Progress!!!

Well what a day! Although Leo has been pretty good at recognising his name from the start (in fact he responded to it from that first walk round the field at the Dogs Trust) we were a bit apprehensive about other commands. Because his leg was broken in such an awkward place we weren't sure if "sit" would be a reasonable request from him. Although he does sit voluntarily, for obvious reasons we aren't really keen on forcing him to repeatedly sit and stand on command. The downside to this is that "sit" is a really useful command for calming a dog down and controlling him - something that Leo could really do with.
Sooooo... after a couple of failed "sit" attempts in the garden this afternoon it became obvious that Leo was struggling with it. However, on the last attempt, he lay down! So I decided that we'd give it a go as "down" instead. It took a few goes, and I nearly lost my fingers a couple of times but here are the results:

Sorry that they're sideways :) I was so excited I forgot which way round the camera should be!

It wasn't all work today though - Leo found time for a little roll around the grass:

And even managed to let me take a close up picture of his webbed toes - though it turns out you can't tell they're webbed on a photo:

 

In case you were wondering, we suspect that Lovely Leo might be a whippet/Labrador cross. Cue lots of internet research to see what we can learn about whipadors! Labradors apparently have webbed toes which helps them swim when they were working with fishermen in Newfoundland originally. Leo's white "medallion" and white toes are also possibly a throwback to labrador origins. We've been told that you can have a DNA test done for about £50 to find out for sure what breeds your dog is composed of! Maybe one day...

 

Also, Leo seems to have a liking for sitting on legs and feet:

 

We noticed this already when we visited my mum and dads and he sat on my dad's feet - though I think it must be something he enjoys because he's done it twice to me today. He's such a lovely quirky chap :)

I'm really proud of him today. He's been a little star. I wonder if this is because he's actually getting to grips with the routine round here, or if it's because I made him listen to Classic FM this afternoon?

More this weekend... :)