Settling in

Phoebe has settled in just fine. Last night she slept in my bed and didn't mind when I managed to somehow fall asleep on her for an hour. She loves putting her big legs around me to give me a cuddle and she is too cute. Her legs are so dangly that when she lays on the sofa they go off in all directions, haha. Phoebe has being on 2 long walks in the fields again today and absolutely loves it. I also left her for an hour and she was fine. She will be left for a couple of hours tomorrow while I go to work so fingers crossed she'll behave herself. I'm hoping that giving her free run of the house and putting a radio on will help comfort her and she can also sit in my dads room and look out of his window which all dogs seem to absolutely love. Also I'm hoping to give her a really long walk up to Castle Hill before I leave to burn her energy and hopefully she'll just sleep.


Teaching Phoebe: 
Today I've been trying to teach Phoebe not to jump up by simply turning away when I walk in. Shes an over excitable dog when you first walk in however this is just part of the separation anxiety and she is just so happy to see you. The problem is she doesn't realise how strong she is so I'm going  to recommend she isn't homed with young children unless they're extremely dog savvie. She would never hurt a fly intentionally but as I said she doesn't understand how tall/strong she is when she jumps up which is why I'm trying to teach it out of her.
Today I have also tried to teach her not to pull on the lead which was much easier when I didn't have to worry about tripping over Sally all the time, who was obeying to my heel command a little too much. Phoebe did okay with it but I don't think it's the simplest behaviour to overcome straight away. She relies heavily on food reinforcement when learning new tricks/behaviours and most of the time she tried to jump up and try get it out of my hand while we were walking but it got her to stay by my side and not pull so it was a good starting point. She was also very good at sitting and waiting by the roads when I told her to.


Lucy and Phoebe :) x

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