Another breakthrough for Daisy

Daisy had a great start to her Saturday. After romping with Alba in the backyard first thing when they woke up, they continued to tussle before and after breakfast. Time for some exercise.

While Daisy loves the sound of her collar, harness and leash coming out and being put on her, she is reluctant to walk out the front door. She immediately starts to back up and retreat, after all the excitement about getting ready to go out. Rather than pulling her after 5 minutes of trying to get her to come willingly, I carried her out the front door and once on the sidewalk she was fine. We are working on her reluctance and resistance issues.

Normally we walk Alba in the neighborhood, hit the farmer's market, and back home - about 2.5 miles or so. We were less ambitious for Daisy's outing, sticking to part of our normal walking route - away from big crowds and traffic on 24th Street. With a brisk pace she is good on the leash, with lots of verbal encouragement.

Alba (left), Daisy (right)

After our walk, we wanted to take the girls to a nearby dog park which is small and only gravel, but it is double-gated and well-fenced, so there are no escape routes. We've taken Daisy there before, but when I've tried to take her without Alba, she won't get out of the car. It did take some coaxing and scooting her out of the car, but again, once she was out of her "safe place" inside the car, she was good to go. So much so that once we got inside the double-gates, we let her off-leash.

Daisy (right) lets loose in a public dog park

The girls chased each other around a bit, and Daisy explored with some new confidence - her tail up for the most part. It is a pretty boring park IMHO (no grass, smallish space) but a safe place to get her familiar and let her off-leash. She took a nice nap after all the intense outside exposure!