An update from our kindly kennel walkers who gave Rhianna a break from kennels at the weekend:
“Rhianna came to stay this weekend with us again. What can I say, we missed her!
Lynne met Seb at Richmond station - apparently she was very pleased to see him. Seb and Rhianna got the train back to Highbury. It was a busy train as it was 6pm and apparently she was brilliantly behaved. So that's another thing on her list of things she is good at.
We went to Hampstead Heath twice this weekend and she was great. She is absolutely fine walking past dogs, bikes, skateboarders everything, really well behaved. She wasn’t great with dogs sniffing her, but its a warning to leave her alone. She doesn’t 'go after' dogs at all.
We ended up walking for over two hours. She made a bit of a plonker of herself, we stopped at the pond and she suddenly just launched herself off the side - a big dive so the water went right over her head. What she hadn’t thought about though was how to get back out once she had jumped in as it was a drop down to the water. I had to get down and pull her out by her collar. People laughed at us - thank God she has lost some weight!!
Saturday evening after a nap on the sofa we went up to Clissold Park for a lap as she had been out already quite a lot before having a quick drink in the pub. She has improved so much with footballs. She is still very interested but she will come away if you call her, I think that she has realised that there are more interesting things in life than football! :P
Today the three of us went for another walk in Hampstead Heath, this time three hours! We met a nice lady with a little Staffie boy who does behavioural work with dogs. She and her dog helped us to get her to a point where she allowed the other Staffie to sniff her without growling. It took us about 20 minutes. She was happy to sit beside us while we chatted with the other dog really close to her. She was so good! I will do some more of this with her next weekend. If she can be this good with another dog after only 20 minutes then who knows, maybe she will be able to have doggy walking friends! Her grumpiness with other dogs is a confidence thing - as her confidence grew she visibly relaxed about other dogs being near her.
We put her back in her kennel in Gatwick this evening, with a brand new kong toy to play with. She loves that toy - she even fell asleep with it still in her mouth last night.
This dog is so special and so willing to learn, she will make such a special pet".
