A trip to Bass Pro shops

Anyone who is blessed to live in the vincinity of one of these shops knows what an incredibly fun place they are!!  And, better yet, they are extremely dog friendly.   I can think of few better places to socialize a puppy!   Being geared to the outdoor crowd, most who go there are also dog lovers.   PERFECT! :)

Visiting Bass Pro has been on my Insane Puppy Plan since I first put it together.   Couldn't wait to get there with Miss Fizz, and today was finally the day.  We spent 2 hours walking around and greeting people, easily met over 100 people.   Kids, squealing kids, kids in fur, kids in bells, and adults in every flavor you can imagine.   I think the sales staff swarmed her almost more than the general public did. :)  

If you've never been, here's our local store.  Click on the link to see a slideshow and all the amazing stuff there is to see/experience, especially as a curious puppy.   We climbed up and down the long flights of stairs several times, and also had multiple glass elevator rides.   Shopping carts were VERY exciting because they have wheels (oh for the love of wheels!).  A flat delivery cart got in the elevator with us on one trip, and she got right up on it and had a ride around.   The giant fish pond, with a very tall glass wall, was great excitement.  I pointed out a huge fish (easily larger than Fizz!) swimming slowly by and she was enraptured.   Thankfully, she did NOT try to swim in the trout stream.   While meeting a stuffed bear, she managed to steal some moss (I think I did a nice job replacing it!), and the fake snow near Santa....well, I mean it does look like Stuffie-toy fluff!

We're looking forward to our next adventure there, including walking the cranberry bog trail out back.  BPS will be an awesome place to work on heeling with distraction, scent work in the future, etc.   LOVE our new training grounds!!

Chillin' out after a few hours of meeting people, waiting in line to see Santa.

Maybe Santa will bring me a giant fish to chase!

Completely zonked after shopping (can't blame her, I despise shopping!)

Recallers 3.0 ... in training!

We are currently working through Susan Garrett's Recallers 3.0.   Absolutely LOVING the course, and seeing some nice results after a very short time.    Quick video from our woods walk yesterday, about 45min in to a 1hr 20min walk.   Fizz, George and the kids were down the path, and off to the side enjoying a view from the top of a ridge.   I called, waited about 10 sec, and here she came!  :)   GOOD girl!

Ladder work at 13 weeks

Fizz is finally physically big enough to start working with the extension ladder for body awareness.   It's still a fairly deep step for her, going between the rungs, and on average, she's hitting 5 or 6 times per length.   It seems to be something she likes, as she offers it readily, even when I don't have food.    This is our 2nd session of walking through, and feeding.   I'm trying to time my feeding with hind foot movement.    One thing I really liked in this video is that she actually offered backing up through the ladder.  That's on our list of "to do" for when she's a bit older and has better understanding of body control.   Was very excited to see her do it on her own.

I have been teaching backing on the flat, but it's not on cue yet b/c she often curves to the side.   I won't name it until she's backing straight up.   The more she learns to control her body now while small, the more agile she'll be as she grows, with better ability to maintain position in motion, and less likelihood of injury.     Fizz was 3 months old yesterday (13wks), and weighed in at 25.5lbs.   She's almost tripled in size from when she arrived 5 weeks ago!