She is a very difficult dog to walk if one is intending to make it a “power walk,” which is what he wants to do. If one wants to just stroll along with plenty of stops on the way, then all is good.
She only weighs 15 pounds, so it isn’t like one has to try to control a big powerful dog like a Labrador Retriever or a German Shepherd that wants to do what it wants to do and drags the hapless owner along behind.
No, the problem is that what she wants to do is to stop every 10 feet or so to sniff and check out the area for something to hunt.
Thus, for your walk, we took ourselves, and went
Out by the hedge and the tree to the open ground.
You ran, in delightful strata of wafted scent,
Over the hill without seeing the view;
Beauty is smell upon primitive smell to you:
To you, as to us, it is distant and rarely found.
Harold Monro
And if she does find something interesting, then she will dig in her heels and refuse to budge from that spot. If one isn’t careful and has forgotten to attach the safety strap that connects the harness to the collar, it will pull right off, leaving her loose.
It is particularly bad along the rights of way where he walks her because the grass is tall and teeming with small mammals and snakes.
He came back one day marveling at her athleticism. "She knew there was something in the tall grass alongside the road," he said, "and she stood there and cocked her head, listening for it, and then leaped 6 feet to get it, but it got away."
The breeds that were combined to create the Schnauzer (which she almost certainly is) were highly motivated to hunt, and she has all of their genes operating at full force in the instincts that drive her to obsess about catching and killing things. I have stopped trying to keep a tally of things she has killed (or almost killed if we were quick enough to rescue it) but the list includes shrews (at least 2), a squirrel, voles, mice, lizards, and several birds, and attempts to kill at least 2 snakes, which brought my heart into my throat worrying that it might be a copperhead she was going after.
He wasn't marveling at her today, though. Over lunch he turned to me and said,
“If he tells you you can’t walk for another 3 weeks I am going for the guy’s throat. I am becoming homicidal.”
It is too much to hope that I will be fully bipedal after tomorrow’s visit, but if I am allowed to at least partially walk with the boot and crutches, I might be able to get myself and the knee walker to the park and resume walking the Mollywog.
Keeping fingers crossed.
1 comment:
She is so pretty it would be a pleasure to walk her...except for the chasing snakes part:)
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