Walking the puppies
Our puppies are now about six and a half months old but we haven’t managed to get into a regular walking routine with them as of yet. I’m not too worried about their exercise just yet because they spend heaps of time in active play inside and out of the house. But I do think there is some sort of boredom factor when they don’t get out of the house so I am working on increasing the number of walks.
To backtrack, we were pretty gung ho about starting walks back when they were first old enough to be taken out. But little girl didn’t like the harness and balked at going anywhere. The couple of times I took her out, I almost had to drag her at times. Little boy liked going out for walks but then he got put off by some really windy days that must have ruffled his fur a bit too much. We attempted to take them to the dog beach but we had to make a quick escape when little boy started barking his head off at every other person and dog. I guess they weren’t quite ready for such an overwhelming experience. We also had several extended periods of rainy days so it’s not hard to see how a little procrastination turned into a lot.
Due to the recurrent knee problems I’m not managing to get out as often as I’d like as it gets too sore to walk very far once I’ve taken both out. I’ve been advised to keep walks to 20-30 minutes so my current plan is to take one out one day and the other out the next. When they are better trained and more well-behaved I will make attempts to take them together although that does reduce the potential exercise I might get once my knee is better.
The good news is that little girl is now mostly enjoying her walks although she still runs and hides when I pull out the harness. Once she is outside, she seems mostly happy and is getting much more at ease while we are out. She does bark occasionally but is not so bad as little boy, who barks at just about everything. That said, little boy is getting a bit better with continued exposure to the outside world. What has been interesting to note is the number of dogs we hear barking at everything as we pass by the different houses. While I don’t think it’s a good thing to hear this, it does make me feel a bit better that our pups aren’t the only ones with this problem. And since they are still young, I’m hoping they will get better with maturity and training.
Little boy really likes going for a walk but he has begun to copy his sister’s behavior when it’s time to go out by hiding. Otherwise, walking him goes quite well aside from the occasional barking. One habit that has started with him is the need to relieve his bowels within minutes of starting the walk. And he often needs to go twice while out so I’ve started taking extra supplies to clean up the messes. The sister never goes while out but she does sometimes stop to relieve her bladder.
Little boy also has the unfortunate ability to collect half the outdoors in his long fur. At the moment the worst problem is the little dried burs from the clover getting stuck in his fur and requiring considerable time to remove. What often happens is we get home and little boy starts trying to get them out of his paws but then gets them stuck in the fur around his mouth. Little girl’s fur hardly collects anything as it’s is short and seems to repel almost everything except water. Even with water, she seems to dry quite quickly though.
Tonight I ended up just taking the little girl out and the brother apparently was quite distressed when we’d gone. Funnily enough he’d also run off when a walk was suggested but changed his tune once he realised what he was missing. It was too dark by the time we returned so there was no chance to take him out even if I were up to more exercise. Tomorrow I will take him earlier in the day as I have to be out in the early evening. It will be interesting to see if the sister has any reaction to missing out.
Next puppy topic is likely to be night time with puppies.
