Enjoying The Sun

Enjoying the sun 

Okay so it wasn't particularly sunny here this week, but there were definitely moments of sunshine and less rain, which is always a bonus. 

This week started with me meal prepping and packing a hospital bag as I was awaiting news of becoming an inpatient for my Ulcerative Colitis again. I immediately felt frustration as not only had I only just physically rebounded, but Arkle had too.

We have both carefully rebuilt our exercise up and the prospect of another hospital stay ruining that wasn't appealing. Thankfully I have managed to swerve it by sheer chance my body started to respond to meds 12 days later than planned!

It made me really evaluate how I approach life, Arkle and business. I'm sort of in “waiting mode” while we sort meds for my health, it's essentially how Arkle has lived the last 4 years. Trying pain meds or his auto immune meds, seeing how he responds and when he doesn't starting over again. Its a pretty similar approach to my health. Meds take time and in the meantime we have to just avoid anything urgent happening. 

It's a constant loop of nothing much being accomplished. So this week we decided to get out there and just try to enjoy what we can , when we can and if health interferes, so be it. ( With lots of naps to recover from everything!) 

This week we've been out training round dogs, going on longer freedom walks and fitted in 2 training walks round a local shopping centre ( outdoors) and trip to pets at home ( Arkle highly recommends!) 

Throughout it all Arkle has been a star. He's a dog who was incredibly anxious when young, and I always took the approach of playing the long game. Never pushing more than he can handle and keeping the world to what he can handle. It's paid off hugely as he's very much confident overall in the world these days. 

Of course the biggest issue is always dog to dog , but even with this his progress has continued to flow. He's disengaging from dogs in a much better fashion and he's able to understand that other dogs are not threat. 

It's the perfect time of year for this kind of training to be honest! Before everywhere gets too busy with the “fair weather walkers” who only appear on a sunny spring and summer day. 

We don't get particularly far, I'm still quite unwell, but we do enjoy getting out and meeting people. 

Well Arkle in particular loves meeting people! ( I'm a little less social than him!) 

It's been quite nice letting people say hi and give him some fuss and watching him enjoy it and perform some tricks for them. 

There's a whole thing out online about “neutrality” and dogs only being interested in their owners and ignoring everything else going on, but honestly I don't think it's necessary. 

Arkle enjoys people, as long as people are sensible, meeting people is a great way for him to enjoy the world outside, so it's not just all about dogs and training. 

As a puppy he urinated himself from people stroking him he was that scared! It's actually lovely to see this is no longer an issue in anyway. 

I think back to Ollie and Arthur and they both happily met folk when out, they didn't harass anyone or jump up but they both got great joy from it. 

So I'll be trying to increase Arkles opportunities to engage with people when out as I think it gives him an awful lot. I don't want him to be ‘nuetral’ he's not a robot. I didn't get him as an extension of my ego to trot around distractions in a heel. He's a companion to enjoy the world with. If he didn't enjoy it, id not let people say hi but he seems to, so why not? 

By contrast we got back to one of our favourite walks, a quiet peaceful walk around a nature reserve type area. This is quite a bit longer walk so my legs haven't managed it in a while, but we decided to brave it and give it ago. 

This walk is a “freedom walk” for Arkle, it's just nature to sniff around and enjoy being a dog. Arkle remains on a long line because of his dog to dog issues, this just ensures I have control if he sees something he may struggle to handle. It doesn't restrict his quality of enjoyment though. He gets 10m to run around and not have to deal with dogs. It's a particularly quiet walk and the goal is decompression and destressing by letting him “be a dog”.  

He particularly enjoyed the scent of deer on this walk as he clacked his teeth , nose wafting in the breeze. As well as some good rolls in questionable things! 

These walks are a lot for both of us physically, there's lots of different terrain and hilly bits. So we follows the next day with rest at home and some scentwork. 

Just going on peaceful walks makes a massive difference to both of our well-being and it is a huge relationship booster as the world outside is just fine together enjoying exploring. 


This walk Arkle has enjoyed helping me out with The Whippet Club, and one of his favourite jobs in the Reactive To Responsive Live Classes. He quite enjoyed showing off this week and showing them his Paws Up Skills!

In other news he met another whippet this week! 

He has actually been snapped at and bitten by a few whippets in the past so he's one of the rare whippets who doesn't immediately love his own kind unfortunately:( 

But he was utterly in love with this whippet and seeing him play bow and enjoy time with her without any tension brought me great joy!

Hopefully we will have another week of training, slightly sun and no hospital trips!