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Hi all, It is the time of year that I generally try to reflect on my blessings and I now realize that Buford is to be counted among them. I decided to go back and read my original post and I wanted to thank you all again for your great posts on this thread. I appreciate your words of encouragement and I now recognize that your input really helped me get past the original frustrations that I was having with Buford. It was all worth it! Buford has become a great dog.

One of the best things that Buford has brought into my life is that he has forced me to meet most of the people in my neighborhood. He seems to be famous. In fact, he even got an invite to thanksgiving dinner at one of my neighbors! He did great at that gathering, even to the point of co-existing with their cat! There were many folks there and a couple of beagles, so I was very pleased that he was calm and relaxed for our entire visit!

He now has free run of the house while I am away at work, but when I return we do have a very specific routine that works for both of us. He no longer climbs on tables, including the coffee table. It took a while, but he finally figured out that it is OK to sit on the couch with me and now he has a complete understanding of the difference between hard and soft furniture.

I also found a great product that resolved his pulling issue during our walks. I use the CannyCollar, which allows me to let him have the freedom to exercise his nose, while still giving me complete control whenever I need it. We are still working on him getting extremely excited when we encounter another dog on our walks, but there has been some improvement. We will continue to work on it and I am confident that we will resolve this one someday.

If any of you are interested, Buford does have a Facebook page. It can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/buford.pawpaw

I’ll post his most recent picture in the next post. As an indicator of how wonderful Buford has become, I was trying to take a picture of him wearing a Santa hat and beard! Talk about progress! A year ago I was trying to keep him off of the coffee table, getting pulled around the block and trying to keep him in my yard. Now, we are in a situation where he listens so well that I thought I would try to have him “pose” for a picture! Even though it wasn’t successful, it still shows how much we have grown together.

Going back and reading the posts on this thread, one really stood out. It is an amazing thing to recognize the “lightbulb moment” that RegularCountry mentioned early in the thread.

RegulatorCountry Said, “Once the lightbulb goes off in his head, that dog aha moment, is incredible to see, they’re overwhelmed with emotion. Mine started crying and whining, and would run up to me for weeks afterward just to lay her head in my lap and look up into my eyes.”