Leaving the lead...

It's the moment when my body decides to detonate almost every counter productive reaction that's within it's power.  It starts with my face burning and my eyes watering.  Then, there's the shaking hands, so unsteady that I can't unclip the fastening.  Then, there's my heart, beating so fast that I think I'm going to faint.  Perhaps it's good that these things happen.  I suppose that it means I care about what I'm about to do.

To unclick or not to unclick that is the question...

Sometimes, I lean down to unclick the lead and then stand up again, thinking better of the situation.  Sometimes I unclick it and then think better of the idea and clip it back on 5 seconds later.  Sometimes, if I'm feeling brave the whole head collar comes off but, more often, the headcollar stays on.  I'm not sure how that's supposed to stop him running after things but it gives me, at the very least, some sense of control.

'It's not fair - you take me off then you make me sit!'

What's my worst fear?  Oddly, it's that he runs over to and bothers another dog and owner.  Caesar has a very lumbersome and clumsy approach to everything and would fly at other people and dogs as if he were a miniature poodle - I don't think he always realises that he weighs almost twenty-five kilograms.  This worry is slightly ironic given that the same often happens to me when I have him on the lead.  I haven't got enough fingers to count the amount of times I've ended up wrapped up with Caesar screaming because someone else has let their dog bother us.  Or had to drag him backwards down a path to get away from the dog that is trying to sniff him.

Has anxiety made me too protective and controlling?  Or am I simply doing my duty as a responsible owner?  Perhaps I'll never know where the line lies.

Woohooooo!!!

Two steps forward...

I'm the queen of procrastinating.  If I know that I have to do something, I find every other important thing to do before I address the important task.  Yesterday, I had lots of work to do so naturally I; updated my blog, called my parents, visited my parents, went to the supermarket, visited my grandparents and finally arrived home with two trees for the planters which I then intended to plant.  This is when I got a text message asking if I wanted to go out tomorrow.  I did.  So I thought to myself 'Come on Sian, if you want to go out tomorrow, you really must get some work done.'  

'OK.  Now what needs to be done?'  I checked my blog stats, my emails, my social network.  These were not things that needed to be done.  "Shall we take the dogs for a walk?"  It was now eight o'clock and, since sitting down to 'get things done' at ten in the morning, I had done none of my work.  However, after yesterday's success, I was keen to show Damien how well behaved Caesar could be.  I was going to take him off the lead on the beach.  It was bound to be fairly quiet at this time of night and I, if a dog did appear, at least we could be confident he wasn't going to hurt it, at least not purposefully.

Unfortunately, there were more people on the beach than I had anticipated and I walked Caesar for a while on his lead.  Eventually, I found a stretch of deserted beach and hastily unclipped him.  The sky was darkening and the sand filled with shadowy shapes.  Is that a dog or a piece of flotsam?  Did I just see something moving?

It was hard to make out the shapes on the beach.

After a while, I suggested we turned around.  Time was moving on and the beach was getting darker.  Soon it would be hard to find our way back to the car.  In the distance there were two shapes.  They appeared to belong to a couple of teenagers who we had passed earlier.  They were playing on the sand.  Caesar was impeccably behaved and trotted only a few metres away before returning for a treat.  "Good boy!" I'd say in my comedy voice handing him a smelly piece of meat.  These treats stunk and I was pretty sure they weren't good for him, but, at the end of the day, he responds to them because he loves them and he knows when I've got one because it stinks.  "I wonder how fast he can run..." Damien mused as Caesar came haring back to us for treats.

Caesar, where are you going?

A little further down the beach, Caesar's ears pricked up.  He could see something that interested him.  I looked around but there was nothing apart from the teenagers running back and forth.  I assumed he had mistaken a nearby piece of tree for another animal and carried on walking.  The next moment, Damien's question had been answered and Caesar took off at a sprint towards the running teenagers.  Panic stricken, and remembering the time that he took me down on the same stretch of sand by lunging at my legs, I bellowed for him to come back but he just kept running.  Luckily, the two shapes seemed to know what to do, they stopped running and began to walk towards Caesar, perhaps offering to bring him back.  The instant that they stopped, he was no longer insterested, he turned on his heel and galloped back towards me and Damien, the thrill of the chase was gone.  My heart returned to normal pace after a few minutes and I immediately clipped Caesar's lead to him.  "You silly dog!"

Not what you want to see running towards you
at full speed!

I couldn't believe, when we had seen the light at the end of the tunnel with one problem, we immediately come across another.  Is there no end to his antics?

Does your dog chase?  Have you or your dog ever been chased?  What would your reaction be to seeing a dog running after you?  Let me know in the comments section.