Moving on to another day in the Gina, Azzie and Odin Adventure…

We made it through a night without him in his crate! Last night, as promised, I decided to just trust in him, and I let him stay out of his crate at bed time. He was very pleased with himself and he rolled around on his… I mean.. GINA’S bed and made snuffly noises and had a big sigh of happiness and then went to sleep in seconds. I was, of course, alert all night to the slightest sound, but he pretty much stayed asleep until around 0300 or 0400 (I don’t know when exactly it was, as I was too tired by that stage to even reach up to get my phone to check) again and then paced around a little bit, got some water, came to check on us in the bedroom, had a think about jumping on the bed (but Gina told him no, and Azzie poked her head up from my side of the bed where she likes to sleep, so I told him “not yet”) and then went back to the lounge and fell asleep on Azzie’s bed.

Took them down individually at 0600, and he is a bit of a whiner when we are separated – he stands on the balcony and whines and makes a weird half yawn half grumble. It’s quite loud. So there’s separation anxiety there which we will have to work on. I’m already doing the DT, DT, NEC (Don’t Talk, Don’t Touch, No Eye Contact) thing when I come in through the door, because I found he was hanging out RIGHT by the door and trying to get my attention as I came in which I know is not a good start. I want him confident and happy, without clinging to me. But it’s only day four, so I’m not worrying too much. We’ll start with the separation training soon. Husband will have to help with that when he gets home, as well.

So I was pretty pleased with him this morning, and the girls for being so polite and gentle with him.

For our morning walk I took Odin and the girls to one of our favourite spots – one of the start points for the Bear path. I parked, he hopped out OVER the back seat from the boot. Full of energy.
I put his harness and lead on and off we went. Girls went off lead the WHOLE WALK and they were AWESOME 🙂 I was so proud. It made my life so much easier, as I wasn’t having to keep such a watchful eye on Azzie and worry about Gina getting stressed. They were both happy and playful and unstressed the whole way.
I decided on a shorter walk this morning – so that I didn’t overexert Odin, as he’s healing nicely, but by the end of the day and so many walks, he’s pretty sore. Plus, I had a feeling he would be racing around with Azzie again this morning, so I added that to his energy levels and thought it would be fine.
I was right! I even took him off his lead this time and HE came back before Azzie did, when I called 🙂
I was SO proud! All three had a blast – running around and playing and chasing each other. Just a few minutes, but Azzie was exhausted and Odin was WELL pleased with himself. Then we carried on back down the other path to the car.
He was interested in the horses in the paddock there, but not scared and not at all aggressive. He perked his little ears up, gave the air a sniff, watched them for a few seconds, and then carried on walking and sniffing things.
It was an awesome walk.

early morning zoomies in the farmland

more farm zoomies