She Rests

After telling Africa to "go to bed" a thousand and times and rewarding her with a treat every time, she has finally started to go to her bed on her own. I really appreciate this because she already takes up a lot of space on my floor.I like her to be in her corner out of the way. She is only 4 months old and is 35 pounds. She is more than twice the weight of our son who is also a big boy and was born at the same time. She amazes us!

GO TO BED

This is my favorite command. Africa is going to get big and will be in the way when company comes and what not. It is nice to have a place where she can go and still be part of the family. We teach this by saying "go to bed" and then placing her on her dog bed and rewarding with a treat. If she is standing close to her bed we do this again. Eventually she learns what "go to bed" means and yet still for quite sometime we continue to give her treats everytime she obeys "go to bed". As she gets older we can say " go to bed" and she will go and lay down on her bed and she will learn to love it. With Tonka that became his favorite spot. It was his spot and unless we were petting him, he was undisturbed there. I think with Africa this will be good having our baby eventually crawling around. Hopefully she can get a break from him now and then with this bed. She of course gets the biggest size dog bed. They usually come with a removable, washable cover. I would recommend covering it with an extra sheet that you can simply remove and wash. I learned this is much easier than removing the cover.