I should be going for a walk now.
With Gus.
But at this very moment he’s lying in a flowerbed, intently focused on a large bush.
And I can’t get him to move.
I’m not friends with him at the moment. Not even a bit.
It all started when we went out to feed the birds as we do every morning. And as usual there were three pheasants around.
Normally Gus ignores them, but today the two hen pheasants decided to run towards our main lawn and got stopped in their tracks by our plastic link fence.
All would normally have been fine but – they panicked – they flapped against the fence and squawked, making one hell of a din, which attracted Gus’s attention.
He was off, crashing through the bushes to an even louder cacophony of squawks and screeches. A pheasant burst out of the bush with Gus on her tail as the second one burst out towards me.
The pantomime that followed was not edifying. Me screaming “leave it” with no effect whatsoever; Gus completely oblivious with his chase and hunt instinct well and truly fired up; screeching pheasants and a swathe of destruction through our flower bed.
Birds and Gus vanished into the undergrowth and all went ominously quiet. A few pheasant tail feathers fluttered to the ground on the path.
I tried calling him once or twice but he completely ignored me.
So I’ve left him staring fixedly at the bush where the pheasant has gone to ground and come in for a restorative cup of tea.
I’ll let you know what happens next…
But one thing I know is that I’ll be very careful to make sure there are no pheasants around tomorrow morning. I also know that Gus will be going back to check that bush for many days to come.
Most dogs will chase birds that explode out of bushes in front of them. Gus is just being a dog.
Even if he comes in soon I won’t be taking him out today. He was so much over threshold his arousal bucket will be completely overflowing and his body will be flood with adrenaline and cortisol, the stress hormones.
I need to give him time to calm back down again, which is not a few minutes job, but will take many hours, possibly even a couple of days.
Always a good thing to remember if your dog has a similar experience and goes well over the top.
Give them time – plenty of time – to settle down again afterwards.
No dog will respond when they are truly laser- focused on something, even the best trained pooch.
Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t train your dog.
Keep training,
Carol