Walking our Pug Daisy and our mini-Australian Shepherd Rollo is often an adventure and so was today’s promenade. Daisy, who is fifteen years old and has arthritis walks very slowly and cannot walk far. Therefore, I let her sit in a pet stroller on our walks. However, I let her walk a little bit, go to the bathroom, well the grass, and sniff around a bit. She also has incontinence problems and wears a dog diaper inside the house. I take it off for our walks.
Rollo our mini–Australian Shepherd, on the other hand, is very energetic and fast, and unfortunately very misbehaved. He is the worst behaved dog that we’ve ever had, and he growls and barks aggressively at every dog we meet. Yes, I know that is our fault and we need to fix this problem, but it requires some time and discipline. He also does not seem to understand that he is too small to take on large dogs like Bernese Mountain Dogs. Perhaps, he acquired that belief because our Leonberger Bronco was so patient with him.
So, what happened today?
During our walk I stopped to let Rollo go to the bathroom and I also let Daisy down, who also went. Right at that moment a woman with her two Bernese dogs approached us and Rollo went crazy. He barked loudly and the Bernese dogs barked loudly back. As Rollo ran towards them Rollo’s leash got stuck around the stroller wheel and he tipped the stroller over. As I tried to fix it, I made it worse, and the stroller tipped upside down. Luckily, when the woman saw this, she turned and went a different way.
Our neighbor Dave, who is a nice guy, had watched the commotion from his window and came out to help. As he ran towards me, he shouted, “Thomas are you OK?”, “are you OK?”. I thanked him and I was able to turn the stroller over and I put Daisy back in the stroller. As I did this Daisy peed all over me, but other than being wet and in need of a shower, I was back in business. I was annoyed with Rollo, but I did not say anything. I wonder what will happen on tomorrow’s walk.
Finally, a few words about Daisy’s pet diaper. It is a diaper with a hole for the tail. I think it is a great idea. Dogs eventually get old, and they may have bathroom problems. You cannot get angry with the dog when they pee on the floor or the carpet, they already feel bad about it. A diaper will solve the problem and make them feel better about it. They will quickly understand how it works. However, one problem with the diapers is that they easily slip off and to solve that we got suspenders with Velcro holding the diaper. You can buy this stuff from online pet stores, Amazon and many other places.
Leonberger Life 