A bit of snow and a mental dog

Snow has been quite stressful for me and Grey. Thankfully, didn't get much snow and it's now cleared after a few days. We didn't take the car out, so we didn't get out to our normal field and beach that we go to for offlead runs. We live on the brow of a hill and to get to the nearest beach where he can be let off means a walk down a steep hill with traffic. A hyped up 30KG dog on the lead on ice and snow having to wear a halti isn't a pleasure for me or him. He fights the collar and lead and generally struggles the whole way.

We had one disastrous walk out to the beach and I realised later I shouldn't have taken him that far. I was swayed by the desire to take him offlead for a run in the snow. But between us and the beach is a whole obstacle course of things that he doesn't find pleasurable at all: traffic, roads and most off all the prolonged short lead.

The walk started off with me making the mistake of letting Grey off the lead in the square given the lovely covering of snow and I was out with my other half that usually makes Grey stick much closer to be part of the group. But Grey had earlier seen our cleaner go off in another direction out of the square. Despite looking like he'd forgotten, the second I let him off the lead he ran off across the square, across the main road and into the shopping centre. Thankfully he let himself be caught by someone who brought him back. They must like dogs because to grab a big dog like Grey running loose is a big thing. So he'll not be let off the lead again on the square or park.

But he did eventually get to run in the snow and so here are some Grey the mental snow bear photos.

So going back to positive trips out, the lesson from this story is to think about positive experiences together. Not walks, not just running. In the following day I just took him out on the square with his food and did a bit of tracking and hiding stuff and just feeding him for focus on me. But snow is super exciting and he generally was less engaged and more wired.

The snow then cleared enough for me to get the car out and he had a great run. Much harder and ranging wider than he usually would. Now it has totally cleared he was back to being able to concentrate again.