Training session & bonkers springer spaniels

We went to see Mike at Cheshire Canine Services on Sunday afternoon.  The thing with having a second hand dog is that you don't know all of their history and so it is always good to get reassurance from an expert to make sure there are no hidden behaviour patterns

So  after a little bit of looking at how we interact wih Leelu, all he could say was what a great dog he was and it was a shame that we didn't get him when he was 2! All credit must go to his previous owners along with a great big thank you!

Mike got out a succession of immaculately trained dogs as we had expressed our  concern with Leelu's reaction to other dogs.  Some interesting behaviour reactions mainly to the big shouty dominant german shepherd who ignored him but was still big and noisy and the beautiful but crazy Bob who is a young springer and wanted to interact with him.  The verdict? He's just antisocial.  Fair enough, we can relate to that!

When we are out with him and we meet another dog, Leelu generally keeps a short distance away but is always happier if he has the tennis ball of strength or the frisbee of happiness in his mouth or if he can hide behind our legs until the appproaching monster has safely passed by.

We went to stay with a friend last weekend and they also have a young springer who just wanted to play and play and... Needless to say, Leelu didn't. They had a couple of snaps at each other but also had to share the same house.  We managed it by keeping them in separate areas otherwise Dylan constantly wanted to rush over and mither him (read that as hump / play / steal tennis ball) and Leelu got very unsettled and started doing protective snarling , i.e. keep out of my space.  When I took them out walking together they were better because there was space and they could do their own thing although it was exhausting from my point of view throwing 2 tennis balls constantly in oposite directions!  Anyway I did manage to get the pair of them in one photos which was an impressive feat in itself!

Kennels weren't so bad after all!

Exactly 3 weeks after Leelu cam to live with us, it was half term for J, he is a teacher.

We had finally got enough money in the holiday fund pot and had already booked an exciting short adventure to visit Tromso in northern Norway with the hope of seeing the northern lights, adventures in the snow and husky dog sledding (there are pics on my Google+ page if you're interested!).  The original 'plan' of finally realising that we could have a dog now that J was now working locally and part time (rather than in different parts of the UK and Europe) was that we could start looking around with a view to getting one after we had been away.  Well as you know by now that didn't happen and sometimes that is just the way it is and you have to deal with it.

Farndon kennels is a lovely local kennels with the owners also having border collies and one of the guys having 10 dogs of his own, proper dog lovers!  So Leelu and I got in the car and went for a lovely walk down by the river near the kennels:

While I filled in paperwork at the kennels, Sam enticed Leelu away by giving him a doggie treat then picking up the tennis ball and walking off with him.  Beautifully done with no stress to the dog but oh....

We had a fabulous time in Norway but the first evening in Norway we walked past a shop with a reindeer art piece in the window with exactly the same eyes as the dog - oh we felt bad!

Apart from feeling a bit guilty about the dog, Norway was great and apart from the £10 a pint, a fantastic country!

We landed Friday early afternoon and went straight to the kennels.  Sam went to get Leelu who quite happily wandered out sniffing all around.  He didn't see us until we called him and then that was it, he was like glue, he was clearly delighted to see us and wanted lots of cuddles and was happy that we came back!  Because of our concern about Leelu and other dogs (quite terrified!), the people at the kennels had let him out firstly with their border collies and also with some other passive dogs and we think that has helped him although we weren't there to witness it.

So there are some positives to him going in kennels:  He now knows that he definitely lives with us and that we did come back and hadn't abandoned him (if only you could explain to them!).  As a result he is a more confident within himself and started to boss us around a little bit more!  We are doing lots of work on 'no, we go out of the door / gate / over the stile first, you go second.  He's still not great with other dogs and tends to hide / try to get away from any that show any interest in him.  On the up side, he has no problem getting in and out of the car now as he knows it is usually going somewhere exciting, either for a walk or to my parents who have a big garden and where he will get another walk!

On top of all that we finally got out on our first mountain since I had a microdiscectomy operation on my back in November.  Ok only just a mountain and easily accessible but that's not the point, you have to start somewhere.  So here we are (on a very windy day!), well on the way to being a mountain climbing dog:

We also got him a new bed which he seems to love so all is well!