Three Huge Weeks have passed

Week Three: A big day for a big boy.

It was a great day for Beckett. This, being the 3rd week anniversary of Beckett coming home with us, marked a significant milestone in this little guy's life. Three weeks ago, we arrive home with a dog that was too scare to pee when taken out of the car on the way home, now he's driving around jumping up into the front seat and looking out the window... and that pee thing, be careful of what you wish for is all I can say!

We started out the big day by heading out of town to my friend Elly to do a favour for her but also, to see how Beckett got along with her small dog. Unfortunately Bentley was 'over-nighting' in town and that would have to wait another day. On the way out of town Beckett was fairly animated with his jumping back and forth and once again, I misunderstood his 'desire to be all over the car' to mean he loved driving with me. In reality, he had to go to the bathroom of which I neglected to provide before placing him in the car. Yup.. cleanup on Isle 2 type of thing. It was the smell that activated my reality check and coupled with Beckett being fine with sitting up front all of a sudden.

Luckily it was the only the one accident for the whole day so I'm thinking we're in the plus zone for how it could have been. Let's face it, this was more of a test of how Beckett was doing with me as his dominant dog and relying on his trust in me to keep him safe.

After Elly's place, which by the way was a couple of hours in the car, we headed to the cottage property. My intent was to get the snowshoes out of the shed but in all honesty, I unlike Beckett, don't like snow up to my .. well , you get the idea.

The lane down to the cottage is long to begin with but in the winter it seems to be it's original length squared in distance! We drove down to the main field above the cottage and got out there rather than risk getting caught on the more steep section of the lane. Had Beckett been a sled dog, I may have risked it with the knowledge that he'd pull me out. LOL

Beckett wasn't too bad to get out of the car. I just had to clip on him, and as I mentioned earlier, no accidents, then just got out and called him. He jumped right out and went into his mad dash routine but slowed down when he had that familiar 'twang' sound and sudden halt that the end of the lead. LOL Once that was over, he got into his exploratory mode like he does elsewhere. Not that long ago Beckett's world was the inside of a building, now he has the space that very few other dogs get to know. If he ever masters the art of coming when he's called, there is ten acres immediately on the property but many more surrounding us with many many things to keep a nosey dog occupied.

After the cottage area, I put Beckett into the car because although he gets near the door he doesn't quite want to jump in, then up the road to Darrin's parent's house to be introduced to the family dog. The visit was discussed earlier this week because we didn't know how "Chance" the family dog would take to a strange dog showing up on his turf and in all honesty, a golden lab can do a bit of damage if it decides to. Luck was once again with us. Darrin, who had ended up at his parent's after visiting with a client in the area, was the 'holder' of Chance for this exercise and I was the Beckett's. I wasn't sure at first how to read Chance and his straining on his lead. Under normal circumstance I would not introduce two dogs on one's turf and I would not put them on leads but I felt I didn't have any choice in this situation. As it ends up, Chance was good with Beckett and after the familiar 'smell me smell you' exercise, Chance really was more interested in getting his hugs and praise from us than he was in the new dog. Beckett on the other hand was very much in the frame of mind that if Chance was getting some, he wanted some of that too... but he wasn't sure how to go about it and more or less just approached but then halted about a foot or so away. The biggie is that he WANTED in on the hugs and praise. That means he will pick up actions by watching other dogs so now we need to get a socially open dog that likes to share his space and show Beckett how to act. I'm seeing play dates with other dogs in closed environments.

Since we were on a roll, I decided that it was an okay day for going the gold and had one more spot to take Beckett. This was to see my friend John who had offered to walk his Wheaten pup with Beckett. His dog is very young and without controls so it was something completely new for Beckett. While Darrin headed home in his car Beckett and I headed over to John's to meet Lochie. It went very well after Lochie finished barking at Beckett. Mind you Beckett was being pounced on by the little guy who wasn't too much smaller in size but by the look of him you'd not align the two as being the same breed of dog. Wow it was a mind blower to actually see what was the 'before' and the 'after' look of these dogs.

Lochie and Beckett quickly became friends and he actually had a spell of 'tail wagging'. Not one or two switches back and forth but an honest to gawd tale wagging time while playing in the snow. It may my heart melt to see this little guy do something that everyone takes as an ordinary part of every dog's life. Don't think that this automatically eliminated the barrier of Beckett's mistrust for within a minute he was back to pulling at the distance on his lead because he was in a path that both John and I were on and he didn't want to go past us so he ran through the snow to go around. Small victories do happen and each one stands on its own for me and for Beckett.