Day 7  -  23^rd September

Lewi seems to be much more active this morning, perhaps it’s that I am feeling a bit under the weather and it’s all a bit more effort than usual. When you live on your own, it’s easy, really, to give up and wallow in any little illnesses. No chance of that with Lewi about!! He has to be fed, watered, toileted, played with at regular intervals. No time to feel unwell.

I’ve not applied the tick medicine yet. The instructions recommend putting it on at night so that children can’t get it on their hands. That doesn’t apply here as there are no children around and I was worried about it getting on his bedding and him licking it up. So I have to wait for a calm moment when he’s awake and up and try to do it then. So he has to be awake, quiet, standing (the instructions specify that) and then get it on his skin on the shoulder… Think I might need a bit of help so I’ll wait till Charlotte comes round.

He has managed a new feat today. Normally he can go out into the garden through the patio door, but the step up is a little bit high for him to come back in that way, he has to run round to the conservatory and back door to come in that way. This morning, he was stood with his front paws on in the patio door and back ones on the patio. He wanted to get inside to play, I called him round to come in the way he can manage but did he want to do it the easy way?  He backed up a few paces and ran and leapt at it, and he made it. That saves me a job. I was going to put a small step there.

I decided, in the end, to apply the tick and flea potion. He was surprisingly co-operative. I had memories of many years ago having to apply similar stuff to a cat, that was a very dangerous thing to do. Lewi stood very still and allowed me to part the fur on his shoulder and put the stuff on. Not a murmur or wriggle at all. He’s a good boy my Lewi. I must admit I was worried about using it, the vets had stressed how toxic the stuff is, I was sure I’d get it all over the place.

After lunch I decided I needed a nap to try to recover a bit. I thought going to bed in the daytime was a bit too lazy (and I would not wake up until too late) so tried to settle on the settee. Lewi, I must admit, was a bit of a pest, he normally sleeps at that time, but decided that I looked too comfortable. So I put a cushion on the floor as a pillow and settled down there. He decided that as neither an attack on my hair nor a cold wet tongue and nose in my ear were getting a response, he might as well join me. We had a very cosy hour snuggled up together.

We have been learning the word NO today. I was desperately searching for something and Lewi decided he would help, looking in the drawer with me and sorting the papers I removed. It took 2 or 3 times for him to cotton on that anything on top of the coffee table is Human stuff – dogs not allowed. Actually it was quite funny, I had taken some papers out of the drawer and put them on the table and his head peeped over the top as he tried to grab them, a sharp no made him pull back and give me an offended look. He decided that the no only referred to one side of the table and went round the other side to try again. The second no was enough to ensure generalisation of the learning – till next time anyway. Having Lewi is certainly making me a much tidier sort of person, everything getting put away all the time.

His experience with the hoover the other day was certainly effective learning. When I got it out today, he decided his crate was a nice place to be. He sat there so alert watching every move I made, but wouldn’t come out until I put the hoover away.

He likes to pull the Vetbed off his bed, and often ends up with it upside down, that can’t be as comfortable as the furry side, but there’s no accounting for taste. As I was hoovering and tidying his things I came across some little treasures under the upside down vetbed – a small half eaten snail. Not a pleasant find at all. How do you stop him doing that? Should you stop him?

No puddles today. I remember reading in one of my books on learning in dogs that often when trying to remove unacceptable behaviours that when the new learning is becoming established there is often a burst of the behaviour that you are trying to eliminate. I hope that’s what the previous little outbreak of puddles was about.

I must finish today with a cautionary tale. At the vets’ yesterday, there was a letter from one of the vet’s clients. He had a husky. He had bought a hot precooked chicken from the supermarket which came in a heat insulating bag. After taking the chicken out, he put the bag in a tall swing lid bin in the kitchen. The dog had obviously smelt the cooked meat on the bag, got it out of the bin and tried to lick the juices from the inside of the bag. The bag, of course, was as impermeable as a polythene one, the dog was suffocated. A lesson there for all of us. My kitchen bin is in a cupboard with a toddler proof lock on the door. I must admit, my reasons for that were convenience, to save having to clear up over turned bins, when I empty it the contents go in a sack in a dustbin the other side of the puppy gate outside.