As for Cece, having met Puck and others from your litters I had fairly high expectations of her to start. But yes, she is certainly more than we even hoped for. I have heard from others (including the vet we met when we picked her up) about the "puppy phase" that dog owners have to tolerate with bad behaviours and excessively high energy...well, I don't feel like we ever had a 'difficult' phase with her. I did have to work with her a bit on teaching her what she could and couldn't chew, and occasional nipping when she got excited, but she was an extremely quick learner and we had no problem teaching her the rules in a few short weeks. She has wonderful and gentle energy for playing with the boys and having fun outdoors, but is calm and obedient in the house.
I did attend a few local puppy classes which were clicker and treat based approaches...in my unbiased opinion she was the smartest and fastest learner in the class (of course). I did get a lot of useful information from the classes but Cece and I work better together without the clicker and treats. She is extremely responsive to me once I know she's listening, so I prefer to rely on the eye contact and voice commands rather than treats. The similarities to my own kids are quite funny - if I relied on bribing them with treats to get them to listen to me, I'd always have to walk around with a bag of sweets! :)
Our only 'naughty pup' experience since we got her happened two days ago...for the first time ever she snatched something off the table, a package of butter that I had out to soften. She nearly finished the whole thing before I discovered it, so she has had a rather uncomfortable couple of days! Butter snatching aside, she really is a rather perfect pup and we could not be happier.
Take care,
Sarah
