Party Tricks

For a baby dog, you wouldn't think Jam had the diplomatic skills of an ambassador in him, but he does. Last night he attended a dinner party, that, while not held in his honor, was the equivalent of his coming out party.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
We had been practicing his sits for a week and he was getting quite good at them. The Come command still required a GREAT deal of enthusiasm on our part to get him moving. But the big deal was that we had figured out the potty training. Locationally, if he was off of the tie down and was in the family room, he would go to the back door. However, if he was in the kitchen, he would go to the small stairs. Any move to the small stairs triggered us moving him outside which became a successful pee break. Yea!

But the Sit command was key. He was going to have to sit to be greeted by the guests.


Here Jam waits for the first guests to arrive.

THE PLAN
Our plan before the guests arrived was to have everyone arrive and be greeted by Willow upstairs. Jam would remain downstairs with Fred.

PARTY NIGHT
Carrie and Greg were the first to arrive were eager to grab him and love on him. But they were very good and ignored him liked we asked until he calmed down and was able to sit to be greeted.

In fact, everyone was super about ignoring his amazingly cute face and sweet little puppy body and hoping that he would calm down quick (it didn't take too long). They were also good about stopping any petting if he started to bite, which is important as we don't want him to get in the habit of mouthing and biting people who pet him.

So all in all, the meet and greet was a big success! Yea team! Let the puppy hugging begin.



Carrie turned out to be the puppy whisperer as she put Jam to sleep by her massage-like petting technique!



It was a fairly amazing technique and Jam was uper-cute. Here Linda goes in for quick pat, but then can't resist a puppy hug.

The evening was almost over before Ken got a chance to hug Jam.

Ken had been very good and was just petting him when Jam was in a sit or when he was wandering by off leash.

It was way past Jam's bedtime and he was very sleepy. Time for all sleepy puppies to go to bed.