Hi Everyone!

My name is Leela, I live in New Hampshire on a farm with my husband and menagerie of animals. 4 horses, 3 cats, several hens, 2 Shih Tzu (I used to show) and 2 new rescue puppies, 15 weeks old, from a high kill shelter in NC. I believe they are Aussie X Coonhound, but most likely a muttly mix. Supposedly litter mates, but there is very little resemblance and even less so in the personality/temperament department. They are both incredibly smart though.

I regret not finding the Leerburg site before I decided to take on two puppies, let alone litter mates! I may end up re-homing one...but we will see.

I started by watching as many of the free videos on the leerburg.com site, as well as reading all I could. I started them with marker training about a week after they arrived. Its been about 3 weeks now since I started training with them.

I also separated them per Ed's advice in his articles...its like a revolving schedule of moving dogs from crate to mudroom, to outdoor kennel, to potty walks, to long walks to training and playing...pretty much a full time job. Its made a world of difference in their behavior and engagement though!

Trying now to take a step back and just let them be puppies and find some balance with the marker training. I am working on getting great engagement now, and will work on socializing them in the weeks to come. Both display some fear and a tad bit of aggression around new people/dogs. I am doing my best not to let anyone come at them, but try to orchestrate situations for them to be exposed to things like people/dogs in a more controlled way (with friends on street etc) Some have told me to just take them everywhere, but when I took my male puppy to the farmer's market last week he was way over exposed to other dogs and kids at quite a distance (we were in an open field near market where I could work on taking him away to get him engaged when he was worried/fearful.

In any case, that is my long winded intro!

All the best,

Leela, Remy and Jessie (new pups)

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=32671913&id=1129242161

Edited by Connie Sutherland (08/16/2011 05:15 PM)
Edit reason: fix link

photo is not posting...you can cut and paste the link to see my two puppies. Thanks!

 Quote: Leela Olson

photo is not posting...you can cut and paste the link to see my two puppies. Thanks!

I fixed your link, but you might want to consider a link to Photobucket or other free picture site that does not require a Facebook login.

Thank you!