I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts." ~ John Steinbeck Yesterday's Entries 2000: Fiascos and Other Fun Stuff
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CATCH ME IF YOU CAN 29 June 2004 Well, after nearly a month, I guess Sheila is feeling at home here and she’s starting to show her oats. My normal routine when taking her for a walk is to put her on leash before we leave the house, and take her off leash when we get to the drainage channel. Then on our walk, I call her back to me several times, each time giving her a treat. As we get near the end of the walk, I call her, put her on leash so she won't run out into the street when we get out of the channel, and give her a treat. Two days ago, when I called her to put her back on the leash, she tried to get away from me as I reached my hand for her collar. and when I got hold of the collar, she immediately lay down to make it more difficult for me to reach the hook. Yesterday, the second-to-last time I called her for a treat before the time when I’d put the leash on her, she knew we were coming close to the end of the walk. She came and sat down but far enough away from me that I couldn’t reach her. When she saw I didn’t have the leash in my hand, she came forward for a treat. I should have put her on leash then, but didn’t. When I called her the next time she refused to come and took off up the path out of the channels and went running free. She came when I called her and got into the car all right, but not before running out in the street which can become busy. When we got home, she always goes right to the door and gets let in, I take the leash off of her, she goes to the kitchen to get a treat. Yesterday since she didn’t have the leash on, instead of running to the door, she ran across the street. She came back immediately when I called her. So this morning she wakes me up at 5:30 and I get up, get dressed and ready to take her for a walk. We go to the front door and she’s all excited like usual. I get the leash and she absolutely refuses to have it put on. She’ll come when I call her but as soon as I reach out my hand, she slinks off. I worked for 5 minutes and she absolutely would not come near me, even for a treat. She was acting like I'd been beating her with the leash, which, of course, I have not. I refused to go for a walk. So we are at a stalemate. I sure can’t figure out why she’s suddenly so adamant that she will NOT be put on leash unless it’s that we went for a nice walk in the arboretum with two friends and since she can’t run free in the arboretum, she couldn’t be off leash and perhaps she’s worried that will happen again. Obviously it’s time to do a LOT of leash work, which I didn’t think we’d need to do. But if today she’s at her most aggravating, yesterday she was at her most endearing. Before we got Sheila, she had a puppy. She’s a big dog so you’d think she’d have more than one, but they guesstimated that she only had one because she was too young to give birth yet. But some nasty ol’ male knocked her up and there she was. They had to bottle feed the puppy because she didn’t have enough milk. I don’t know if they kept the puppy and Sheila in the same foster home or if they separated them. I know the foster home had "a" puppy, but whether it was hers or not, I don’t know. The puppy’s name is Hamilton and he’s now 8 weeks old and has been staying with a foster family which is considering adopting him. But they wanted to see Sheila first before making up their minds. I invited them to bring the puppy here. From the moment they walked through the door, Sheila was like a different dog. She must have recognized his smell and from the first minute she was licking him and petting him with her long paws. They were so beautiful together. I’ve never seen her be so gentle.
They spent some time in reunion and then ran around a little bit and then she did something else I’ve never seen her do, especially with another dog only here a few minutes--usually when her excitement is at its peak. She went under a bush and lay down and let him climb all over her. It was heartbreakingly tender. As a mother, I found it brought tears in my eyes to see her reunited with her son. They say that dogs forget, but this is a dog who remembered, I’m sure. Whether she made the connection between having given birth to him or not, she definitely knew there was something special about this little puppy. I don’t know if the family is going to keep "Hammie," as they’re calling him, but I’ve invited them to bring him here any time, if he wants a play date with his mom. It’s for sure I’m not taking her there unless I can get her to sit still to have the damn leash put on her!!! |
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Sheila's son, Hamilton |
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Created 6/28/04
