When I decided to become a dog trainer, the last thing I expected was that I would spend so much time advising people to do less with their dogs but that seems to have become a thing; do less, worry less, enjoy them more… take the pressure off. Last week, Skye had a few steps I wasn’t happy about when we were out on a walk, he had also just been a bit grumpy with another entire male greeting Indi on a walk, nothing major but a little out of character for my laid back boy so I got my amazing vets to check him out and they agreed he was a little sore on his left hind leg around his stifle area; we made a plan for him to have pain meds and restricted exercise for a week and see how he was after that. The consequence of this was that Indi also had a very quiet week, she has been with us four months now and has gone from a dog that was terrified of everything and couldn’t leave the house to one that we now (almost) treat like a normal dog… well normal for a collie; if you know, you know. She also had a bit of a tummy upset last weekend, so it wouldn’t be the end of the world for her to take it easy either.
Observations of both young, active (crazy) collies having a week of hardly (for them) being walked:
1. No one died.
2. No one got crazier.
3. They both progressively became more chilled.
4. Today on a more normal (slightly longer) walk, they were both happy, sniffy, relaxed dogs.
Indi was the biggest change, she spent the last 3 days mainly sleeping on the sofa, she wasn’t showing signs of being unwell but I worried anyway, I have never seen this busy little dog so relaxed. On her walk today she was attentive and engaged, checking in without prompting, the sparrows were only mildly irritating, her recall was awesome and she was offering “sits” and “paws up” to earn rewards. It got me thinking that maybe I need to take my own advice more literally sometimes, a chilled week was obviously what she needed right at this moment. Almost accidentally, we may have taken another huge leap forward. I can’t put into words how proud I am of this little munchkin.
Skye was also feeling the benefit but I think for him it was more physical, we should never underestimate how much pain can pay into their stress buckets and they can be very stoical so it can be hard to spot sometimes. We will reduce the pain meds for him now and slowly increase the exercise levels over the next few weeks but I will be super vigilant for any repeat of those “dodgy” steps and we will do more investigations if we need to.
All of us enjoying being out in the woods as the leaves are starting to change brought to mind the Danish concept of hygge, I think my dogs have embraced that this week… we can learn a lot from dogs!
