dont mention the W.A.L.K word!

Evening all!

Only few things going on with us! Holly is finally telling us when she needs to go out to pee! Haha! It has taken her a while to work out that she can do certain things to get our attention. However she is choosing to do this in the middle of the night now! She sneaks off my bed and downstairs to where my mum sleeps. She sneaks up to my mum and “talks” quietly next to her and then goes and sits by the door..my mum is unimpressed that she is letting me sleep and not her! We have had a few toilet accidents with Holly over the past few days as she does not want to go out and pee because of fireworks. I can get her out there a few times over the evening but I don’t want to push her to go out there too much. She is getting better at dealing with the fireworks though, she sulks more than anything else when they are going off instead of bolting. Slow progress but progress never the less!

On Saturday I met up with a few lovely people and their dogs for a group walkies. Darkley is struggling with being separated from Holly, so I left him back home to learn that there will be times that they will be separated. (My mum said he barked and whined for a while then went in to a major sulk!) So Holly and I set off for her first long walk without confident Darkley by her side. Our pup friends that were joining us was a lovely staffie girl called Dixie who gives amazing kisses! She has had issues in the past where she hasn’t liked certain other dogs (I don’t blame her really, lots of humans I don’t like too much!) However Dixie has come far and is so so tolerant of other dogs these days. She is a lovely pup who adores her cuddles and kisses! We were also joined by Nemo, a fluffy older boy who is adorable. He has done SO well in the past few months and has become more tolerant of my two hyper pups. When I first met him 6 months or so ago he liked to tell the world about how annoying these younger brats of dogs are but I did not hear one grumble from him on the walk! I am so lucky to know some lovely owners with some awesome dogs to help me with socialising miss Holly. Holly was far more quiet than normal on the walk, she was happy though. She was on the new harness again which seemed to be helping to control her full on pulling and I think in time she will learn how to walk without trying to go a million miles an hour in front of me! She got to see lots of exciting things like squirrels, birds and murky smelly pools of water. She was super excited and her chase instinct kicked in with the birds and squirrels! She got to see a horse pass by and had a look and sniff but wasn’t too fussed. An electric wheelchair passed by us at one point too and she didn’t respond to it at all which was great. Was a lovey walkies!

 I decided to take Darkley on the same walk the next day as it is right by where our agility classes are…oh and how it was a different walk! As soon as we left the house the next morning Darkley was on a mission. No idea what that mission as but it was clear it meant he needed to pull as hard as he could on the lead and ignore me as much as possible! He was acting up at class (playing and putting his nose in other people’s business was FAR more interesting!) he did however show some improvement with his jumping skills. So after class I chucked a longer lead on him and went on the walk, even though he was being naughty. Even with his pulling he seemed to love sniffing and exploring the hedges and trees! He followed trails and hunted down squirrels! He then disappeared down a bank and dragged me behind him…next thing I know he is splashing about in a murky muddy mashup of a pond! Nice! We carry on walking for a bit and Darkley suddenly plops down to the floor with his back leg in the air looking concerned and licking it. The words “now what has he done” pop in to my head! I then pull out of his paw a thorn the length of my thumb! Ouch much?! Soon as it was out and I gave him a cuddle he went off to explore some more. 

I get paid this week and some of that money is going to be spent on a new headcollar and harness for him. He has reverted too far back for me to deal with on just a collar and lead. He is going to hurt himself and me if he carries on being like the steam train he is!

(I just emptied a bag of dog food in to the dog food tub in the kitchen…holly ran in shoved her face in the tub grabbed a mouthful and ran for it! She is a cheeky one tonight!)

So a year ago my mum won a giant stuffed toy of a dog. We had no idea where to put it and just shoved it in the corner where Darkley took an interest in it. He erm tried to “romance” it. Horrified I had to move it..we had no room though so for some random reason I threw it up our tree in the garden! It stayed there till the other day when a creature must have knocked it down and half of the bird feeders down with it. Holly thought that this was most awesome. Darkley joined in to destroy the toy and my garden looked like we had, had a freak snow storm. You know it is bad when you have to sweep your lawn!

I am also a proud mum because Holly actually stayed in the room when I used the hairdryer on Darkley Sunday night (after the bath to rid him of mud!) She hid on my bed and peered over at what we were doing now and then…but she didn’t run! Hurrah!

So today has been one of the THEM days, nothing has gone right. I got home and I finally sat down to relax..but not for long. I was sitting outside watching the pups hunt down the birds that were up the pear tree (not a chance they can ever get anywhere near the birds!) The pups then start zooming about and pouncing on each other as per normal when I notice there is something on Darkley’s face. It had to be one of three things- Mud, poop or blood…and hopefully not all of them. Turns out holly has taken a chunk out his face. Great. I clean the wound which isn’t too deep (Darkley was unimpressed with being cleaned up!) and it isn’t bothering him..he may however get a scar out of it. This my friends is another reason to add to the growing list of reasons why I am doing my animal first aid course!

Think that is enough chit chatting from me! If anyone knows of good harnesses and head collars that would help Darkley do let me know! (he got the gentle leader off somehow!) I just heard it is looking like it is going to rain a lot this week..no more fireworks hopefully!