Summertime

Through the summer Henry's progress back to normal weight, health and energy was coming along brilliantly.

His coat was almost completely grown back in, there were no bald spots at all but the feathering (or what was left of it after his starvation) had all fallen out and wasn't showing signs of coming back. Certainly the fur on the back of his front legs and back legs was slightly longer than ther rest of his coat but when he arrived there were patches that were a good 3 inches but hey ho, I didn't care all I cared about was Henry being happy and healthy.

The house training was still a big issue though. He was fine if I was around but that was probably because I could let him out as and when he wanted and as it was warmer the back door was open most of the time so the dogs could wander in and out at will. He did have a habit of getting up early, (earlier than me at 6.00am) peeing and sometimes pooing in the living room and going back to bed. I was so stuck as to a solution that I honestly didn't know what to do. I'd count the non accident days as great days and would be full of hope that we'd turned a corner, only for us to go back ten steps a week or so later.

On a postitive note, Henry was behaving much better on the lead when he was out for walks, I'd still not let him off and when we first used to go walking he would be a complete nutter at the sight of a hare, rabbit, sheep, lamb or cow. He would jump up onto his hind legs and bounce along making a horrendous screaming, howling barking noise certain to bring himself to the attention of anyone within two miles. But as we saw all these animals every single day the novelty eventually wore off. We were still doing really long walks with our neighbour and I think Henry was running out of energy to take quite so much notice!

Most of the summer Henry and Molly spent their days lazing around in the garden in the sun, getting too hot and then coming to lay on the floor of my workshop until they cooled and then going back out into the sun again, a perfect summer for dogs really.

We were making a huge amount of progress with Henry and by virtue of the fact that the pace was slowing down meant that he was doing really well - if it wasn't for the house training problem I think he would be well and truly settled.

We would get there...