May 12, 2003
(she's lookingover my shoulder to watch her friends playing)
10:00 p.m.
We were up early this morning to go to the vet's for Dusty follow-up appointment (for the spay). The vet was happy with Dusty's healing and she was very patient with all of the poking and prodding, though she did wiggle around quite a bit when the vet was listening to her heartbeat.
I decided to go ahead and get the vaccination for Leptosporosis. This is a disease that's common in wildlife and it's passed to dogs through the urine of infected animals. Though we live in a city, it's a city filled to the brim with wildlife (thanks to our parks and ravines - but no, I'm not complaining!). Since Dusty and I often go to High Park (and it's practically a wilderness area in parts) I thought it would be a good precaution.
Also got a summer's course of 'Revolution' - a heartworm, flea and tick preventative - since I was already spending money. Ack, it's expensive!
After all of our terrific walks yesterday, I had high hopes for today. We actually *did* have a great walk in the morning, but in the afternoon, Dusty decided to be on her absolutely worst behaviour.
I've been teaching Dusty 'leave it.' (ie: if she sees food on the sidewalk, I cue her to leave it and move along) She was doing SO well with this over the past couple of days, but this afternoon, she completely disregarded every cue I gave her and was literally trying to eat everything in sight! It was so frustrating!
I gave up on walking her at that point and just took her inside. In the evening, I tried another walk and she was back to her happy, co-operative self! No rhyme or reason! Is this adolescent behaviour or some fault on my part (perhaps I've introduced variable reinforcement too soon?). At any rate, it's frustrating.
On a happy note, the loose leash walking is going REALLY well. On our walks today, Dusty pulled on the leash so rarely, that I actually forgot to monitor it. She also did a marvelous sit-stay with a big black labrador retriever walking within inches of her on the sidewalk. Yay!