Keisha’s first Christmas

I haven’t written in awhile. Christmas went well. The tree was left standing, and I only had to re-decorate the bottom of it because Keisha runs under it sometimes, and the only ornament that was broken was by me! I don’t think that’s toobad at all! I even decorated the side of the kitchen counter and Keisha didn’t bother it at all! I’ve been very impressed!

On Christmas morning my mom called and I sat in front of the tree while I was talking to her to open our gifts. I helped Sophie open her stuffed snowman that my mom gave her, and then I let Keisha out of her crate. I put the short leash on her to keep her from diving into the gifts! She had been wanting to get at them when I was putting them under the tree the night before! I gave her the gift my mom sent her and she ripped it open herself. She tore at the paper and then shook her head really fast so the paper flew off. It was a stuffed gingerbread man that smells like gingerbread! She loves it! It actually smells really good. My mom also sent them a huge box of treats in the shape of a dog house. It has ten bags of treats in it. That should last them awhile!

On Boxing Day my uncle and cousin came to visit. It was the first time Keisha met them and she was so excited I had to keep her in her crate for most of the time they were here. Sophie was really excited to see Uncle Glen again too!

I’ve noticed that Keisha is growing out of her biting stage lately! I’m so glad! She use to try to bite everything! Now when she’s really excited she will still bite at my hand a bit, but she mostly licks now. I think some of it has to do with working on targeting with her. I use my hand as the target because I thought that I could teach her both the targeting and teach her to not bite at the same time.

She has also learned “sit”, “down”, “come”, “stay” and we are working on “heel”. She will have “heel” completed really soon and we are continuing to work on staying for longer periods of time. I know it might seem like a painfully slow process, but I am making sure she knows one command and has a really good grasp on it before moving onto the next. I need her commands to be “solid” when I start teaching her guide work. Over the weekend I’m thinking about teaching her take clothes out of the dryer. I thought this would be fun for her, and that it’s easier to start with than teaching her to pick up something and bring it back to me. It’s in a smaller area and she is just the right height to reach inside of the dryer now. I’m trying to decide if I want to use “get” or “take” with her though. I taught Sophie with “get”, but I’m thinking I will use “fetch” with Keisha. It will also be a word that sounds a lot different than “give”. She will also learn to “find” things, but I think “find” and “fetch” also sound different enough to use and not confuse her. She love playing fetch and will bring her toys back to me, so it shouldn’t be too hard to teach her to do the same with other things.

It’s almost 3am and Julian will soon be calling me, so I guess I better go for now. I’ll write more about how Keisha is doing with the clothes and dryer later. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!