Baggy's daily state!
Depression (Black = really bad/Grey = not great/Blue = okay/Yellow = sunny day): Yellow.
Anxiety (From 1 = barely any to 10 = gibbering wreck standard): 2.
Tears: No.
Overall day(s): Active.
Last night the inevitable happened - blood was drawn! Furry Mama is not sure what happened. The Domestic Goddess was cooking supper with Pepper Pooch watching her. Hinge arrived. Pepper got up to say, "Hello", and Hinge walked over to him and head-butted him under the chin. Awwww! The Goddess carried on cooking. Hinge wandered off down the hall. Pepper followed her. Suddenly there was a commotion and Pepper came hurtling backwards into the kitchen and then shot into the sitting room. Furry Mama followed him. He was sitting on the sofa licking his nose. Clever Bird realised that his little white beard was bright red - there was blood pouring from his chin! Furry Mama never thought when she rescued Pepper that she'd be protecting him from the cats!
At some point during the night the Hinge cat came and slept with Furry Mama on her bed. At 6.30am Pepper whimpered and woke Baggy up, so Furry Mama opened his crate. He stretched then had a scratch on the rug, before deciding to hop on the bed. When he realised that Hinge was on the other side of Furry Mama, he stopped dead. Hinge hissed. Furry Mama told her off. Pepper lay down. Hinge purred. Everyone went back to sleep for two hours. Furry Mama is optimistic that everyone will eventually become friends!
Baggy needed to go into town to check whether her clothes had sold at the Dress Agency shop. Furry Mama decided that she and Pepper should walk there. They went the short route (about two miles), the first part along a little village road and then on a footpath by a busy main road into town. Clever Bird decided that training was required: don't let Pepper haul Furry Mama along, get him to walk to heel. Number one furry practised this on Sunday in Southwold as Furry Mama couldn't do it! It's simple in class, without lots of scary things happening and with Baggy holding a fistful of treats under Pepper's nose, out in the big wide world, not so much. But Calum's efforts at the weekend, and a highly intelligent dog, meant that today he walked to heel like a professional! They then cut through the park, ball chasing all the way, before reaching town. The lad then walked to heel through the town centre! Just four weeks and the town is no longer a terrifying place! Baggy was delighted to get paid £88 for a few of her things that had sold, and the owner wanted to keep the rest to put on sale in the spring. Just as well really, as Clever Bird hadn't actually factored in carrying any unsold items home again!
Off to the café for their cheese scone sharing! Furry Mama was so proud of the pooch. No hurtling away in panic. No tail between his legs. No jumping on the table. Even when his nemesis, a man unloading a van parked a few feet from them, he just lay where he was. Just a sweet little, chilled-out dog, who had three separate people comment on what a "well-behaved" boy he is!
Now Furry Mama would like to take the credit for this, but actually, he is just a poppet who is so clever that he virtually trains himself. Mind you, he's so clever that he's developing a few naughty tricks too. The latest one being to run off when he realises that Furry Mama has finished throwing the ball and needs to put him back on the lead! Shortly after Creative Clara took the photo below, Pepper realised he was going to be put back on the lead and disappeared up onto the old railway line above this bridge! Monkey!
Last night, much to Freda Fretter's horror, he decided that he needed to go and make friends with the large herd of cows they walked past! He totally ignored every command Furry Mama gave, and more worryingly her restart of ball throwing, and headed off, tail wagging to the cattle. They in turn all started to walk to the fence. The fence made of two very thin wires - presumably electrified. By the time he had got to the fence with Baggy in slow pursuit (as she didn't want to cause a stampede), there were about ten calves lined up looking at him, with their mums and their mahoosive dad, watching on! Pepper stuck his head under the wire. Freda nearly fainted in fear - was he going to get zapped or trampled? One calf snorted. Pepper froze. Baggy froze. The cattle froze. Pepper turned round, away from the cattle. Phew! Baggy breathed. Furry Mama went to put his lead on and Pepper shot off again. Grrrrrr! But at least it was away from the cattle. Furry Mama got his ball back out and Pepper came close enough to get his lead on. Monkey.
But his cleverness is impressive! As Baggy is on her own most of the time, she does talk out loud to herself and to the furries. But she hadn't realised just how predictable her conversation must be. "Okay Peps, we'll go out in a minute, I just need to go to the loo first". At which point Pepper gets up and leads Baggy into the bathroom! While throwing his ball to the point where he is panting like a train, Furry Mama will say, "Have a rest for a minute", and Pepper lies down. When he's being a total monkey, pinching things or jumping up on surfaces, Baggy puts her hands on her hips, raises her eyebrows and says "Really?", Pepper sits! He's learnt the command, "Back", just because Baggy says it a lot to get him out of the way; he reverses up. He also already understands, "Get out of the way" and "On your bed". So when Furry Mama says, "Right, you're getting tired, this is the last one", when she's been throwing his ball, he now looks at her, and shoots off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And this is the dog that was given up because amongst other things "he is untrainable"!
It does make even Freda Fretter optimistic that eventually Pepper may get over his separation anxiety..........
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