Leader of the Pack

I've been working on helping Rucksack learn to walk politely on leash during the brief trips between the house and the packmobile, and by the trailhead.  At first, heading down the front steps was a bit of a challenge as he wanted to bolt down them instead of sticking by me.  In the past week, though, I've noticed some improvement.  He still rushes down the steps a bit, but he pauses when he gets to the bottom of a flight instead of continuing to pull ahead.  He's started hesitating about jumping into the car again sometimes, and I've had to help him in on a few occassions.  I'm not sure why he's hesitant sometimes while other times he hops right in, but I'm paying attention to try to figure it out.

When I picked up Coco for the Play Pack today, I took a minute to work with her on impulse control.  She gets the "sit" command quite well now, so I had her sit in front of the gate as I slowly opened it.  When she started to get up, I closed the gate and used body language and a little tug to let her know to stay where she was.  After just a few tries, she was sitting and watching me for a signal while I had the gate wide open in front of her.

At the park, Coco played tug-of-war with Anabelle over a small stick, which eventually ended up breaking so they both got half.  Rucksack and I made an efficient fetching machine for a while, as he came around my side the same way over and over to drop the ball right in my hand and I found a fluid motion to send it right back on its way.  We went on with that same pattern about a dozen times before a couple other dogs started playing in front of me and interrupted Rucksack's track.