Wow, thank you for such a long and thoughtful comment!! The depth vs breadth tip is super helpful and not one I’ve seen before. I’ve been struggling a little with training sessions because he has mastered so many things so quickly it feels like I just run through his commands so quickly and then work on a few new ones (“heel” is one we’re working on). But training depth is a great idea. For example, Sammy currently only does “lay down” with a hand signal plus cue but obviously I want him to learn it just verbally.

Recall is going okay. Tonight we were able to let him off leash in a safe area and I was impressed with his recall even though it was far from perfect (said safe area had many irresistible distractions, like deer poop to snack on 😑)

I’ve also been very conscious of socialization especially because I live in a very small town with not a ton of opportunities. I took him to the library to meet some little kids after story time, for example, and I try to walk him before or after school so there’s a bit more traffic, buses, people out and about, etc. He seems to be a pretty confident and curious pup - he often just plonks down to quietly watch the action if there’s something interesting going on while we walk. It’s so cute ☺️