Rusty and Chloe are finally home – Progress Week 4

What a wonderful week we’ve had. Dogs are super happy and everyone is starting to settle in to the new idea of a family of four. Can’t believe how far we have come over the last few weeks.  The dogs are in a routine and they are regular with everything they do. We have long walks in the evenings and I sometimes go on my own. It is much better when it is both of us, but either way it is great.

We bought one extendable lead to see how the dogs like it, as we didn’t want to waste money on two if we were not going to use them. It seems that the dogs love it and walks are a lot easier. I am sure we will get another one so both of them can walk around on their own. It is quite convenient to have these when we are on the open fields as they can explore the area without pulling on the lead. It is also nice when we run around with them to give ourselves a gap to run. These two little animals are super fast and it is truly amazing much stamina they have.

We went to the fields with our neighbor and his dog Luna and it was not that great as she is so submissive that Rusty and Chloe just want to stand over her and growl. When we were in the field Luna, was running around and played with the other dogs, but we had to hold onto Rusty and Chloe, as they wanted to attack all the other dogs. It is a little embarrassing and not to say the least frustrating.

I posted on one of the Pet forums about our problem and after receiving quite a bit of advise we are now meeting up with another pet owner this weekend to see if we can do a bit of socializing with more ‘secure’ dogs. It seems that they need a bit of being ‘put in their place’ and I will blog about this next week. A little nervous but I hope we achieve something with it.

We have also signed them up at a Dog day care to teach them some further social skills. This Woof Day Care has everything. They have a field to run around, a chill out area, a play area and then of course the time out area for naughty dogs. I think Rusty might find himself in there A LOT!  Looking forward to seeing if this will help and feeling confident that every little bit we do is a step closer to being successful in teaching them social skills.

I love our family and I hope to over time, get better at being a dog owner.