As anyone who has been reading this blog knows, we are trying to train our dogs to bark less. We don’t want to stop them from barking, but we want them to relax and not bark all day, every day, at everything.
One of the biggest challenges is when we are outside working in the yard, but the dogs are left inside. Zuzu just goes crazy!
On Saturday, Jim was out mowing the front yard, and I joined him to do some trimming with the weed eater. As usual, this did not make Zu happy, so she was barking nonstop inside the house.
I heard the barking stop, and when I turned around, Jim was mowing the lawn with her! He uses a reel mower, so there’s no motor and no noise, and she was happily walking behind him as he made rows in the yard. It was a great idea!
Then....bum bum Buuummm......he decided to stop for a drink of water. He left her, tied to the mower, next to me while I got a drink of water. She moved towards me, and the mower made a funny noise on the brick sidewalk. She jumped! The mower jumped after her. She BOLTED! Across the yard, across the street, with the mower dragging behind her. She wrapped herself around the neighbor’s mailbox and her leather leash snapped, leaving the lawnmower in the neighbor’s yard as she ran back to us. She was so scared!
I had to bring her inside and give her a sponge bath from the stench. She even scraped up her toenails on the street she was running so hard. I sat with her on the back porch for about an hour to make sure she was relaxed. No more lawn mowing for her!
Jim had to disassemble and reassemble the lawnmower to get it work again, but in the end, our great idea was not so great after all.
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