Every day brings new adventures when I’m out wandering the neighbourhood with my dogs (as anyone who read last week’s post knows)! Every morning at 9:30 I leash up the bears and we attempt to make our way down to the dog park at the beach. There are great dogs in there at that time of the morning, and Grace and Benson get along really well with all of them!
Morning Walk Time
Today they started poking their heads up to look at me whenever I moved after 9:00. These dogs love their routine!!
At 9:30 the chaos begins!! Benson will start hopping off the ground and jumping up at me, whining and crying like crazy! Grace just barks at me nonstop! Then I finally drop the “w” word…and that is usually when the wrestling begins…it is pretty much a daily occurrence as anyone who follows us on Instagram knows!
Getting The Dogs Into Their Harnesses
Getting them into their harnesses is also no easy feat! Benson tries jumping at my face while I wrestle it over his big bean! His newest party trick is when I bend over him to fasten the buckle under his chest he sticks his face into my dog walking bag to steal a whole bunch of treats!
Now that Benson is leashed up, time to work on Grace! Her weird habit is as soon as I am leashing Benson she putters over to the food bowl and starts mowing down! I really, really don’t like it that she does this though because bloat is a serious issue with Bernese Mountain dogs and they shouldn’t be eating right before a walk…
Using a treat, I have finally enticed Grace to the door! I can get her leashed up pretty quickly though. Then we are ready to go!
Wild Animals
The morning walk is always the WORST! Grace and Benson turn into full on wild creatures at the end of their leashes and it isn’t unheard of for it to take me twenty minutes or so to get to the end of my block! Benson will start out by trying to grab the leash out of my hand. I still hang onto it though and we end up in a tugging match and he tries dragging me out into the street!!
When he gets enough of that and we get going again we cross over to the other side of the road…and that is when it happens! The first time anyways. That big goofy brain of his tells him it’s WRESTLE time! In the middle of the road!! I’m lucky there isn’t a lot of traffic at that time of the morning…
Making it to Queen Street takes us a lot of work! And I don’t know what it is about Queen Street but it is like they KNOW they have a bigger audience and the shenanigans go on! And always in the MIDDLE of the road!! My dogs have held up traffic and city busses! No one really seems to mind though, everyone finds it pretty amusing when I am begging my dogs to get up off the road and to the sidewalk!
I’m usually already pretty tired of fighting with these two by the time that commotion is all over! But they eventually snap out of it and walk well…for a bit anyways! I know I could get them gentle leaders to curb this behaviour but it really does make people smile and laugh. And when they are walking, they walk really well! They are just really playful and young and I think it might almost make me sad if they outgrow it!
Typically the walk from that point on to the beach goes relatively smooth. Benson must think his name is “Drop it!” and “Leave it!” because he has gotten into the habit of grabbing things off the road! By this time, we’ve made it to the chickens and bunnies and the dogs DRAG me across the road to see them!
Today they were really good on the boardwalk at the beach. A lot of the time they find the boardwalk another great place to have a full on wrestling match! So when we make it along that strip without incident I consider myself lucky! Until we hit the horse poop…that Benson tried to eat…
At The Dogpark
When we got to the dog park today we went in at the smaller side as we usually do and walk over to the big area. This is always when Grace races as far away from me as possible to do her business! Today she did it almost right down at the water! And while I was picking up after her Benson raced along the fence to the opening to the rest of the beach!! Using the touch command to get him back to me, we headed over to the other gate.
Who do I see on the other side of the gate?? None other than Kiera! She is Benson’s best buddy and the two of them will play nonstop! She just laid down on the other side of the gate waiting for us to get through! Then the wrestling begins!
Wondering where the other dogs were and the dog walkers, I walked further into the park. Kiera at my heel of course! This dog is OBSESSED with me! As soon as she hears or sees me she is at my feet on her back for a belly rub! And then she will dutifully follow me around the park the whole time!
This behaviour has started getting a bit much though. She is resource guarding me sometimes! She snapped at two dogs I was paying attention to the other day…Her dog walker had to have a talk with her owner about it! She was a rescue so they don’t know much about her background, but the owner can’t quite believe how protective she has become of me since she isn’t even like that with her!
So my poor girl Kiera got leashed today. They were at the extreme other end of the dog park and Kiera just vanished…Her dog walker was running around the park looking everywhere for her! Out comes the leash for the rest of the walk! I feel really bad about it, and I have suggested maybe I start visiting the park at other times but that is just such a good group of dogs! Kiera pulled and pulled trying to get back to me…but by the end of the walk it looked like she was doing a lot better. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow!
Swim Time
Moving down the beach to Grace’s favorite swimming spot usually comes next. There were a couple other dogs in that part of the park today, but not as many. As soon as we hit that spot Grace makes her typical beeline for the water!
Someone has built a “stick library” box for the dog park which is a really cool idea! Usually sticks are scarce in that park and you have to look high and low to find one! With the addition of the library there are always sticks to be found along the beach now!
Mom Gets Hurt!
Seeing a big stick by the water, I bent down to pick it up. Another smaller black dog came over, super excited that I was going to throw some sticks! I held it up to throw it…Benson decided this was the opportune time to jump up and try to grab it! But he missed…and got my fingers instead…
Usually I can nip this behaviour in the bud (pun intended) before it gets started, but he was BEHIND me! It was a sneak attack! I felt the pain in my fingers though let me tell you! I threw the stick and checked out my hand to see the damage…
Benson managed to puncture my middle finger, and it was already bleeding quite freely. Well, that was it for THAT walk! I started to head towards the exit and we bumped into the dog walker groups again. I love all those dogs and lavish them with attention so they came over for some pets. But I needed to get home and get myself cleaned up!
Home Time
Walking through the park on the way home, I expected my dogs to act up as they usually do but surprisingly there were really good! No wrestles, no pulling, no chasing squirrels! I was almost home and Benson decided he was going to pull a Grace and just lie down in the middle of the sidewalk…and when he did the leash clipped my finger and got it going all over again…
Treats generally work to get Grace and Benson going again but as soon as he had one he just laid right back down! When these dogs make up their mind on something there is about NO way I can budge them! I am terrified that one day one of them will end up getting hurt on a walk and I will have no way to get them to the vet or help…
Finally, we made it back home! I got myself all cleaned up and the dogs went into hard nap mode. As soon as I picked up my laptop to do some work Grace climbed up to try to push it off my lap as is her new habit but otherwise they have been really quiet. But it is now almost 3:00…which is when I take them out for their other big walk of the day…Fingers crossed that this will be an uneventful and pain free walk!!
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[…] very similar thing has been happening lately with my good buddy Kiera. If you read the Kiera Gets Leashed story you will be familiar with how she falls in to my heel and runs to greet me! However, she […]