Two Days

Puppy’s progress:   For beginners, he no longer carries a hankie. Puppy tried to stuff his hankie with facial tissues in a pocket he created when he folded it like a wallet, so the hankie was taken away for misuse on Monday, because he had been warned three times previously.  

In fact, he doesn’t carry anything in his pockets at all for the last two days.  I know I know…it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but in Puppy’s world –it is a whole lot of something.  He’s already struggling and looking for replacements to whatever it is he feels is missing.   

He started day one on Tuesday (January 24) with wearing a watch.  I have several watches and I lend him one now and then as a distraction away from the wallet.  Coincidentally, it was a Fossil watch that happens to be the same name as one of his favorite wallets, hmmm?  He was instructed to keep it on his arm and never put it in his pocket.  It wasn’t going to be easy, but it seems like he complied throughout the entire day.  I didn’t get any bad reports on that day.  Great job, Puppy!  However, I should mention that my previous posting of Backup Call was brought on by the fact that his pockets were empty and he was asking when he would have his wallet returned.  It was question after question that prompted the need for backup.

Day two was Wednesday (January 25); and already I see him bothered by the whole thing, but he surprisingly came to me that morning as we were getting dressed, several times pulling his pockets inside out to show me he’s not carrying anything.  I praised him and reminded him it’s another day and he can do it.

We are also trying one more trick.  His teacher gave him a dry-erase board on Wednesday.  He will be carrying it around in his backpack at all times.  From now on he isn’t allowed to use paper.  It’s too easy for him to get drawn into making himself paper wallets.  I even told his daycare teacher to take the board out for him to use instead of paper while he’s there.  At home, we are doing our homework on it as well.  We had progress with this, too.

I know I mentioned before the holidays that we are doing in-home training.  His teacher is coming over once a week; Wednesday was one of those evenings.  So like before whenever she is there to observe and coach me as I watch her interact with Puppy, I had a precious little soldier, so well behaved but nervous.  He did well and he is aware of her presence, or at least her watching from the cameras, aka the smoke detectors.