Good morning,

I am sitting in bed with my coffee and a snuggled in Weim laying over my legs, and I was thinking about how sudden it seems that Henry has transitioned from wild puppy to this mostly well-behaved dog.

The last message I sent you was when I was teaching Henry how to close the door, he nailed that in less than a week unless he swings the door the wrong way, he closes the door no matter where we are when we give him the command. This trick is exclusive to one door however, we have tried to get him to close other doors, but he runs down to the back door every time, often confused that this door isn’t even open. Lol. I would not be surprised however if he knew how to close every door, but plays dumb until we get out the treats and hand them out like candy until he has learned how to close each door. Someday I want to make a cardboard sign and write “will work for food” and take pictures of Henry, this dog is beyond highly motivated to learn for treats. Back to his human brain, when we open the back door and give our command “go potty” now he comes up and closes the door instead of going outside when he doesn’t need to go. It is crazy to think that his boy has used this trick almost as a way to talk “I don’t need to go potty right now!”

I’ve mentioned before that Henry excels in two sports, being very active, and being REALLY lazy. This works out perfect for us, I sleep during the day, and Kevin works from home, so Henry is pretty chill on work days. Unless of course, he sees me put on anything the resembles work out clothes, topped with my running shoes, he goes nuts!!! There are some days that I need to just get out really quick without distraction. I have to ask Kevin to hide Henry from me so I can leave the house. If this procedure isn’t followed, Henry literally whines for the entire time I am gone. We can’t say W.A.L.K.  out loud anymore, he’s like a child who hears at some point we are doing something, then continues to ask over and over again about when we are going to be doing that said thing, he runs back and forth to each door, whines, etc. He loves his walks and loves them even more with his E-collar. Disclaimer, we live in the country with very little traffic, I would never allow Henry to go leashless other than around home.  We’ve done our walk so many times, he knows the spots I reign him in, he heals (his version is just some part of his body near my heal) when he is too far away from me and a car is coming in either direction I tell him to sit and wait, I either release him when the car passes, or when I catch up to him I command him to heal, he does this until I say “ok” then he sprints away. He knows our turn around spots, and he always stays on the side of the road we are walking on. He has a few friends on our road that he runs fence lines with. A four-mile walk for me is probably 6 miles for him, between sprinting through fields and running with his friends. Lastly, it’s rare he breaks from my side when we see oncoming walkers with dogs. Sometimes I’ll have him heal, sometimes I’ll have him hold a sit until they walk past. The problem happens when he hears (always in a high pitched voice) “your dog is so beautiful” or some similar compliment. It’s like he knows they are talking about him and instantly he wants to be friends. By the way, all of this is with almost no electrical correction, we just use it because he is a dog after all, and you never know when you need to reign them in.