Riley's maid service

While Duff is out rapidly mowing the lawn before the impending thunderstorm (he just got home from working all day, poor boy), I thought I would take the opportunity to post an update on what we've been up to. Well, we've been chasing after a puppy 24/7 and trying to save a few key pieces of furniture from bite marks. And that's about it...

Ok, so we're not very exciting. But Riley is. So I'll tell you all about her big day today. After having a normal morning of waking at 6 (its Saturday, Riley, don't you sleep in?) and going for a nice walk in the warm and not-rainy weather (finally, its her first non-rainy day since she's been here!), she had her usual morning nap time in her crate while Duff went to work and I ran some errands.

Then at noon, I came home and it was pretty clear that Riley was very excited to see me. A little confused (why are you not my dog walker...what did you do with my dog walker...), but very excited. She was even more excited when she learned that we were cleaning the house today (yay?).

It turns out that Riley is a fantastic cleaner. Here is Riley helping me vaccuum:


Here is Riley helping me make the beds:


And here is Riley helping me mop the kitchen floor:


Unlike most dogs (or at least my parents' dogs), Riley had no interest in chasing the vaccuum cleaner. I was a little disapointed. But all that faded away once I got out the Swiffer. Now there is an instrument of torture that deserves a full out front-paws-down-back-legs-arched pounce as well as a few puppy barks and growls. Unfortunately, by the time we were moping the floor, we were two hours into cleaning the house and Riley was getting a wee bit tired. So she decided to stop pouncing on the Swiffer and take a break under the kitchen table (hence, the above picture).

But in all seriousness, Riley did really well today. The entire time we were cleaning, I had a pouch of treats at my waist and the clicker around my wrist. It turns out that cleaning was a great time to teach Riley to "leave it." There are just so many tasty things around the house that she noticed while we were up and about. So after only one day, I'm pretty sure she understands "leave it." Whether she decides to listen in any given situation is another story (kind of like her temporary amnesia sometimes when we call her name). That makes four tricks up Riley's training sleeve: her name, sit, down and leave it. I am also working on teaching her to touch her nose to my pointed finger. That will make it easier when we do more complex training later on. All in all, she's a pretty well-behaved and smart 11 week old puppy. Except when she tries to jump over the couch to get to the front door, instead of running around it. Yeah, she can be a little ditsy like that.