Tuesday, February 21, 2012

What's Next?


Oh, I love to think about what is happening next. With Singer, she’s completed her intermediate family dog training class, and now the thought is looming in my mind:  What do we do with her now?

I have a yoga dog calendar in my office, and the February picture shows a pitbull doing the Cat-Cow pose, holding his left front paw forward and his back right paw in the opposite direction. Of course, these shots were probably Photo-shopped, but they are amusing. Yoga for dogs?

I asked the teacher after our last class on Saturday, who told me she isn’t quite ready for a class that I thought sounded intriguing:  Dog Park Class. She is still skittish around some other dogs—she gave a warning growl to a goofy, large Great Dane puppy, who at eighteen months is still a giant, and apparently threatening to Singer. I made her “apologize” to Finch, who is a very happy go lucky, lovable guy, by taking her over to him, and letting her sniff his huge jaws while I tightly held her leash. Hopefully, she realized, “Oops! He’s just a puppy yet, no danger here!” Finch’s owner was very understanding.

So we may consider taking an assessment class to see how Singer does around big dogs, since she had a scary incident at eighteen months where she was attacked by another dog. Or, we may just continue for a bit, and see what develops…

Singer is now allowed to roam the house with Dakota when we’re at work. My son comes home mid-afternoon and lets her out. But she bounds to the door when we come home, ready for a walk. She actually seems excited about her walks now.

Other developments:  she is braver coming towards the table now, and sniffs loudly when food is present. I keep pushing her away, although I don’t want to yell at her. Yet. And she sometimes climbs on the table to look out the window as we leave. Saylor used to do that, too. Irish setters love their people. And we love them!

1 comment:

Marianne said...

Oh she sounds sooo sweet. I'm glad she likes Dakota. My dog that I had when married to my first husband, was part setter and he definitely didn't like big dogs. He also did't like snowmen. He always barked at them and when they had melted down he would pee on them. It was really weird. You'd think he would have told from his sense of smell that the snowmen weren't really alive.