Here's Cooper #10092 Success Story told by his adopted mom:

Hi Sandi and Bobbie,

Thanks to the both of you, I am the very very proud owner of Cooper.  He is a wonderful boy and so very smart.  I have taught him to sit, down, shake a paw, wait, leave it, how to climb stairs, and come when called - still working on but most times he does haha.  So I am using "Here Cooper" as he figured out with 5 feet of snow in the yard he knew I couldn't go out and get him so I changed the word to "Here Cooper" and it seems to be working much better.  After, I took Cooper to beginner training class and he graduated last Saturday.  Needless to say I am so very proud of him.  We go 1/2 hour early so he can run around some with no worries of him getting hurt in the frozen snow as it has been difficult for him to run in it.  He doesn't know how to play with other dogs well and doesn't care to chase after the ball or race the other dogs to it, but he does run back and forth with them.  He growls at them when they are in his face or they touch him though - quite the vocal man he is.  He will NOT submit to the other dogs, but would rather walk away from them if they bother him, but if they keep after him he growls at them to leave him alone.  But once he spots the people in the room he makes his rounds to all the people and is now known as the "People Greeter".  He absolutely LOVES people and will run up to them and sit on their feet and look up at them like "I am so cute - pet me"

On graduation day we played a game - like musical chairs.  We had to walk our dog using the heel command and when the music stopped, we stopped and our dog is suppose to immediately sit (without using the sit command or touching their hind end to give them the signal to sit), last dog sitting was first one out.  We continued this until there were only 2 dogs left - Cooper and a German Shepherd.  We had to go 2 extra times because both our dogs sat exactly the same time when the music stopped - but the last one was the charm and Cooper sat immediately and first when I stopped and he won the prize of best in class on the heel command.  Mommy was so very proud of him.

Cooper is a snuggle bug who loves his morning and evening massages and belly rubs.  He is still very puppy like at 3 years old so he is crated during the day while I am at work so he doesn't get into anything that he shouldn't get into.

When it is time to eat he goes over to the counter to get his piece of cheese and his anti itch medicine which he eagerly takes.  Then races over to the cabinet where the food is kept (in case I forget where it is - he willingly shows me), I then get his food out and he immediately sits while I place the food in his dish and then waits while I put the cup away and close the cabinet.  Then I go back to him and he does not go over to eat until he gets a kiss on the top of his head - something I taught him and he loves the game.  I decided to teach him that when he once jumped up and hit the cup out of my hand and the food went all over the floor.

My friends and family love Cooper and tell me what a handsome boy he is and I must say I completely agree with them.  Today we start advance training which I thought was better than agility training as I really don't want to teach him to jump through and over things.  He will strengthen his down stay and sit stay in this class along with heel.  There will be more distractions as the trainer will go around and bounce a ball or sqeek a toy and they are suppose to stay.  He did pretty good last week when the trainer tried that.  We were then suppose to call our dog out of the down stay one at a time and our dog was only suppose to come when we called them, not when another dog got up.  He was doing soooooooo well until a little girl called her dog - "Gracie come"  she said in her child like voice and every dog got up and ran towards her.  Kid calling her dog and every dog changed their name to Gracie at the same time haha.

Cooper is everything I wanted and so much more - thank you both for everything.

Debbie and Cooper

Here is Cooper with his prize tomato toy which he LOVES and brings with him everywhere he goes.

As you can see he loves playing with the toy and hasn't completely destroyed it yet.

End of the day he is tired and layes down ON me on my chaise and he finally will look me in the eyes.  Something he didn't do when I first got him was make eye contact.  He is doing so much better with that now as you can see in the picture below.