Friday, January 26, 2007

Two weeks and some incremental progress

Nothing huge to report, just a few things ruminating around in my mind so I thought I would knock them out. Walks seem to be going okay. Sandy loves to go for a walk. She starts to do her happy dance whenever she sees me put on shoes or a jacket. She doesn't come right over to get the Premier collar around her snout, but it is going quicker each time. She realizes that she has to have it on to get to go out and she calms down to put it on. I have switched to a shorter leash and that in combination with the Premier collar has the pulling down to a minimum. I was hoping that Sandy would just end up by my side but that isn't how things work and I know it. I have taken her for a run the past 2 evenings/nights for a mile plus and she loves it, but with her leading me slightly, she is a hazard. I did have better luck with my run with her yesterday at steering her a bit more with the leash and give her a few gentle tugs so that she fell in step beside me for most of the second half of the run. I would like to take her out to a trail (there is a nice one at Brushy Creek Park, kind of like Town Lake) and see how we do. This weekend I need to put some concerted effort at consistently getting her to heel when walking and making her stay by my side where I want her instead of leading out in front at just the distance she can go without pulling too hard.

Sandy seems to be coming over to Ben more. It is a slight improvement, but not the success we want to see. She is coming over for a pet when I am not sitting beside him, but she is just as likely to run away at the last second. I took Sandy for a run yesterday and we ran a loop over to Brett's house and I tried to get Sandy to come up to Susan, but she didn't want to approach the front door. I don't think it was Susan per se, just the doorway but I didn't get Susan to come out into the yard to test that more. Ben and I walked home the 1/2 mile and Ben took the leash, but Sandy pretty much tried to just keep pace with me and wasn't interested in Ben being in control.

On the toy front, Sandy seems to play by tossing stuff around. Nothing has been hurt by this, but I thought it odd earlier in the week when I came home after work and found a rawhide knot on the couch. I looked to see if the couch had any hair on it as a sign that Sandy had decided to get up there, but didn't see any. This morning, I found a section of a chew thing that I gave her yesterday when I left for work on the shelf in the entertainment center. From what I have seen her doing with stones in the yard and what April told me about how she played with her blue toy outside at the shelter, I can only surmise that she was carrying these things around and tossed them up and they landed somewhere she couldn't/wouldn't get them.

One last thing, Sandy had muddy feet again last night. I need to go check in the yard to see if she was digging at anything. I picked her up and carried her to the bathtub (for the second time this week) in the guest bath and she started to try to get away when I rounded the corner in the back hall (she doesn't head down that way on her own). She definitely doesn't like the tub. I find that strange since she gets into the pond in the backyard to pick up stones to play with (I put about 7 back yesterday) and she doesn't dislike water. My thinking on this is that I know she is scared of being in an enclosed room and she really doesn't seems to hate the fact that she can't get a good grip on the porcelain surface. I need to put a rubber bath mat down the next time I have to wash here feet in the tub.

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