Sunday, 13 April

Busy weekend: drove down to Alresford on Friday to pick up Barney a 7 month old Lurcher who was coming into SLR for fostering. I had to take him to the Newbury Dog Show the next day and hand him over to Phillipa who was keeping him for the night, and pick up Sam another young Lurcher who needed transporting to South Mimms.  I really liked Barney. He's a lovely happy little boy and I could easily have kept him... if I didn't already have 3 dogs!

Barney was due to be fostered in Maidenhead so I offered to meet Phillipa on Sunday morning for a walk and to pick up Barney and take him to meet his new foster mum.

I met Phillipa in Tadley on a common where there were lots of dog walkers. Alice wasn't great, but I think there's some small progress with the barking. I thought it would be good for me to take here where there would be lots of other dogs - if I don't do this then I'm not going to get a chance to teach her how to behave. I think there's some progress. She's still getting agitated and barking but I'm able to temper this more now and she's not going quite so ballistic. I think it's going to be some time before she stops reacting but for now if I keep concentrating on keeping in front of her, walking at normal pace and making eye contact with her while she's trying to bark then hopefully she will get less and less agitated and eventually take no notice. It's going to be a long haul, but having to write this diary has helped me to see that there's some progress, even if it's only small steps.

Here's the lovely Bruno... makes me sigh just thinking about him. He gave me such a lovely snuggle when I was handing him over to his new foster mum. He was obviously feeling anxious and had bonded with me after just one day together and didn't like the thought of me going. I hope he's having a happy time with his new family.