I have discovered the eighth wonder of the world, and it's at the pet store!
My beautiful dog, or as I should call her, my first child, Laila is a very sweet dog if not a bit spastic. The only thing she wants to do is give you bunches of love and lay at your feet and catch any bits of food that may not make it into your mouth. The one time that this sweetness disappears entirely is when we take her for a walk. She tugs and tugs and just aboaut breaks your arm from trying to contain her. I know her senses are on overload and she wants to sniff everything she passes and she wants us to get where we are going much quicker than the pace we are making her follow but good Lord! the dog won't allow us to enjoy a simple walk. And it can't be enjoyable for her either, having her neck be constantly pulled at and hearing our usually friendly tones become angrier and angrier. The kicker is she knows her commands. If we have food and we bribe her she becomes the perfect dog, better than perfect! Yet, the only time this bribery does not work is when we take her on her leash. But aha! we have found the solution to our problem and it works so well I want to weep with joy just thinking about it.
Behold the eighth wonder of the world,,, the Halti. I was skeptical at first because everything we have tried to get our dog to behave during walk time seems to result in failure and me crying myself to sleep at night hoping when I wake up my dog will be perfect. My mother was in Australia for the past few weeks and was with a family friend of ours. He was walking his dog, a labrador like Laila, and she told him about our troubles during walk time and how in the world was his dog so well-behaved? He told her that he too had tried everything to get his dog to behave and the only thing that worked for him was the Halti collar. Supposedly, his dog was just as spastic as Laila and he was so frustrated he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown before he decided to try the Halti in a last ditch effort to tame the dog during walks. What do you know,,, it worked.
When my mom told me the story I told her we had tried something like that when she was a puppy but it didn't seem to work. I figured we would give it another go since she is now two years old and the collar would probably fit her better than it used to. I told Rob what I would like to do and he thought the same thing I did,,, "it will never work!" Well, obviously we know nothing because the second we put this thing on her her behavior changed immediately. She didn't like the piece being around her nose, which is why it works. Every time she would pull it would put uncomfortable pressure along the bridge of her nose and correct her pulling behavior instantly. Sure she would try to fight us a few times when she saw another dog she wanted to sniff or when she wanted to get to the park much faster than we were going, but it was nothing compared to the daily fight we used to have with her. Incredible! It was so incredible that two mornings ago when Rob and I were walking, he turned to me and said, "this is really enjoyable!" How sad is it that we haven't been able to take an enjoyable walk with our dog for two years?
So, if any of you have unruly dogs,,, you should really buy one of these miracle collars. They work,,, they really work!
And as you now know, no post is complete without new pictures of Baby Avery. Here are two shots that show you how much she changes within two weeks!
The first picture is of Mama and Avery at grandma's house before she took off for the land of Oz. And the second picture was taken two weeks later when we went to pick up the goodies she brought back for us! Gotta love grandma!