Gizmo is quite a unique dog and has been a little bit of a challenge. However, he is a very smart dog, once you get passed all of his insecurities. The first week he has been here, we have mainly been working on getting him to be relaxed. It has taken him nearly the entire week to get to where he can relax on his "place" without panting and drooling all over the place. Now he goes to his bed and relaxes a lot more quickly. He does still tend to be more anxious when Mackenzie is around. That added energy is almost too much for him. However, he remains on "place", which is very good. He has a tendency to shake a little when we go outside, but we are continuing to work on that and I do see improvement. He has also been doing well with our dog Dona, who is in the house. He has not growled at her once since he has been here. We have been working slowly with his obedience, trying to gain his confidence and build a proper leadership role with him. So far he has been working on heel, come on, sit, down, stay and place. He is doing well with all of these commands. Down is a bit more of a challenge, but he is progressing each day with that command. He does very well with "place" and "come on". He has a nice natural focus with his heel. He performs "sit" well and he is working on sitting at the door to come in and go out. Overall, I have seen quite a bit of progress in Gizmo from the day of his evaluation. We are continuing to work on his "issues" and hope to see more improvement over the next week.
