Since joining the ranks of the newly unemployed, I have faltered around a bit, perhaps napping when I shouldn’t, perhaps not following a schedule conducive to bettering myself. Well, that all stopped this morning. I am getting back in the routine of taking Schatzi, my German shepherd, for a walk around a nearby school.
Schatzi is a rescued dog, and who knows what her schedule was like before she came to live with us six years ago. When we got her, she was pitifully skinny – so skinny that her skin hung down around her stomach in loose, flabby folds. We set about the task of fattening her up – I say “we” but I really mean “I.” Not sure why the care and feeding of the living things in my house falls to me, but it does.
When I first started walking Schatzi after she became a member of the family, it was not a pleasant experience for me. She walked me, not the other way around. I had to wrap her leash around my waist to prevent any chance of her escaping. After our walk, I would have deep grooves in my waist from being pulled the whole way.
I heard about the “Gentle Leader,” a special training tool that helped dogs like Schatzi not to pull. The GL goes across the top of the dog’s nose and latches behind the ears. The idea is that when the dog starts pulling, the leader presses down on top of the nose. Dogs are not supposed to like it.
Well, Schatzi didn’t like it at all. She felt the thing across her nose and tried to use her paws to scrape it off. It didn’t really seem to affect her pulling that much – at least not at much as it seemed to affect the dogs in the GL’s training video.
Anyway, that’s how Schatzi and I go for a walk nowadays. She is usually in my room, sniffing around my bed first thing, wondering if I’m ever going to get up and take her for a WALK. This morning, she came in, saw that I was snoozing, and went back outside to bark at the air.
I got up, got her leash and clicked the clip attachment a few times. Schatzi came tearing through the doggy door and started flipping out when she saw that I had my SNEAKERS on. She started nipping at my hands, legs, wherever she could, imploring me to hurry up! I got the GL on her and put her into a SIT-STAY, and after a few minutes, I gave her the OK sign and she came a-running.
Schatzi is very interesting to watch. As she charges ahead, she weaves to the left and the right, lest something escape her notice. She sniffs everything, hears everything. She occasionally sees other dogs (code yellow), squirrels (doesn’t even care), or her nemeses, kitty cats (CODE RED – DANGER!). Along the short route, she marks her territory several times, and seems exhausted by the time we get home. She has a weird habit of trying to climb into the water bowl when she gets home, I guess her feet get hot.
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