Trainer Check-In

Since my last post, Macho has been doing really well. Our trainer came this week for the first time in a month, and she couldn't believe the progress that Macho has made since. She was really excited that he was sitting with me on the couch and let me put his leash on without a fight. We haven't really been working with him on the leash, so she has us doing that again. She really didn't like that Macho doesn't like to sleep in the same room as us, and now we make him sleep in the bedroom with us because we close the door. It seems like he is a lost more calm now in the bedroom as he hasn't been as skittish whenever we roll over or move around in the bed. If we also get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom or something, Macho will leave the room, but he will come back. So far it's been working great!

While working on the leash, we are supposed to get Macho to walk with us. Surprisingly, it's been somewhat easy to do this. He will walk with us until he gets close to something he can hide under. But if we just continue to walk by and not give him enough slack to run under or become tangled in anything, then he is fine.

We live on a very busy road in Metro Detroit, and every August, they have a huge event where people can drive their old/classic cars up and down the road. It's a nationally known event, so it attracts a lot of people, and as you can guess, a LOT of loud cars. The entire week up to the cruise, people start driving their cars at night. Macho wasn't too thrilled when the loud cars would drive by. He was never scared, but you could tell he was on edge at night. We decided to have a BBQ the day of the event, but were a little nervous about how Macho would be when people would walk in and out of the apartment throughout the entire day. He actually did really great! I have a few very younger kids in my family, and they wanted to play video games inside. Instead of running away or hiding underneath the table, Macho was on the couch hanging out. We still got a little nervous as the boys can get rowdy, so Nick decided to put him in our bedroom. Macho actually let Nick carry him into the bedroom, which he usually would fight as hard as he could. To make it even better, Macho was crying in the bedroom because he wanted to come out to see what was going on. We eventually just let him roam the apartment since he was doing so great.

When our trainer left this week, she said that her next task for Macho is to get him ready to go outside. She said that if he is curious about what is going on outside our apartment door, that we should venture into the hallway. I was out to dinner with my mom and aunts today when Nick sent me the below picture. I couldn't believe it, Macho was outside of our apartment! Looks like he'll be outside sooner than we think :)