Dog Walking

Colleen and I have been trying to get in the habit of walking every morning before work.  I would be lying if I said that it was getting easier to wake up extra early, especially when she’s the one who has an early morning case, but once we get going, I’m always grateful for it. I haven’t needed coffee to wake up a single morning since, which is pretty exciting. I wasn’t exactly coffee dependent before, but 1-2 days a week it was necessary. I’d rather not be stuck on the habit though. Walking seems like a much better way to get up.

At first, we were only taking Colleen’s dog, Toby. Toby is her service dog, and has pretty darn good manners on the leash. My dogs… used to. I spent a year doing agility training with them (or trying to, Shadow is still afraid of most of the obstacles…) but we’ve slacked off with a large yard, and I honestly hadn’t walked them on a leash in almost a year. First thing in the morning, I wasn’t quite up for the battle that I knew that would be. Even with the gentle leader on, Abby can pull like a freight train.

Well, Colleen’s fiancé came with us the other day, and with one person for each dog, I was out of excuses, so they came with us and had a great time. After getting that first walk out of the way (and a few reminders of proper manners when on the leash, especially on a road) they’ve become regular fixtures on our walks.

There’s a quiet side street that we always go down where Colleen can let Toby off leash, since there’s virtually no traffic. Abby gets to go off leash as well, since she’s always been good at listening when you call her back. Shadow however, always the problem child, has never had a reliable recall, so he’s stuck tied up. Colleen had the idea today, though, to hook Shadow to Toby, so that Toby could haul him back and keep him from leaving the county if need be. We just buckled Toby’s collar around the handle on Shadow’s leash, and they towed each other around. It was pretty funny to watch, because either of them would step on the leash and the other would stop and look at us, asking who had given them the correction.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll dig out Shadow’s remote collar, the only way I’ve ever been able to ensure his recall. I don’t know though. It’s pretty funny to watch him and Toby dragging each other around.