My mom has been teaching me tons of fun tricks and I think it's all fun and games because treats are involved but little do I know training enriches my mind and body to tire me out quickly and helps establish roles in my "herd."
The first commands my mom taught me were come and sit. I'm doing really well with sit and holding it until she says break. Sometimes I get overly excited for my treat and break my command to try to get to my treat faster, but my mom makes me sit again until she says break. I'm slowly catching on that I have to hold my sit until she says break. This will help me gain some stability in my future.
Check out this video of my duration sit so far!
After I had a good grasp of come and sit my mom took me on adventures out in public to start socializing me. Since her goal for me is to become a therapy pig, I need to be well socialized with other people. For my first adventure we went to the park.
I loved taking in all of the new smells around me, it was so enriching for me. My mom even let some kids pet me. It was a little scary at first but my mom told them how to pet me from underneath first to make sure I was comfortable and I even got some raisins for being such a good girl.
I've also learned a new command called place. It's a weird command where my mom makes me get on any object different than the surrounding floor and sit there. She says it will help my stability in the future and is a good tool to have if she needs me to go sit in a certain spot. I'm not a pro at it quite yet but I'm catching on quickly. Here I am placing on some objects at home:
To top off this amazing training we have done so far this week, I went to two stores today! I went to Tractor Supply and PetSmart, and I felt like a supermodel in the stores with all of the attention I got. I let people pet me in PetSmart and was a lot more relaxed this time. My mom was super proud.
So far training has enabled me to get to go out on fun adventures and be super involved in my family's life. I think I will keep working hard!
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