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!
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