This past ten days has been pretty rubbish for most of us, I suspect, with the constantly increasing restrictions on how we live our lives and the difficulties finding anything on supermarket shelves due to the selfish stockpiling by some of our fellow citizens.
This is one time when we all need to behave considerately and think of others before ourselves. Yes, it’s difficult and frustrating and the way we’ll have to live will take some getting used to, but these unparalleled measures are necessary, indeed vital, if our already challenged NHS is not to sink under the strain of this horrid bug. My dad is nearly 90 and has health problems. If he gets it he will most likely die – especially if there isn’t a ventilator or staff to care for him should he need it.
Every day brings more news of closures and staff being sacked or laid off. There are new government measures being put in place to try to help, although there’s nothing for the self-employed as yet – though perhaps there will be by the time you read this. I don’t know if Down Dog will survive – but I do know we’ll try our best to adapt and get through this.
Self-isolation is a challenging prospect and if we get to lockdown it will be worse still. We’re trying to help, which is why we’ve launched our free Coronavirus Canine Challenge.
Each week we’ll be sharing several tips, games and training you can do to entertain your pooch (and yourselves) while you are cooped up. There will be competitions and prizes too. We’ve set it up as a Facebook group and the response so far has been amazing – as I write this, we have over 550 members already.
The challenge officially starts tomorrow. But I know not everyone is on (or wants to be on) Facebook, so I will be sharing the same tips, advice, game and training ideas here via email too. We’ll be doing live videos on Facebook which my wonderful sidekick Gareth tells me can be downloaded and shared on our website, so I‘ll give you the link to find them as soon as I can.
In the meantime, here’s the most important of the tips I shared last week (more on this later in the week):
Ditch the food bowl
Let your dog get his dinner from a Kong or other interactive toy. You can scatter feed your dog’s dinner in the garden, or a tufty rug or snuffle mat, or hide small handfuls of food around the house for them to seek out and find.
So if you have to self-isolate, don’t panic – at least about your dog. Sign up for the Challenge or keep the emails so you can enjoy spending quality time at home with your dog.
Keep training and keep safe,
Carol
PS If you’re self-isolating and don’t or can’t join the Challenge on Facebook, I’ve put various suggestions for fun nose work games (mind stimulation games) as a free download on our Free Stuff page, too. Let’s all pull together