In the firm belief that for every problem, there’s a book with a solution (this is the result of being over-educated, by the way), I purchased this the other day:

I love this woman, she wrote Calming Signals and if you haven’t read that, I highly recommend it. I started reading it, she outlines a training program that’s pretty much what I’ve been taught before. Stop when the dog pulls, get his attention, turn around and go the other way. (There’s more than that, of course)

Normally I walk 2.5 miles at the park. I’m not happy about it, I used to do 6 miles a day, and I really want to get back to at least 4, but I’m working on it. It’s honestly the only way I can keep my weight down and since I like to eat, I need to walk. So weekends with Maverick have turned into, “let’s go do the miles!” and Maverick, who does not care about food and has no problem with his weight, looks at me like, “Great! Let’s go sniff!” Walking miles while pausing for frequent sniff breaks are not compatible.

So today I made a decision to focus not on miles but on time – to work on the pulling and not worry about how far we got. It took us 45 minutes to go 1.15 miles. (That seriously cracked me up, it takes me 48 minutes to do 2.5 on a good day) The first ten minutes were a whole lot of stop, get attention, turn, walk back in the opposite direction. We did not get very far. At this point I was laughing to myself. The first “loop” at the park is 1/2 mile and my goal was to get around that loop. It took about 10 turns before Maverick got this “oh for crying out loud” look when I turned him around, but he started actually turning himself when I stopped. Really? I know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was it a total success? Hell no, it took 45 minutes to go a mile, people! However, we made progress. I made notes – because that overeducated thing, you have to take notes and keep track and stuff – and I know that we both need to do some hard work.

I am feeling slightly optimistic I’m also certain that tomorrow will be hell on wheels. 🙂