Dog Walking 101

As those who were present on a recent trip (i.e., we had cable TV) can attest, I love “The Dog Whisperer" on the National Geographic Channel. Cesar Millan grew up with the passion to observe and communicate with dogs and his life mission is to share his knowledge with humans so that they can treat their dogs better.

Well, my wife and I ordered and received the first season of his show and his book last week. Basically, I learned very quickly that our boys needed to have a morning walk and since I had just purchased rollerblades, I was ready to take them out. Cesar encourages at least a 45 min. walk and our dogs being Boston Terriers (i.e., high-energy breed) I wasn't concerned about them tiring out.

The first two mornings went great! A few corrections were necessary, but both Ollie and Beau learned to stay next to or behind me and didn't tug too much toward distractions. They seemed to love the run, breathing heavy and tongues hanging out...even bouncing along a times. But then things changed.

Three times during the third run, Ollie pulled back on the leash, wanting to stop. I tried to ignore him as the leader, but it got to the point he was gagging on the collar. We stopped for about 5-10 mins. He didn't drink from any of the puddles near by or go to the bathroom. He just flopped on his stomach. When we headed off again, he seemed fine until the next time he put on the brakes.

On the fourth morning, we turned off our street, about 50 yards from the house, and Ollie absolutely shut down. I turned to go back toward the house, and he perked up and walked fine, until I tried to turn away from the house again. I finally took him back to the house and put him in his kennel (wife was still sleeping) while Beau and I went out.

(This behavior reminded me of when my wife and I started taking Ollie on our runs. The first couple of times he was fine. Later, he would shut down about half way through and then begin constantly pulling back. We attributed this behavior to something that he smelled around a tire store part way into the run, but it didn't make sense.)

The fifth morning, I didn't even try to take Ollie; Beau and I went alone. Beau was wonderful! Yesterday was the sixth morning and it was just Beau and I again. He did well, but seemed to be staying behind me more than normal and pulling on the leash a little more, but he did the entire run without a problem.

Later that day, my wife held Beau upside-down and noticed that some of Beau's paws had blisters. We checked Ollie and didn't see any, but we knew that he was more sensitive than Beau when we cut their nails.

It finally made sense!! They had been living in a carpeted (some linoleum in the kitchen and grass outside) world. Their pads had not built up the calluses that regular street walks would have done. Ollie stopped and Beau was slowing because their feet hurt! Duh!?

This morning Beau confirmed our assessment as he limped around the house, not putting weight on his left back paw. One of his paw pads had a circular blister that looks to have filled with blood and scabbed beneath a thin layer of skin. We put some anti-biotic ointment on it and will see how he is doing tonight.

Instead of taking both, I just took Ollie out this morning. He remembered the pain. We got to the end of the driveway and he shut down. Fortunately, my wife and I celebrated our hard work of painting several rooms in our house with a couple of episodes of “The Dog Whisperer.” In one of the episodes, a Shih Tzu refused to walk on a leash but would walk off-leash. Cesar began the rehabilitation by carrying the dog away from its home and walked it back on leash without any correction. So I tired the same. Ollie did beautifully!

I first carried him to the corner and then we walked (I rollerbladed) back. I tried to leave the driveway with him walking, but he refused. Next, I carried him a block past the corner and then we walked back. This time, I passed our house and went to the other end of street before turning around and passing our house again. I did not want him to stop at all, so a few yards after passing our house, we returned for the morning.

We are expecting great results tomorrow (but we will still go slow and short)!!

Beau checking out a different angle on life!


Ollie: "This...is mine!"