Four Months Old

Sonic & Soda

At sixteen weeks Sonic is 42cm at the top of his shoulder so it would appear that he is right on track to be a good mid size border collie. He has passed Secret in height and overall build and is now around about the same size as Billy. It still seems quite bizarre as there is a photo that Sam took of Secret and Sonic when they were about four or five weeks old and she was easily twice his size! How things change.
Once again Sonic has impressed me so much this weekend with his wonderful personality and willingness to please. I took him down the beach both yesterday and today and although there were lots of people around I bravely let him off lead. But I had no need to worry as he was amazing. He stayed with me the whole time and even when other dogs come up to us as we walked down the beach he happily followed along. At one stage when a couple of labs wouldn't leave us alone I called Riot over to come and sit with me so the other dogs would go away. Sure enough Sonic came over too and sat right next to Riot. Everytime I threw the toy into the water for Riot to swim out and retrieve, off Sonic would go, swimming his little heart out to keep up.
Nothing much as changed on the training front. I'm still shaping some different behaviours with him and then working on his sit stays. They are getting pretty good at home but I definately need to spend some time training them when I'm at the training grounds. Plus I need to do some more restrained recalls. I'm pleased that he is getting pretty good at responding to his name now too. At home his toilet training seems to be almost complete with only one accident in the house over the last couple of weeks. He still drives the cat mad but it's interesting to note that rather than just hassling Kenny, Sonic is actually starting to herd him as I've noticed that he always goes around to Kenny's head. I think that's why Kenny gets so annoyed with him as Sonic is always in his way! I've also worked out how to get around the shark teeth when your patting him. The secret seems to be tickling his chest. If you start tickling his chest he will go from crazy arm chewing puppy to dreamy eyed putty in my hands in the blink of an eye!