Training Logs 10/9/2019 Alyosha’s backpack

Alyosha gets his first backpack

Alyosha
Alyosha


Morning Trip Report 10/9/2019. It’s overcast again and 57 degrees this morning , later this week the low prediction is 35 degrees — YES! Alyosha and I walked 3 miles with light backpacks each.

This backpack has a separate harness that you fit to the dog before adding the saddlebags. I’m getting used to it. Maybe. I need to get some rubberbands to tie up the dangling straps, Yosha kept stepping on them. I only put a 1 roll of paper towels in each side, so it wasn’t puffed up much. And he kept stepping on the straps until I tied them up, so it was hanging wonky on him at first. But he didn’t seem to mind the pack, kept striding out, which we were working on. So I ignored the pack since he seemed to.

Goal: Active Walking (on a loose lead)

Took him a lot longer to get the concept than Bayou. (Which is why 2 days ago we had the abysmal and short walk before we came home so I could regroup.) But he’s got a busy mind. With him, instead of Oops and a tap on the training collar which worked for Bayou, he needed more Oops, and We’re going here, we’re going there, we’re going the other way, before I could re-engage him. AND THEN give him forward momentum. But he figured it out. All dogs are different. Training has to be tailored to the individual.

Roddy Straight (above the stop sign)
Moving fast with a loose lead

All I’m asking for is a lead with no tension. That’s mindfulness, a concept I’m learning in yoga. It’s not enough to go through the motions, I must be present in the moment so my knee is over my ankle, my thigh muscle is pressed into my thigh bone, etc. I want him to be aware of the lead tension, or lack, and work to keep it that way.

And he did get the idea. Enough that I could stop and take pictures without him yanking me around by the lead.

I don’t know why but I just love the lichen/moss/whatever this is on the concrete.
Dixie Lee Highway
Dixie Lee Highway

Happy trails.
–SHS, 2019

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