Zooka's 20th month, December 2020, was fairly uneventful. There were no setbacks, and there was some progress.

While I had hoped to get out more in public this month, as we all know, sometimes the weather and life get in the way of our plans. Getting out to dog-friendly stores can be a bit trickier in the winter weather. Even if you don't mind the cold, I do worry about what stores put on their icy sidewalks. While it helps to prevent us from slipping and falling, some of the ice melt products are NOT SAFE for the feet of our pets. So I often end up not getting out when and where I want to because of that.

We did get a few outings in. One of those was to Lowe's in Castle Rock. If you recall from last month, we were struggling with floors that Zooka thought were going to be slippery. Even floors that he has walked on many times before with no problem. So when we first entered Lowe's, he was unsure. He stuck to the edge of the aisle and we stayed close to the entrance at first. But pretty soon he realized that the shiny floor was really not slippery.

Once we realized the floors were not so slippery after all, he did a very nice job. His heel work is really good. His focus is very good. He was able to greet several people nicely. I was very happy with how well he did. Hopefully we can start getting back to some of those other places that he did not want to walk last month.

We also did a hike at Dawson Butte. He loves going for hikes. We use the long line when there are not other hikers close by. When hikers do come by, we generally pull off to the side and have him sit and wait while others pass by. He does a very nice job of this.

We had some boarders this month, so he got lots of time to play with others. He loves to have buddies stay with him for a bit and play. It makes him so happy to have buddies around. One day we will add in a new brother or sister to the mix, but we're not ready for that quite yet.

The other nice thing about having consistent boarders here this month is that we get more chance to work on listening well with other dogs around. This was always his most difficult task as a youngster. He LOVES other dogs, so getting him to listen and being able to call him away from other dogs was a challenge. We have been working on that a lot. He's not perfect, but he is doing REALLY well with this. This is probably our biggest accomplishment this month.

We continue to work on our other skills, like our platform and disc work, our Heel work, Side, Spin, Over, Under, Around, etc. He is doing very well with Fetch. But only as “work” and not really as a fun game to play. He will fetch a bit as play, but he is only a reliable Fetcher when we are “working” and he's getting paid for it. Which is fine with me. We don't need to play fetch, but I do want him to have a reliable fetch when I ask for it.

He is a master snuggler these days. He was not quite as snuggly as a puppy as our previous Vizsla was. Well, let's face it, no one could match up to Romeo's snuggling abilities. But now he snuggles a lot. He's bigger than Romeo was, so snuggling in tight spaces is a little more challenging. But we make it work!

During adolescence, some months see major accomplishments, some months see setbacks, some months seem to plateau. Over all, we are looking for progress. I would say that this month we did not have any regressions, we had some plateaus, and some progress. So I would call this a successful month.

We will see what next month brings!

Our goal is to positively impact the lives of as many dogs and their families as we can, in part through our extensive library of video, infographics and text articles. If you like our work, please consider supporting us through a donation!