Nearly a week
I just assumed that since Toby likes me so much that when I introduced him to other people he’s be equally sociable.. but no. he was actually quite shy - he hid behind my BBQ for about an hour while the four of us sat outside chatting over a couple of beers before he decided to check us out and accept the free treats. After that he was fine and quite happily bounced around between us and playing in the garden chasing bits of grass and finding tasty twigs.
It was a very late night (2am) and both of us were exhausted in the morning - I had to get up early as I was expecting my Mum who was coming over for the weekend and seemed quite incredibly excited by the prospect of meeting my doggy. I assumed she would be there about 8 o’clock but actually she didn’t turn up til nearly lunchtime. This provided me and Toby with several hours of quality playing time in the morning where he proved that I’d been lucky with the ‘fetch’ training and showed off his incredibly limited attention span. Mum brought him a new rubber bone which he seemed to like very much and made much fuss about him - he is officially “the most beautiful dog in the whole wide world” and I am very lucky, etc, etc.
Spent a lovely day in the garden, as it was hot and sunny, and showed off my training successes which was suitably appreciated. Had tried several times to get a worming tablet inside him which just can’t be that hard but he does have quite a long (deep) mouth and a tongue which seems specifically designed to prevent food accidentally getting into his throat - got my Mum to help but she couldn’t either hold his jaws apart or put her hand in his mouth so failed once more. The old ham trick didn’t even work - my dog doesn’t like ham - how bizarre is that? I was starting to think that I might need to enlist the help of a neighbour who has a dog and must have mastered the ’shoving your hand down their throat’ manoeuvre.
My friend Sophie popped round in the evening with Keira, her 5 year old Jack Russell, who loved Toby’s toys far more than he ever has and also demonstrated just how good dogs can get at ‘fetch’ even catching the tennis ball-doughnut-squeaky toy in mid-air which strikes me as something a dog is either going to do or not - I can’t see how you could teach that. I was quite pleased that Keira wasn’t brilliant at ‘letting go’ at the end especially as she had a similar toy which was used for tug-o-war. I’ve always thought you are treading a fine line if you both want a dog to give you the toys back and also to play the “let’s see if I can pull this really hard without you letting go”. Naturally a terrier will not let go - they are bred specifically not to. Sophie was asked to try the tablet on Toby and did a smashing job making it all look very easy indeed. I’m not sure if I could definitely do this but it didn’t look too hard. The key is to have the dog lying on you facing away so your arm is across its front paws with easy access to its jaws, leaving the other arm free for tablet shoving.
Sunday - Another quiet night from me little lad and more 1’s and 2’s to tidy up, though to be fair he did manage to save one for the morning. Gave him breakfast and.. not interested, he checked out his bowl, had a quick sniff and then walked off. Anxiety crept in and wouldn’t leave, he also had a runny bottom, which made me realise he wasn’t well, he was also far less bouncy than usual so I left him alone to flake out on his own. Had some more visitors and he played along quite happily with them but it wasn’t until later that I realised that it was probably the worming tablet that had upset his system (realise == Sophie told me).
Monday - Toby feeling much better, still not eating completely normally, though this might be because he’s bored of his food - seemed to really like cold roast chicken though, which could become a regular Sunday treat if he’s lucky. Also noticed that I wasn’t feeling well myself - am sure this is entirely independent of the dog but since I don’t get ill very often am curious about this. Toby has a new favourite toy which is an old battered Frisbee which came with the house. Once he can catch this in mid-air my work is done. that would be so cool. He spent most of the day asleep in his crate and I decided to let him spend more time in the house which caused a couple of accidents and some remonstration but on the whole he was pretty good. Also got his collar on for a few hours and apart from the odd scratching session he didn’t seem to mind it too much - trying to ‘lead’ him on a lead though led to an hilarious bucking bronco session that if I could capture on video would quickly top the youtube.com charts - it was bloody funny. But with only two weeks to go this is something I (and he) will have to master fairly quickly.