Bob day 3
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♥Apr. 7th, 2018 // 04:35 pm♥
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Less good today, sadly.
Last night, he didn't settle downstairs and in the end Mike brought him up to our bedroom, where he jumped onto our bed several times before settling in the dog bed that Jo never liked but he seems happy with. Not sure if that's because I didn't accidentally leave my jumper on the sofa for him to cuddle like the night before, if he's more bonded to us and therefore less keen to stay alone, or because we had brief overnight guests (I think this is least likely, as he's not been here long enough to know that they're not part of the household; he was otherwise very well behaved with them).
Probably as a result, we've had much more trouble keeping him downstairs today, to the extent that when I went upstairs to do post-visitor tidying I shut him in the living room with Mike. He proceeded to stand by the door looking mournful, with occasional scrabbling.
While we were doing the horses this morning, he was thoroughly getting in the way, so I tied him to the barn on a shorter line, which he was also very unhappy about, but this afternoon we've been out in the garden* and he seemed reasonably happy about not being able to get to me (up a ladder, so didn't really want him too close!), at least after he'd run and caught a squeaky toy a few dozen times.
* We lost February and March, in gardening terms, because of Jo and the weather, so were now trying to catch up. I fear that the crab apple blossom won't be as good as usual, as that was my project for today and it was already starting to leaf and bud. Only managed half of it, because I am both out of shape and full of con crud.
While Mike was having a nap earlier, I tried leaving him alone in the living room while I did some kitchen tidying and then a bit of sewing. I started at two minutes, went back to calm him down and then backtracked to thirty seconds. It takes a while to empty the dishwasher in thirty second increments! I did eventually get it up to five minutes with him just calmly curled up on the sofa (leave alone, go back and sit with him with no fuss, leave alone for thirty seconds longer, etc) but then he suddenly got stressed again. After a break to let him calm down, I tried just going and doing some sewing but leaving the door open. He did follow me through immediately, but I wasn't fussing him and he doesn't like lying on the floor, so after a stern 'no' to his speculative look at the sewing-covered sofa in there he pretty much gave up and went back to the living room, although he did come and check on me every few minutes.
This is worse than Jo was even towards the end, so even though I hope he'll be better when he's settled I'm very glad that as well as an appointment to get the vet to give him a general check-up and have a look at his lump** I also made an appointment on Tuesday with the nurse who's a psychology specialist.
** The rescue say it's just a skin tag, and it might well be, but even if it is entirely benign I think it needs to come off: he's worrying at it, and it sticks out so much that I would worry about him catching it on something once he's off-lead in the woods.
On the plus side, he's barely tried to lick my face all day, his recall is much better in the field (at least when there's a bag of treats involved), and on walks he's coming on from interesting smells when you ask him to, rather than when you tug him away. We may try letting him off the lunge line in the (double fenced) field tomorrow, if this evening's recall practice goes well. |
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