Well, it’s been a looooooong time since I was active on here. Almost 2 and a half years it seems. Jack was a tiny baby and I was just starting to settle into being a mum.
This is that tiny baby now. With Spendog of course. Because this blog is supposed to be about Spen after all lol.
Things are still hectic here. I struggle to get the pair of them out for walks together, I manage it but it is stressful as hell to get them both ready and get out that door. Once we’re out it’s not bad. Spen’s still horrendous on lead and when we’ve got Jack with us his recall is…well let’s just say it leaves a lot to be desired. Jack insists on walking now so our walks tend to be long on time but fairly short on distance. It’ll take us 2 hours to go 3 or 4 miles whereas by myself I do about 8 miles in that time. But can’t complain, it’s a good length for a 2 year old human after all 🙂 We try to go somewhere Spen can have some off lead time but to be honest he’s pretty content with whatever he gets. He’s 7 in May. Not that people believe me when I tell them that, they all assume he’s a puppy and tell me he’ll calm down when he’s about 3. Ha!
I could not have asked for a better dog around Jack. He mostly ignored him until around 6 months old when we started weaning. As you can imagine, a Labrador and dropped food…heaven lol. We have never encouraged interaction between Jack and Spen. When we brought Jack home he was plonked down in his car seat, Spen allowed to sniff as he pleased and that was it. I didn’t want a baby obsessed dog or a dog obsessed baby. So there was none of the “oooh,look at the doggy! Stroke the doggy! Look what doggy is doing!” or anything. Spen was part of every day life, he wasn’t excluded from it, we just didn’t draw particular attention to him. And it seems to have paid off. We’ve never had issues with Jack not leaving him alone, having to shut Spen out of the room to stop him being pestered or anything like that. They mostly just ignore each other. There is interaction, more so as Jacks getting older and can do a bit more with/for Spen. He feeds him each morning. He’ll throw a toy for him. He’ll stroke him nicely now and then. But mostly they just sort of hang out together.
Spen can be quite protective of Jack, especially around other dogs, so we do have to watch that. He’s never shown aggression about it but will deliberately move between Jack and a strange dog and try to entice them to play if they seem to be showing too much interest. And god forbid Jack gets more than a certain distance from us on walks. Spen will look at me as if to say “well aren’t you going to go after him?” and if I don’t he takes off and stays with him until he’s back within what Spen considers a safe distance. If Jack goes out of sight of him he won’t relax until he can see him again when out.
Unfortunately training has taken a bit of a back seat since Jack came along. We’ve been through hell with Jacks sleep in the past 18 months, he just didn’t sleep more than a couple of hours for a long stretch. Not been doing too badly the last few weeks but I’m not getting my hopes up it’ll last. So doing much with Spen has been the last thing on my mind when Jack is asleep but I miss it and I’m sure Spen does too. Hoping getting back into this blog will give me a bit of a push to step it up again. Problem is, any time Jack realises I’m training Spen I now get “I do it mummy! I press button!” which is incredibly unhelpful lol. He’s also realised that Spen gets treats for doing things. “I need chocolate now. I sit for chocolate.” is what he came out with the other day. Oh, and Jack is convinced he’s a dog. He sniffs lamp posts. He cocks his leg up trees, grass etc. He barks. He sits to cross the road if Spen does. He licks people. He plays fetch.
Anyway, I shall leave my ramblings there for now and finish off with some up to date pictures!
A “nicnic”.
Reddish Vale. I missed this place when I lived in Germany. Spent so many hours down there as a teenager with my dogs 🙂 
Waiting for Jack to finish a picnic.
A giant pine cone. We still have this pine cone somewhere lol.
He still gets carried like this at times too. Not often by Daddy though. Not often by mummy now either to be honest, he’s such a good walker it’s only needed now and then.
Can’t imagine why my child likes baking so much…
For some reason he insisted the basket came out on our walk.
There’s gotta be a derp face one hasn’t there? lol.
I managed to get Spen out without Jack this weekend. Jack was most unimpressed, Spen delighted as he got a decent walk at a decent pace. It actually took me less time to do the 8 miles we did than it takes me to do 4 with Jack with us lol.
Training Spencer 