Dog School Is No Barking Matter---

Dog Obedience School, yes we've begun. Dolly the cute individual that she is, is also very strong, physically & in her personality. We all know it's that Terrier in her that reigns supreme, along with her Aussie Sheep Herding temperament, we can add a little Beagle, as that is definitely evident too. Truly she has more energy than I have & because of this I need to step it up a few notches. It is a known fact in animal behavior that the daily routine a dog lives, must be a good match for their personal energy level. True a more laid back dog would have been so much easier, but we chose one another & I'm going to try even harder to make it work.

For starters this morning I've begun our new routine. I had put aside her leash for a bit, as I got tired of the pulling, & then of course the rash was aggravated by the harness. We're on page one again as far as sticking to using a leash, the rash now is gone. On days I'm off from work I will walk her twice on the leash, & on my work days, it will have to be once a day, but my work schedule is usually [not always] two days a week, so as I spend more time & attention doing this, I think she will acclimate, & stop being so head strong with all the pulling, which was the main reason I stopped taking her out on a leash. What I did in place of a more controlled walk was letting her run free in the woods, but that is a mistake, for as much as it's fun for her, it became her routine, by default, & not an earned privilege, so that will only be allowed if she had been walked on the leash first.

Oh the trials & tribulations of parenthood, even in the dog world, this animal kingdom all of us live in, with our body language cues, & dealing with the more dominant personalities, yet truly trying to make it all work out. As Melvina Reynolds sang-- "We love our pets yes we do we do....", but dogs are not people too, though in some ways a lot smarter than our own species, none of us are perfect & nature can appear seemingly cruel. Animals when allowed, can live a life of purity & freedom, as they did not create the nuclear threat. Nuclear Disarmament, a topic of hope for a future, which includes dogs too.