A horror of a walk

As i am writing this i know how selfish/ungrateful and spoilt i sound and i am sorry for my selfish rant.
It has been over 2 weeks since i took Cassie for a walk. Today i forced myself to take her out and i am ashamed to say i am sorry i bothered.
My son and oh have been taking her twice everyday while i have been unable, don't get me wrong i really do appreciate their hard work and commitment to Cassie before and after work and i have been so jealous because i enjoy our walks and training sessions, but how do i tell them they have ruined alot of hard work?
I am very anal when i walk Cassie, i walk her to heel on my left, right hand level with my navel holding the lead giving Cassie 8 inches of slack so she walks shoulder to leg and when that slack tightens i drop lead say heel and turn or stop and she soon gets the hang of what i want. I don't have the strength at the moment to fight a strong dog that pulls and she dragged me about for the 1st hour, not once did she want to stop at roads and to my shame i was so frustrated and i am sure Cassie picked up on this.
I was tense,bad tempered and absolutely no patience and now i feel so guilty that i have let Cassie down when they have let her pull and get away with so much when all they see is they have exercised her when i see a walk as training. Well that's my pointless selfish rant over and i am sure it won't take long to get back into the stride of things when i am ready but for now i think it's fairer on Cassie if don't take her for a while

dave742 wrote:I was tense,bad tempered and absolutely no patience and now i feel so guilty that i have let Cassie down when they have let her pull and get away with so much when all they see is they have exercised her when i see a walk as training.

I am pretty OTT when it comes to walking Logan and many times when I've lost my temper or been impatient or have had a generally bad day I feel like I have let him down too. So I know how you feel.

I'm afraid to let anyone walk Logan bar myself, I do let others hold the lead if I'm there. He is very strong and in my opinion much too strong for anyone else who has asked before, namely my mum/girlfriend etc. Obviously however in your position you have very little choice.

Maybe you could go out with them on the next walk and give a few pointers on how you would like her walked? I know this sounds a bit dictator-ish but I'm sure everyone will understand.

Men eh?

I think you will just have to start from scratch again! She knows it, its in there, just need to bring it back out

Dave, I do all the training with Pixee, I am the main walker, she walks lovely to heel with me. Son and hubby have different ways with her. I do remember when we first had Pixee, we were all like mad at one another for not doing it that certain way. Till I said this, Pixee knows we all treat her different, therefore any walks will be the same too, different with each one of us. As dogs understand what heel means, as far as I am concered, does it really matter how you hold the lead, just so long as she walks where you want her to with heel. I have done your way, now I am so relaxed, I just walk holding the lead saying heel, and heel she does. Hubby does it different and so does son, and heel she will when asked. I can ever now get Pixee to heel walking off lead through a firms carpark back on to the fields, the min we get to the fields, I say 'go play' off she runs. Oh as you tend to walk her heel on your left, perhaps you should try the right side too, I tend to walk her left side of road, therefore left side heel, if I walk her right side of road, same direction, she will heel on my right side, so I am by the road side not Pixee. To me heel is heel regardless of which side, so long as I make her understand which side I want her to heel. Sorry for the long waffle, but chill out, dogs pick up on how you feel, that in turn makes them make silly mistakes, cos they dont know what they have done wrong.

That's very true Lynn and i do expect too much and need to chill, i think i am just punishing myself and feeling guilty, these issues are not there when we walk together and now i have had time to think about it Cassie was probably so excited that i was with her and just wanted to get to where we normally go, and i have probably confused her lots with my childish bad tempered attitude and she deserves better

You have got a point there Dave. When son or hubby takes Pixee out, she does get very excited and everything goes out the window, its takes a few mins or more to get order back, e.g. her listening too, but once she calms down, all is fine. So its not just you or Cassie. Just chill out man, and enjoy Cassie, and remember, we all each have our own ways

I know what you mean, Dave. My parents and my brother used to always undo Loki's training with the walking because how I handle his pulling is differently to how they do, but his pulling is on-and-off anyway. It's not selfish, I completely understand. Recently when I've finally gotten back to walking Loki, sometimes he's been terrible with the pulling (through pent-up energy so not his fault) and it does really ruin the walks when you don't have the physical strength to get a strong dog to walk at your side. There were a few times I got annoyed with Loki because of it and then I'd feel incredibly guilty for being annoyed with him because you could tell he wasn't enjoying the walks much because I wasn't either. Hopefully you can sit them down and explain to them and show them how you walk her and explain to them how they need to do this so her training is consistent.

dave742 wrote:That's very true Lynn and i do expect too much and need to chill, i think i am just punishing myself and feeling guilty, these issues are not there when we walk together and now i have had time to think about it Cassie was probably so excited that i was with her and just wanted to get to where we normally go, and i have probably confused her lots with my childish bad tempered attitude and she deserves better

Don't beat yourself up, Dave! As you say, a lot of it was probably excitement. Just comfort yourself that it won't take long to lick her back into shape because she already knows what to do - she just needs to settle back into the routine.

It'll be good, don't worry! ><

aww dave, no it doesnt sound selfish, we all train our dogs to behave in certain ways and to our liking. How about you and your son go out together? so you can show him how you like it, explain why you like this and that this is ongoing training? or if you ca not make it out how about showing pointers in the garden?

and been bad tempered, we all get like that dont forget your going through abit at the moment and sometimes it just takes something like this to to make you feel crappy and feel like all the hard work hard work has been for nothing but dont forget, cassie may be trying to push her luck aswell.....if she been having 'it easy' then she may be like what the hell!

chin up dave