Charley says … #5 out and about with the Doggie Dictator

We thought we’d done her in and she was never coming back but this morning we hopped into the car to go on our morning walk and when we got to the car park and climbed out, who should be there but the Doggie Dictator.

So it looked like our morning was not going to include the normal high jinks but actually things did not unfold as expected and I was pleasantly surprised, of which more later.

First up though we had to say hello to two great big dogs. Jack and Bug – rescue Greyhounds – who live full time with the DD. They were ridiculously well behaved. Dogs who are well behaved are robo dogs in my book but Bug and Jack were cool. Bug is hot – she’s a fawn brindle and she is very, very pretty. 

Bug - I like her a lot

We set off and Theo decided to show DD what he is made of and took on the first dog that we saw coming down the path – a very bouncy Collie dog. Biggish and hairy. Bedlam.

Theo barked like a mental dog, Tino piled into Theo and Anna just barked her head off.

You see, until Theo arrived, walks used to be very relaxed and there was never any drama. We just went anywhere and everywhere off lead and it didn’t matter what dogs we met or where because me, Anna and Tino would say hi and then  go and do our thing.

When Little Stinky arrived at 6 months old, it turned out that he was not a fan of big hairy dogs. Mini Dachshunds – like. Golden Retriever – no like. And since Stinkie arrived there’s been a drama on every walk because there’s loads of big hairy dogs near us. The humans have tried to persuade Theo that big hairy dogs are not scary for 3 years now but have failed miserably. I tried telling him too but he doesn’t listen even though I am his hero.

Theo just after he moved in with us - he's around 7 months old in this pic

Anyway, after that little performance our walk calmed down a lot because DD started doing stuff that we REALLY liked.

Mainly this involved throwing bits of sausages all over the place and we had to hunt them out. This is my kind of game! And DD has told the humans that they have to play this game with us on every walk!!!

The DD in full control - we're all looking at her because her pockets are full of treats!

The thinking behind this is that the humans are not exciting or interesting enough on our walks. So the first thing they need to do is be much more exciting and interesting on our walks so that all of us, but Theo in particular, are more inclined to listen to them when we’re out and about.

Anyway, who cares about the science bit, the key point here is that I will now be getting sausages on every walk – it’s just awesome!

Therefore I would like to apologise to the DD who I only started calling the Doggie Dictator because I was trying to wind her up so she would go away. I’ll stop doing that now.

I'm officially renaming the DD - she’s THE SAUSAGE LADY! And she rocks!

A note from the humans: She's actually called Lisa and she's fabulous: www.caninethinking.com.