Tuesday 26 October 2010

Stairgate

OK OK for just over a year we have been the proud owners of a stair gate. We are not proud to say it but we couldn't stop Indie going up stairs and to top that she had already started to eat the walls so we didn't want the whole house eaten!!

When it was installed a year ago we started it at the top of the stairs but she would just sit there and bark and whine at it for hours and hours so we moved it to the bottom of the stair and so it had stayed.

We had had the occasional break through when she saw her chances and made a run for it or the times we let her but not very often.

But this weekend, after getting Indie in the best routine possible at night. the stair gate was removed, which for my own sake has been a godsend caring anything up and down the stairs was a nightmare iI hated.

So 48 hours in and although a slight nibble on a wall on the stairs (minor damage if you see the bottom of the stairs) she has won puppy of the year in my husbands standards!!  But I just have this feeling tonight, it might be that easy, nothing has been with Indie so surely not this, or has she grown up!!

Can she prove me wrong??

Sunday 10 October 2010

The Fear!!

Having looked at Indie you wouldn't think she wasn't scared of anything she runs around our house like there is not a fear in the world but Indies world didn't start like that!!

The first day we got her home, her first retreat out her box was on the carpet was a big move, then my dad helped her find her water bowl so she would have a drink ( something he still credits himself with today) was her move.  Her biggest problem was going over threshold of doors, don't ask me why she just didn't want to and refused even if we were all in the other room!! I popped out to get dinner and while out, my husband sent me a picture of Indie's venture into the kitchen, and guess where she was, hiding under the kitchen table!! No surprise there!! The following days were better she would roam around our house like she owned it, like she does now to be fair!! But slowly this fear of bizarre things came into play!

I can understand the hoover, its big, makes lots of noise and goes backwards and forwards but random things, like hay bales and in dog class we have hoopla rings she has to sit in, (well she never has) I just couldn't understand it and never will.

But recently i have seen a change my little puppy is growing up when out for walks she trots of in to the forest, jumps into streams and doenst even get bothered by the tractor, she has finally managed to start growing out of this random fear she has of things. 

Even at dog class this week we had to pretend to walk through a gate, normally this would be a struggle, the paws would go out the neck would strain but no, she sat waited for the gate to open and then waited to be invited through with no avoidance, someone even commented that that was a big thing for Indie and i agree.

She will always be the special dog that had a fear or random things but thats what makes her, her!