20/2/2024
Today was a complete nightmare with Meg. Whatever I tried to do, she tried to disrupt. She kept jumping at me, pushing through doors ahead of me, chewed bits of furniture and barked at the chickens whenever I took her in the garden. To make it worse, it’s still rainy, so every time we went outside, we brought lots of wet mud back inside with us. There is a limit to how many times I can wipe the floor.

I did attempt to do some lead-training. Several times in fact. Each time, Meg tried to bite the lead as I put it on, then kept biting it while I tried to walk. If we went outside, she lurched towards everything. Standing still does not work (I have been advised that whenever she pulls, I should simply remain completely still, until she notices and stops). Meg is constantly interested in absolutely everything.

So, we manage to walk 2 steps together, she then lurches towards the gate because she heard a car in the lane. I stand still. Meg continues to pull towards the gate for several minutes, then notices I am not moving. Does she return to me, ready to walk obediently by my side? Like heck she does! No, she then decides a leaf is the next great excitement in the world, so lurches towards that instead. Then she spies a twig on the ground, lurches for it and grabs it before I can stop her. Small interval while I try to remove the twig she is hurriedly chewing and swallowing. I try to make her sit, she spins in circles, spots a stone, heaves us both towards it. I give up, and none too gently return her to her crate in the kitchen. An hour later, when the urge to throttle her has subsided, we try again. Re-read from the start of the paragraph. This lasted all day.

In the evening we were scheduled to go to puppy classes (the nice friendly one in the horse barn). I was so frazzled, so near tears, I messaged to say I didn’t have enough patience to attend and be dragged around the barn by my dog. I received lots of nice messages in reply, and the excellent advice from the teacher to have a glass of wine. This helped.

After days like this, I feel complete despair, and wonder if I will ever be able to walk with Meg, and whether she would be happier in a different home. I hate failing, and I like to think that I am rather gifted with animals. But Meg defeats me, and I am aware that lots of things I have done has made her behaviour worse. I think that expecting a working GSD to be a pet was a mistake, and if I could go back in time, I would choose a regular GSD. But I didn’t, so now I must decide what to do. What is best for all of us?

If nothing else, Meg is good for my prayer life. Praying is pretty much all I can do sometimes, because she seems determined to not be trained. I am aware that I need to keep all this in proportion too—no one has died, no one has been diagnosed with cancer or lost their job or home. It’s just a puppy, being difficult.

21/2/2024

Today it was like living with a different puppy. I will write it down quickly, before she turns back into a demon! From when I first let her out of the cage, Meg was lovely. She came for a snuggle (didn’t jump up) and then followed me round the kitchen while I made coffee.

When I was dressed, I drove her back down to the park. Although the police-dog-trainer said I was making her worse by doing this, I found her behaviour was better, and she was definitely less sensitive to cars, so I decided to ignore him (mostly). I did choose a seat further from the road, just in case the proximity was too confrontational, and I did fasten her lead to the seat because she is now too strong for me if she decides to take off. But we sat there, in the pouring rain, and I fed her breakfast to her. She sat, looking at me, while she was fed, and cars whizzed past a few hundred yards away, and people walked past us, and she ignored them all. Mostly. (We nearly had one nasty incident with a woman in a smart white coat who wanted to stroke her, but I managed to warn about bouncing muddy paws in time.) It was very wet, and Meg was more bothered by the rain than eating breakfast, so we walked back to the car, through the car park, which involved avoiding a few people and not chasing a couple of cars, and it was okay. Every time Meg pulled, I either stopped, or walked in a different direction, and she sort of went along with it. (This is the level of discipline I manage to achieve.)

I then drove to an area of common, where there are several miles of woodland. I used to walk Kia here, and I have avoided it because the car park is near a busy road, but I decided to risk it, planning to put her straight back in the car if she started to lurch towards cars. It was fine. The road is far enough away, so a few squeaks on a toy kept her attention with me, and we walked into the woods. The woods are riddled with footpaths, and it’s very easy to get lost (I once walked for two hours longer than planned after getting lost with a friend and her dog). I was careful to stay on the main footpaths, and only to turn left. I still managed to almost lose my way, but realised in time and we arrived back at the car after about 40 minutes. I kept Meg on a long lead, stopping if she pulled hard. Apart from pulling towards other dogs a couple of times, she was great, and we had a lovely walk. Returned home covered in mud.

Later, taking a break from work, I gave her a ball while I had a cup of tea. I sat at the table because I couldn’t face her leaping on me in a low chair, and she snuggled up against my legs. I became aware she was trying to put the ball on my knee, so I extended a hand below the table and a rather spitty damp ball was shoved into it. I rolled it across the kitchen floor, she leapt after it, and brought it back. What a sweet puppy! In another break, I tried upturning two dog bowls, and hiding food under one. I made Meg sit, then shuffled the bowls and asked her to choose one. She sniffed both, leapt on the one with food and chased it round trying to tip it over. I then halved the amount of food, and tried again. She is able to find the smallest crumb of food under a bowl. Then (after maybe 5 times) she started to leap on me, so we ended the game and I went back to work.

I will let you know how training Meg progresses. It’s certainly not boring! I hope you have stamina for the things you’re struggling with in life. Thanks for reading.
Take care.
Love, Anne x