Animals & posing for photos

Since my last update I've had several good walks with Molly. Most of them were round the village & the fields in a neighbouring village. But we also explored a different village & went to a local nature reserve. We'd done one route there before but tried a different, longer one this time. We're both feeling tired & are aware of how much we waffle sometimes so are going to try summarising the interesting events from our recent walks in bullet points & photos.

~ I met cows for the first time! They were huge! One of them was very friendly & came too close for my liking so I ran away & barked at it.

~ I watched sheep from a distance.

~ I got close to sheep again. I was very well behaved & didn't bark at them, just watched. They came towards me for a closer look & then ran away.

~ I flushed a pheasant out of a field!

~ I had a couple of short sessions off lead when Molly thought the environment was clear enough of distractions. On one occasion I was brilliant but on the other I saw a rabbit which I had to chase & Molly nearly lost me because I pretended not to hear her! Luckily I decided not to chase it down the ditch.

~ But I did return to Molly when she called me after I jumped through a hole in a wire fence to do some exploring.

~ As well as being hit & miss with my recall I've also had mixed success with other commands & sometimes I even pretend I don't understand "sit"!

~ But I've done some fantastic stays at gates (both ones we're familiar with & new ones) while Molly goes through first. We also did one that opened towards me rather than away from me for the first time.

~ Molly tried getting me to "stay" for some photos. I didn't always do as she asked (& when I did, I often wanted to get back to exploring before she released me) but we did get a few nice photos.

^ Sorry this one is a bit blurry

~ I got bored sitting at the kerb (which I do automatically) so dashed out into the road. Luckily the oncoming car driver was on the ball & slowed down. Oops!

~ I've done quite a lot of sitting or flopping when I've been hot or tired. Molly has discovered that if she starts to walk on without me I'll often start moving again because I don't want to be left behind!

~ Usually when we see other dogs Molly tries to distract me with food, which sometimes works & sometimes doesn't.

~ On one occasion it looked like I'd have to meet a couple of dogs on a narrow path so Molly took me into a field to avoid them.

~ On another occasion we changed direction to avoid meeting dogs on a narrow path but silly Molly wasn't paying attention to where we were going so didn't notice a cat until I was just a few feet from it! It arched its back & hissed at me but Molly wouldn't let me chase it. Humph!
 ~ We sometimes pass a fence that I know a noisy dog lives behind so I've got into the habit of lunging & barking at this specific fence whether the dog is there or not. Last time we passed Molly encouraged me (with the use of food) to stay "close" as we passed & so I only made one little whine & lunge.
~ A dog passed us but its owner was nowhere to be seen. Molly got worried & took some photos of the dog in case it was missing (she couldn't have taken it with us due to my reactivity) but then we spotted its owner in the distance. We didn't stick around because Molly thought she'd get cross with him!
~ I met a 15 year old Westie who was surprisingly patient when I jumped on him!

~ Sometimes I ignore people we pass & sometimes I'm desperate to say "hello" to them. Molly can't work out what the difference is.
~ I wanted to chase joggers who passed but Molly wouldn't let me.

~ Molly collected me from her younger brother who'd taken me on a walk & then to meet his friend. When I saw Molly I ran to meet her but got tangled up in my lead & did a flip! I wasn't hurt but it made everyone laugh.

~ We passed a really noisy tanker & I wasn't bothered at all.

Here are a few more photos from our walks:

^ Molly said she likes my ears in this photo!

I had a good walk with Molly's dad when we explored a new place. I love him lots, especially after he gave me some pigeon hearts! Yum yum! I like to show him how much I love him by chewing his socks, hehe! I also chewed Molly's mum's shoes but that was her fault for not shutting them away!

I had lots of fun when the chickens got out into the veg patch while Molly's dad was vacuuming out their nest box. I didn't know whether to run up & down the fence to try to play with the chickens, to bark at the vacuum cleaner, to try to find out what Molly's dad was doing or to play with the vacuum cleaner power cable! So I alternated between them all.

With our training in the house, Molly has been alternating between some of the commands I know so I have to keep listening to her, rather than just doing the same thing over & over. I don't have a very long concentration span though so after just a few minutes sometimes I forget even the basics, like "sit". But last time we tried it I did really well & didn't get a single command wrong. Molly was very impressed with me!

Molly keeps persisting with trying to groom my coat. I was quite good at letting her brush me one day & didn't mouth her as much as I usually do. Molly tries to get all the plant material out of my fur after every walk before it gets too matted in. I like trying to help by chewing at it but Molly said I make her job harder. She cut some matts out of the fur on my tummy because I get distressed when she tries to work them out & its not visible if I have bits of fur missing on my underside. Molly has also discovered some big matts under my arms which she suspects are probably caused by my harness rubbing the fur there. She's started trying to work them out but still needs to do more when I'm not too wriggly.

One final photo - aren't I cute?!