Second Fear Period

Apparently that's the name for it. Jen's been reading The Art of Raising a Puppy from the Monks of New Skete and today came across the section that talks about the period in a puppies life when they're afraid of things all over again. It happens between the age of 16 and 24 months - right where Gretchen is.

Of course she read this right after we took Gretchen for a walk - in the park - in the scary park.

We took CJ with us to help her feel more comfortable. The walk started fine. She did her typical pull and attack CJ routine. Everything was going well, so we decided to stop and meet some other dogs that were also walking with their owners. The dogs/owners seemed friendly enough, so why not?

From a distance, the dogs didn't look so big. Up close they were huge. One was a seven year old Great Pyrenees. He was easily bigger than me. Luckily he was really mellow. CJ and him got along very well talking about the way things were and how wild the puppies of today are. The other dog was a seventeen month old Bernese Mountain Dog. Beautiful dog, but also very large

and very energetic. CJ was cool with him and the owners did their best to keep him under control, but Gretchen wanted nothing to do with him. She was crazy to get away. I picked her up to help her feel safer, but she just peed all over me. It really wasn't going well. It didn't help this was the same exact location where the other energetic dog came after her.

I kept holding her and eventually she sort of calmed down at least enough for me to let her down. She still stuck to me like Velcro, but she was ok to be on the ground.

Slowly she got curious about the Pyrenees and moved closer to him to investigate. He was cool with her. He hardly noticed her past his own drool. The Bernese would move an inch and she'd be right back at my feet. But slowly he became interesting too. She'd wander sideways in his direction, then run back when he moved. She never really rubbed noses with him, but she did show more comfort around him. What started out as a horrible mistake turned out pretty good. Jen and I thanked them and we all headed about happily in our separate directions.

- b

ps. the scale of the photos are off from what we experienced. The Pyrenees was HUGE. The Bernese was only around 120lbs or so.