Puppy Steps

Little Betty has quickly become one of the family.  She's bright, funny, affectionate and keeps us very entertained. She and Polly are now firm friends, spending much of their day playing tug and bitey face together, then snuggling together when they're worn out; they really are a daft pair, great fun to watch. Betty has without doubt, reinvigorated Polly's inner puppy!

As she's now completed her course of inoculations, we decided to try Betty on her first short walk along the road to our local playing field yesterday and I am happy to say, she had a lovely time! She wasn't in the least bit concerned about the big wide world, taking everything in her rather bouncy stride, tail wagging excitedly and daft grin on her face the whole time. 

Luckily the playing field was completely empty when we arrived, so our girls had a chance to play chase together and we had a perfect opportunity to practice a few recalls with them; I've decided it's best to start recall training as early as possible this time!  Betty's recall was super speedy and Polly, keen not to be shown up by her baby sister, paid close attention and raced back when called too ... not quite as quickly as 'Betty-come-come' though!

Betty-Come-Come!

So that's the first lead walk done and dusted and I was delighted with how well it went. The spot of lead training I've been doing in the garden to help Betty acclimatize to wearing harness and lead, paid off.  I have absolutely no idea how I will manage walking both girls together on my own in the future (given that I have never walked two dogs together before!) but as I don't plan to attempt that until Betty is used to walking on a lead and ready to take longer walks, I won't be worrying about it just yet. Hopefully I will work out a practical walking schedule for both girls in due course, but meanwhile, when Dad's home to help us, we'll weave in a short daily play walk for both girls to enjoy together and Polly will of course, continue her usual daily walks with me.

Small steps and a new learning curve, but I'm sure we'll gradually sort everything out and have plenty of fun along the way!

:-)