We do have a new old dog. He is very well behaved and we are enjoying the new Samson. Our first training experience was a complete nightmare. He was housed in a barren kennel 1/4 mile from the house. It had space heaters, but the dogs were all kept in tiny plastic crates and they were miserable. We got back a dog that would heal if you shocked him repeatedly. It was a complete waste of money and the only good thing that came out of it was the DogTra remote collar. The experience with Kevin has been awesome. He kept us up to speed on Samson's progress through videos, texts and voice mails on the WhatsApp application on our phones. We were originally just able to see videos of him socializing with the other dogs, but it actually turned out to be pretty important.
As we run into other dogs on our walks he is now much more relaxed and comfortable around the other dogs. I was able to walk him today and we ran into several people walking dogs. That would have been a big problem before he spent the two weeks at boot camp. Today, he sniffed the dogs and we moved on, no big deal. He no longer pulls on the leash, but walks right along the side of us and we can speed him up or slow him down by saying "Fast" or Slow". The most impressive thing in my mind is that he is trained to STAY. That alone has really helped us. We made the mistake when he was a cute 20 pound pup of letting him up on the bed. THAT has now become his favorite place. We bought a new bed from Costco for him. He still sleeps in his canvas crate, but we are training him to hang out on HIS bed when we are relaxing in our room before bed. The way we have done it (so far) is with the Stay command. I set up his bed next to ours and had him stick there with the STAY command. He will stay for up to 30 minutes without moving. We released him after 30 minutes, he went outside and then came in and went to bed in his canvas crate. This morning when he got up he came in and we set him back on his bed with the Stay command and now he heads on to his bed when we go into the room. It's a process, but he is getting it.
Kevin spent two hours with us on Sunday morning and trained us on what commands he had taught Samson, showed us the Stay command, how to properly use the pinch collar, the loose leash walking, how to handle set backs, where and when to work with him and how to keep him off the bed. He was very in depth, left the room to see how Samson did when we were alone with him and using the commands. He did a fantastic job with Samson. It was incredibly expensive, but so far the results are worth it. We will have to continue to work with him every day, but so far so good. I actually had him on the stay command today and walked out the front door with the door open and he stayed in place. It will come in handy when Darla is cleaning or whatever and we can have Samson Stay on his rug or pillow and not worry about what he is getting into. It is really good to have the boy home.
Samson really bonded with another Golden Retriever that Kevin had in his boot camp and they became as Kevin said, BFFs. They would play for hours in the back yard and Kevin took several videos of them, one in particular was the tug of war video with the shoe lace. He said that after Rex left, Samson wasn't interested in playing like he did when Rex was there. The one thing that Kevin shared with us that kind of surprised us was that Samson is a little bit of a bully with smaller dogs. He would dominate them and hold them down. He didn't bite them or injure them in any way, but was all over them outside. That doesn't seem like Samson's personality, but it is what it is.
Kevin had bathed and dried Samson when we picked him up and it was nice to have a nice clean dog. One of our big issues was him play biting and a big part of that was up on the bed. He hasn't done any play biting since we got him home, but its only been two days. He started to jump up on me when I got home today and he gets really excited, but I corrected him and true to his training, he sat right down and behaved. Nice to have a well mannered dog for a change.
Here is a short video of Kevin working with Samson:
I have a couple of pictures from our lesson with Kevin, one of Samantha at the Las Vegas Knight's game and one of the reason we live in California. We need more rain and hopefully it comes, but we had a long wet stretch and now are enjoying some great weather in the 70's. I wouldn't want the constant 80's of LA and really enjoy the seasons, but love this kind of weather. Warm enough for shorts, but cool enough that I don't need the sprinklers. We hit a new high of 75 degrees on Super Bowl Sunday.
I played golf on Saturday and was terrible. I shot 47+47=94 and all of the good juju I had the prior week was gone. Where I had chipped in for birdie the prior week on number 1, this week I had two chili dip chips and shot a 7 to start my round. This game is as frustrating as any you will ever play. But, I love it. Pete played in his first ever tournament stroke play event and wasn't properly prepared. We played with Ron and Paul. Ron is Pete's agent and knows him well. Paul met him for the first time. Paul walked up to me on number two and said, "Do you know this guy?" I said, "Yeah, he's a work mate, why?" Apparently Pete was getting to his ball and taking out a clean ball and exchanging it for the one in play. He also marked his ball on the green with the coin in front of his ball and replaced it with the coin behind the ball. I talked to Pete and set him straight and told him to ask me if he needed to know any rules. He said, "I don't know what to ask." We got through it, but I think watching him kind of played into my poor round. Pete shot 100, Ron had a 90 and Paul shot 83.
Next weekend I'm off to Pebble Beach on Sunday with Pete and two of our agents. We have tickets to the final round of the AT&T tournament. We will meet at 6:30 and drive up to the tournament. Next Wednesday I fly to Los Angeles with Mike, one of our agents and the father of Kennah, who works for me. It is Valentine's Day and we are staying at the Beverly Hills Hilton and the driving the next day to the tournament at Riviera Country Club. Romantic, eh? We have a tent at the 16th green and will meet with Jimmy and Webb Simpson n the early evening for a meet and greet and time with the golfers. The tent is all you can eat and drink for the guests. It will be fun. We stay over Thursday night as well and fly home Friday morning.
I'm not sure if I'll play golf this coming weekend. I'll be gone all day Sunday and leave Wednesday night for LA. I think I'll be home to help out with Samson and spend some time with my bride.
I went to the skin clinic today and got my six month check-up. He found one pre basal cell on my chest that he zapped. Aside from that I was clear, so my nose is in tact. Randy will be glad to hear that. I wore shorts for the first time this year on Saturday as it was about 72 degrees.
It is short, but it was a busy day yesterday as I had to put in almost 100 scores into the GHIN system after the tournament Saturday. The Super Bowl was on, Samson came home and we talked to Dad and Shirley last night. I decided to work on this tonight. I hope all are well. We are off to the Kings game with Pete and Vicky Friday night. We have floor seats from one of my agents. Be well. Ciao.
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