The Mobile Home Woman

Our little Evee has a problem. When she walks outside, she is crazed and pulls and is just insane. It makes walking unpleasant. And God forbid she ever gets loose… it’s like a 2 hour ordeal to capture the little wort. She is SO fast and once outside, she just is a fruit loop and will dash in and around you like it’s a HUGE game.

Now, part of that is our lack of a proper running free area… (IE Fenced Yard) and hopefully that will be solved within the month. But in the meanwhile, we’ve been doing some reading and kept running across giving her a job to do on her walks… and back packs seemed to be coming up over and over.

Now with Gypsy and Dingo, they just seemed to want to stay with us, and training them to stay with you was super easy. I used to have Dingo trail along with me even in our little busy downtown area when I did errands, he was just rock solid with heeling. Gypsy was pretty good, but occasionally would wander a little further than I wanted, but had a good recall. Evee? No way. Perfect recall in the house, but outside? No way. She’d rather act the fool and dash all over like a wild woman. She’ll stay within about, oh 30 feet of you at all times, but she knows if you catch her, she’s done.

Well, anyway, that is our one huge hurdle with her and has to be corrected. Outside recall and walking on a leash with some semblence of control. So we ordered her a little set of doggie paniers off eBay and they arrived! They are very nicely made… I wasn’t so sure when we paid only $13 with free shipping for them, but really, they are very nice.

Of course, she was uber interested… and knew they belonged to her, since her Mom was the one fussing with them. It was funny to see her give Gypsy the “back off Jack” rumble and Gypsy was like “Whatever, dork…” and walked off to observe from a distance.

It took two to get all her straps and harnesses in place and sized up. She was pretty good with it, any attention for Evee is awesome attention in her doggie play book. We watched carefully for any fearfulness or anxiety but of course, our little Aussie took it all in stride.

At one point she was getting a little confused as to the whole purpose of this contraption, especially with all the belly straps and such, but she just flopped over and let the girls fuss with it all. Jessy kept telling her they were going for a walk in a few minutes and that is like crack to the pup… she LUVS her walkies…

Finally all on and ready to go! Doesn’t she look like a little search and rescue girl? Or maybe a handicapped aid dog. She got all puffed and ready, and the girls loaded up her bags with a pair of my tennis shoes… haha… a balanced sample load. Off they went and I’ll be darned if she didn’t behave so wonderfully!

Apparently the pack was just enough of a brain mixer-upper that she was a little less crazy and a little more focused on her task of helping Jessy transport shoes around the park. We may have found an answer! She didn’t seem to mind them at all, and was trotting along off on her walkie. But the thing was, she didn’t pull and jerk and wrap around everything in site. She just trotted along like she was doing this her whole life. Proud and pretty, and of course, Jessy was praising her every trot. They just did a little short walkie, as not to wear her out or cause her any discomfort. Once off, she was all wiggles and happiness and Jessy was amazed.

Next day, Jessy got the pack out and she was RIGHT there, ready to go, nosing it and standing, ready to accept her duty as pack dog of the Andes! Or well, the moby park at least.

I really think that these herding dogs just absolutely ADORE a job. Any job. Even toting stinky shoes around for no good reason. Maggie says we need to train her to bring lunch out to us as we work on the farm! haha… that would be funny! Maybe!