit. No potty accidents, so we are sleeping with the doors open now. He is completely comfortable sleeping in the bedroom, both with us and on his own when he is sleepy.