So I’ve Hunter back for almost two weeks, and things are going pretty well. We’ve got a pretty good routine going, and he’s going into his kennel when I ask him to, which is great. Previously I had to chase him around the house and physically put him in his kennel. He’d go run and jump onto my bed and look as cute as possible, trying to avoid it. But he’s happy there now. He actualy prefers to sleep in his kennel than anywhere else- around 11 or so every night he goes in there and curls up.
Every morning I wake up when he starts whining, around 7 or so. I feed the cat, then take Hunter out, bring him inside and feed him, shower while I make coffee, then we go on our walk:
It’s a nice walk, and if we leave by 7:45 or 8 we’ll run into a fair amount of dogs. Hunter is slowly learning not to completely flip out when we see another dog- he just sorta flips out. He did really well today, especially when a little, leashless, ownerless dog started following us down the street. I think I’m going to have to take him to some obedience lessons, which is a little hard to want to commit to given the temporary nature of our, um… relationship? But it’s probably a good idea.
We’ve started using the “Gentle Leader” collar when we go on walks. I didn’t much like the idea of it, but it makes walks so much easier. Rather than spending the entire time pulling, he pulls rarely and in very short bursts. It’s great. The only problem is that it, like putting him in the kennel, is something I never had to use with my dogs growing up and something that I’m still kind of uncomfortable with. I feel like if I were working harder with the training I could avoid the crazy collar and the 10+hours a day in the kennel. That said, growing up I had two dogs with a giant yard they always had access to, and the laundry room basically served as a high-ceilinged crate. So maybe it’s not that big of a deal.