Changing Seasons

Autumn is my favourite season of the four, I find it picturesque and somewhat relaxing – the crunching of the leaves beneath your feet as you walk and the brisk and refreshing air which is cold, but not freezing.

Then again whilst the scenery and fresh air is all well and good, there are a couple of things which let Autumn down, Halloween and Bonfire Night. Actually thinking about it now, having Harry in our lives is going to make me despite Autumn!

I was out taking his lordship for a walk the other morning and wasn’t really thinking about the season and how it affects Harry. 

He was ignoring the spread of brown and orange leaves and trotting along browsing treebook (the social network for dogs), until a gust of wind blew up a solitary leaf (think the silver and gold tokens in The Crystal Maze/ Crystal Dome) – Harry spotted this and darted after it. That’d be fine if he was on a free run in the garden, but for anyone who’s actually following this properly, he was on the lead and almost pulled my shoulder out of its socket – think an amateur water-ski person.  

So that’s reason one to hate Autumn, reason two is Halloween which is just around the corner. When I was in my teenage years (god I feel OLD writing that!) “trick or treat”-ing wasn’t massive – alright we’d go around for the free mini-mars bars and think we we’re going to get rich collecting 5ps, but it was nothing special. 

A few might dab in some ketchup or an old cut up white bed sheet (to be a ghost, come on use your imagination!), one lad even had a scream mask (he was Six Foot Six aged 14 so it WAS quite intimidated, well until he spoke as his voice hadn’t broke!) – but again it wasn’t on the scale it is nowadays.

All the supermarkets deck out the isles with decorations, spooky treats and more such as pumpkins, fake blood and spiders webs – in fact according to a new supermarket study, Halloween is now the third biggest event behind Christmas and Easter, overtaking Valentines – Romance is officially dead.

Anyway I digress, with the UK now all American over Halloween, I fear that all the local kids will ignore the COMPLETE LACK of Halloween themed decorations and band on the door, thus causing Harry to go MENTAL – both barking/ jumping up and, more importantly, letting the little cherubs know someone’s home.

Reason three to dislike autumn has to be bonfire night, which I’ve always hated. When you think about it, it’s actually a legal day for arsonists to set things on fire (providing the stick it in a pile and put some old rags with a drawn on face on top!). Fireworks I’ll grant you are pretty but, aside from the constant dangers, are a nightmare if you are a dog owner.

It’s not too bad if it’s just ONE DAY/NIGHT, you know like it’s supposed to be, but it’s not – it never bloody is! Mind you “remember, remember the 5^th of November and three weeks either side of it” doesn’t have the same ring does it!

Jaz, my old dog now sleeping in doggy heaven, was petrified of fireworks. She was the calmest dog on earth but as soon as a firework exploded in the sky, she’d dart of to the darkest and quietest place she could find – usually under my desk. She wouldn’t move for ages, she’d lie there, often through the night, shaking. I was telling Em some stories the other day and she was telling me her Bessy was the same.

So far Harry has been OK, although last night he went out for a wee and heard one explode – he was howling for ages, so we’ll have to keep an eye on him and see how he goes. Maybe it’s a female thing – knowing Harry he probably just wants to chase them!

It’s half term this week and so I’ve got the week off which means I’m at home and in sole charge of Harry. I decided a few days ago to try and use the time to my advantage and try and take some authority and train him. I ordered a dog whistle and a clicker from Amazon and a seller called CLIX. 

I haven’t used the whistle yet, to be honest I feel a little silly in using it, the clicker however is having some positive effect, especially when he’s on his mad half-hour! The trouble is you have to reward with a treat – I don’t know what is too much or make him become self-reliant on treats, that’s just negative surely? He’d just get to the stage of “well I ain’t doing that unless you give me a treat” – it’d be a stand-off!

I’m still waiting on the delivery of his collar-cam, although yesterday I did make a mock up video of him jumping in one of the living room chairs – mainly out of boredom. This morning I’ve also tidied up his area downstairs to attempt to stop the chewing of carpet and blankets (and to make it a bit warmer for him) – after I’d finished, I had some errands to do up here and so left him downstairs for a bit. I “hid” a camera in the mail-catcher basket to record what he did, if anything – I’m to go through the footage soon and maybe repeat the process for a few days, if anything interesting pops up I’ll share it with you next week.

That’s it for this week, he’s nodding at the moment on my feet as he has been for most of the afternoon to be fair. Before I do sign off though, I want to leave you with a bit of advice about Autumn, especially for anyone who likes collecting leaves. Whether it be for school projects or scrap books – if other dogs are like Harry, there’s a 90% change the leaves you collect have dog wee on!

Until next time…

PS An added footnote, I thought I’d finished so nipped to the loo, when I came back Harry had moved from the end of the bed to my pillow to read the blog! I hope it doesn’t get a woof review, sorry paw joke!