And today was the first time, yes the very first time, that I took them for a walk together.....at the same time.....by myself!
Jim and I walk them all the time. Almost every day. Sometimes more than once a day. And we've been training them, and me, as we walk. We are teaching them to truly "heel", which is to stay behind us for most of the walk, unless we say otherwise. They're getting really good at it. The "training me" part is that I've been, sometimes, the only person walking them, but with Jim by my side.
Together they outweigh me. With two leashes, they could split me apart like a medieval torture device. We have a "magic" leash connecter, however, that makes everything good. Luckily, different things interest them, so they regulate themselves when they're tied together. Still, I've always wanted Jim there as my back up.....just in case.
Today, I was ready. We went out and we did amazingly well!
They "heeled" whenever I asked, sat whenever I asked, both managed to do all of their business without doing it on each other (always my fear when they have to stay close together), and we even encountered most potential challenges and passed the test.
We went by other dogs. We were followed for about 100 yards by Bucky, the unaltered male, standard poodle.....though both dogs walked looking backwards rather than forwards for most of that period. We passed a small road repaving project with a bobcat scraping gravel, and we got got less than a block away from the garbage truck!
I was smart, and I waited until all of the school busses had already gone by for the day, and we didn't see any wildlife out on the walk. Those two things could have put us over the edge for the morning, so I'm very thankful that we didn't encounter them.
Now that the weather is cooling off, we might truly get back into our morning walk routine. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment