You make me smile like the sun

I found out yesterday that my four-month old lab puppy is actually a three and a half month old lab puppy. Two week is not a huge deal, but that does mean that when he came into my life he was at the very oldest, six weeks old. No wonder he was a sad, scared little insecure puppy! Definitely not ready to leave his mama yet.

Now he is fourteen weeks, twenty-five pounds, taller than our sheltie, and 100% handsome. He learned to sit on command at seven weeks, was housetrained (... mostly! really!) by eleven or twelve weeks, and knows several commands. He can sit, come, wait (including when you feed him; he'll sit and wait until you tell him "okay"), get in his kennel, go outside, go somewhere else if he's begging and I say "go", leave the room with "get out of here", and "eat nice" instead of taking off your whole hand when given a treat. He also walks well on a leash, tolerates grooming, and and settle down if you're trying to hold him and he's wiggling. I still feel like he need to work on his manners... but I guess if he's not even four weeks old yet he's making good progress.

I have big plans for this handsome bundle of trouble! This week we're going to work on obedience [sit, down, come, stay] and "clean up", which will mean to get his toys from wherever he scattered them and put them in the toy basket. He has a bad habit of taking his toys outside and leaving them there, so we're going to try to remedy that. :) Some day I want to do agility and obedience competitions, companion dog certifications, therapy dog licensure... haha. He is mostly lab, with the obedient and eager to please personality that goes along with that.

Have any of you taught your dog tricks? What was the neatest trick you've ever seen a dog do, or wanted to train a dog to do?