October 30, 2019 is Cully's adoption date. We will have had her for SEVEN years this October. She will be 9ish-10ish, and depending on which of those she is, she and I will be close to the same age.
I really wish I could say that nearly seven years of non-stop training has been a resounding success, but, sigh, she is a challenge. I refer to her as my Whack-a-Mole dog. Just as I get one behavior under control, something else pops up or she regresses to something that I thought was long gone.
Walking her is a lot easier than it used to be. She is only slightly nervous around trash trucks, still doesn’t care for loud motorcycles and will bark at some of them, and will pass by almost all dogs without a second look. Last week I would have said “all dogs” without the “almost” caveat. But then there were two completely unexpected, out-of-the-blue reactions between last week and this. Whack-a-Mole.
Loud popping noises send her into complete panic. Backfiring vehicles will turn her right around on her leash in a mad rush to get home. The weeks leading up to, and after, the 4th of July are a complete nightmare.
As far as energy level goes, Cully is a lot like me. We walk our two miles in the morning and consider ourselves done for the day. She has spurts of energy when her buddy Lionel brings a chipmunk in through the dog door but otherwise contents herself with moving from one dog bed to another only getting up to bark at random things throughout the day. She is a very relaxed dog—until 4:00 p.m. sharp—at which point she realizes that dinner is only an hour away. The mayhem that ensues for the next hour....
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| I'm so hungry... |
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| Chillin' on the porch with dad. |
