Good Progress

Duncan and I have made allot of progress this weekend. On Saturday, Hannah came over to visit us for several hours, and the two of them romped and played in the snow together. They seemed to have a great time. On Sunday, I gave Duncan his second thorough brushing. I brushed him out last Saturday and he did fairly well. He did a little better this weekend. Duncan does not like to be brushed. He has a "tender head" as we humans would call it I guess, and it frightens him if a sudden snag pulls a little to sharply. Glenn had told me I should use a muzzle when grooming him, and Duncan seems to handle it well. He accepts the muzzle calmly, and his demeanor changes to one of resignation. Though it's obvious that he doesn't care for the whole business, he lays back and lets me brush, only objecting when I accidentally catch a snag too hard. I've been able to line brush him and get a decent amount of his under coat detangled and loose hair cleared. I have not pushed him so far as to brush much of his belly or allot of his chest. However, I plan to work up to that during our next weekly brushing as he started letting me rub his belly this weekend! I was petting him and he stretched one of his back legs out exposing his belly for a nice rub. Certainly gaining trust! I really need to get him to a groomer in the next few weeks. His paws and toenails need serious attention, and a general neatening trim is in order as well. I'm a little nervous at how he'll handle this with how shy he is. Even with me he is hesitant to let me touch his legs and his feet. And having someone else groom him may prove interesting to say the least. Not to mention the fact that I still need to start working him on car rides, (which proved a bit difficult with my car in the shop at the moment.) But, I plan on visiting a couple different groomers coming up here shortly to see what experience they might have with shy dogs.

Duncan also went for his second and third walks this weekend too! Sunday afternoon the temperature got up over 30 degrees so I put his halter on him and we headed out the door. He went out the front door with no hesitation this time, but would almost immediately have another obstacle to over come. Down at the corner there were several boys taking advantage of the nice weather as well with a game of baseball (although they were using a tennis ball.) Duncan of course is very leafy of strangers, let alone a bunch of noisy boys moving around allot. There was no way for us to avoid them if we were to go on our walk, so we had to go past them. Actually, they were spread out all over the street with their game, so we had to go right in among them. It took some encouraging on my part, but Duncan made it through the group with just a few hesitations. I was so proud of him! Fortunately, none of the boys asked to pet him; something I'm sure would have been a little too much for Duncan quite yet. During the rest of our walk (a short trip around the block as we had with Hannah last week) I was diligent about keeping Duncan on my left. He has a strong tendency to try and pass behind me over to the right side. I gently pulled him back to the left each time, and by the end of our walk he was pulling over to the right much less often. Due to the holiday, I had Monday off from work. The temperature rose to over 50 degrees so we headed out again. Though he still wanted to move over to the right occasionally, it was much easier to keep him on the left. And even when he did pull to the right, it was much easier and quicker to get him to come back over to the left. There were quite a few periods where he trotted along very nicely for several minutes on my left without any correction, seeming to very much enjoy his walk. It was so nice out, and Duncan was doing so well, that we even extended our distance by a couple of blocks. At one point, there was a man standing out in his front yard that made Duncan hesitate, but he got past him with some encouragement. Then, near the end of our walk, I noticed up a head another woman walking towards us on the same side of the street that we were on. Duncan slowed down when he noticed her, but kept walking. I was able to encourage him and got him to walk right past her! He is doing so well! I do believe that Duncan is going to make a wonderful walking companion. I plan to continue walking in the neighborhood here as often as the weather is nice. I will have to work on his socialization with other people, but I believe I'll even be able to start taking him down to a couple of the local parks with walking paths starting this spring. He will encounter people there much more often than here in the neighborhood, but I do believe he will eventually be able to handle that. And then eventually, places like Petco!

There was also another small accomplishment this weekend. Duncan decided to steal my seat in the living room again and jumped up into my chair. I sat on the arm of the chair next to him for a few minutes petting him, and then I picked him up and slid under him setting him back down on my lap. He only laid there for a few minutes, but I was impressed with the fact that he even let me pick him up and put him on my lap. I have not picked him up for the past week or so because it seemed to make him so nervous. I am just so proud of how incredibly well he seems to be doing!