Pepper is 5 months old…
Wednesday, January 4th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Pepper is 5 months old today. He has a lot more confidence lately. On the New Year’s Eve we took him out for a walk in the wood and met other dog. Pepper ran to the dog and played. We tried to call Pepper back but he had gone deaf. The owner of the other dog could not call his dog back either. Then the third dog appeared and the threesome began. We tried not to chase after them because we would never get them but the other owners would not stop so the threesome kept going further and further. The third dog’s owner managed to call her dog back to her and she could get Pepper for us as well. I thought if we, all the owners, did not go after our dogs and went the other way it would be better and the dogs would come back to us eventually.
On the New Year day we were invited back to Alva again. Mum and dad would like Pepper to be the first paw (foot) of the year. It was Scottish traditional thing. After we had our lunch and Pepper had his, we took him to the park for a walk. We met so many dogs and again Pepper became a deaf dog. We tried not to chase him again but the owner of the dogs was heading out of the park. We did not want Pepper to follow them out on the street, so we had no choice but went after him. When we could get hold of him we decided we would not let him off the leash in the park again until he learns to come when call properly. It would not bother me so much about him off the leash in the wood but in the park he could run off to the road and get killed.
Next day we took him to the park on the leash. It was very misty that day. We used the extensible leash and tried to practice Recall with Pepper. We called him if he came he would get treats and get to chase the seagulls (still on the leash). HG ran with Pepper to chase seagulls. It was a good exercise for both of them. When we met other dogs we tried to make Pepper sit. If he sat we would take him to see those dogs. If he did not sit, we walked to the other way away from those dogs.
We came home yesterday morning. We had our lunch and took Pepper out to the wood for a walk. We decided to let him off the leash again. We let him run around for about 15 minutes before we started to call him to come for a check-in. When he came we gave him a biscuit. When he was in the wood he loved to find and get hold of any stick or twig. So I tried to use the stick as a bait to call him to come to me. It seemed to work. When he came to me I told him to sit and stay then I threw the stick. First time he started to move when I threw the stick but I said Ah! and he stopped. Then I told him to go get the stick. He would go and get the stick. We used so many sticks yesterday to play with him and we found out that he seemed to stay closed to us more when we played with him like this.
This morning Pepper threw up after his breakfast. I thought it might be because he ate too fast. He did not have diarrhea. He still wanted to eat when I offered him a kibble. Then he went to the door and told me that he wanted out. I took him to the wood. He did #2 and it was normal. He went to one bit in the wood tried to eat something. I went to see but I could not find anything suspicious, so I went back to the path and headed home. He ran to me and sat in front of me. I put on the leash and gave him a milky biscuit. Then I saw a black Labrador, her name is Beauty. Pepper and Beauty sniffed at each other for a while then her owner took her away. I walked Pepper back to the path and told him to sit. He sat nicely so I let him off the leash. He ran after Beauty. I walked to them and had a chat with Beauty’s owner. Pepper and Beauty looked very similar. Beauty is about 8 years old but she is still lively. She is a little bit bigger than Pepper. They went into the river together. Pepper had a lot of fun. He had quite a lot of exercise this morning. Then we put them back on the leash and walked along the path. Then we said goodbye to Beauty and her owner when they were at their house. Pepper walked back home with me on the leash perfectly.
