Week at home and walks

This week we left Senna at home for the first time during the days. We noticed that she was always so tired in the evenings when she came home from day care that there was not much we could do with her with regards to walks and training.

So we thought we’d try to keep her home for a few days. Also, Tuomo has been working in Tampere this week, so he wasn’t going past the day care on his way to work anyway. The idea is that we see how it goes, if she’s calm and relaxed being at home we might take her to days care say 3 days a week and keep her home 2 days, so that we get some dog to work with as well. She did really well on her own and straight away when I'd come home I’d take her out on a long walk. She had a lot of pent up energy of course, but it was remarkably quickly drained on the walk. Then after a while she was also very attentive and able to focus on training. So we have been combining the walks with contact exercises, walking off the leash to train recall and other bits and pieces.

I have also taught her some silly circus tricks like sitting on her bum like a rabbit. She doesn’t seems to mind what I ask her to do though, everything is good fun as long as there’s treats involved:)

Since the puppy course was cancelled this week we took a walk around the lake with Irene and Barney instead, training the dogs to walk side by side. They seem to find this easier now, since they are getting used to one another and there’s not too much pulling on the leash in the beginning of the walk. They are now also able to walk next to each other in the middle. Wow! I think this is very good training for our little girl, who finds it very hard to contain herself around people and dogs.

Yesterday we went to the dog park with her. We didn’t intend to stay for long but ended up talking to lots of different people who kept turning up. It is also a good place to train recall since there’s lots of “noise” around. She did quite well, but I have noticed during the past week that she sometimes suffers from “selective hearing”. Hmmm. Is this the first sign of teenagehood?

Right now she’s asleep in her “proper bed” on the floor next to our bed. She only goes there when she is really tired and intends to sleep. We just got back from an off leash walk in the forest so I guess she’ll be out of it for the rest of the afternoon. We went to a new place that Johanna, Pancho’s owner recommended. It’s a path in the forest where not many people come to walk so it’s perfect. We trained a lot of recall and every time she went off exploring on her own we’d hide behind a rock or tree. Before long we’d hear galloping noise down the path, “cloppeti cloppeti, where’s mum and dad??!! I’m all alone in the forest!!” We also hid treats in tree trunks and she had to stand on her hind legs to seek them out. New place, new smells, forest walk with training, it takes it out of a little girl:)

Left on today’s schedule is grooming. We have made a habit of brushing her regularly, although it’s not really needed, as well as clipping her claws, looking into the ears and mouth. The brushing I actually think she enjoys but when I clip her claws she usually protests at first, but I still get them all clipped though and she knows that it’s not really worth making a fuss. But you can always try:)