Monday 14 October 2013

Centre of attention

Another little walk before dinner and we went the same route as we did at the weekend. This time I went on my own and Ruby set off like a freight train. I spent much of the walk encouraging, telling, coaxing and bribing her to walk at my heel without pulling at the chain. She would get the idea for a few seconds, then something else would get her attention and it was back to pulling me along. 

You talking to me?
Although she would stop frequently to sniff things, it wasn't as often as before. It seems as though she is getting familiar with the route and the smells. She still flinched to some degree when cars drove past. Sometimes she would look quite scared but other times she just looked alert. Then once the car had gone by, she made as if to run after it. I'm making the effort to try to take her attention away from the cars but without sounding obvious about it. I think if I make too much of a fuss, it might just add to the problem. Calm distraction and act disinterested I think is the best way.

Once away from the road, we met a lady walking her little dog in the opposite direction. She was very nice and made the effort to get her dog to introduce itself to Ruby. Ruby seemed scared at first but once they had sniffed each other for a few seconds, she was fine. A few minutes later a man with a large German Shepherd approached. The lady with the small dog asked him if his dog was ok with others. He said that she was absolutely fine. So Ruby and the other little dog had a bit of a play with the German Shepherd. We all then went our separate ways. 

So Ruby is gradually getting more familiar with traffic, other people, other dogs and in the case of yesterday's walk, children's buggies. She does get the idea of walking at my heel on a loose lead. It's just that she has her puppy head on and is so interested in all the new things that she just doesn't listen. Hey ho. I'll keep persevering. I'm also going to book puppy training classes (hopefully from next Monday), so I will be getting some 'expert' help. 

Back home and Ruby did 2 poops in the garden. She has so far made no effort to go to the toilet on our travels. I'm still keeping a close eye on her poops as they are sometimes quite solid and sometimes quite loose. Her food regime has settled down and apart from a few treats and maybe some banana in her Kong, she doesn't have anything that could upset her. I suspect she may just be quite sensitive to even small changes in her diet. The last 4 weeks have seen an amazing transformation in me from sane adult to having an unhealthy obsession with dog poop. 

No comments:

Post a Comment