Blue by name, happy by nature!

For the last 3 weeks I’ve had the honour of walking a beautiful dog called Blue. He is a rescue cattle dog cross 4 years old, he is very wary of strangers and quite clingy to Mum. As Mum wants to go away for a few days at some point, we are starting the walking process early without Mum, so that he will be used to this while she is away. As his name suggests, he is a beautiful roan colour and a really lovely looking dog. He is very obedient on walks, always sits at the kerb side and waits for the command to cross.

We are slowly progressing to walking without Mum or Dad, although he is quite reluctant at first. Once he realises that he is quite safe, he is happy to proceed and we have a very interactive walk amongst the trees and wildlife. As he is a working dog we walk for an hour at pace, he certainly keeps me on my toes although I think he could probably do it all again when we get back!

Working dogs love to do work, surprise, surprise! This doesn’t mean that we need to give them physical work all of the time but we can give them a mental job to do. Mental jobs can be just as tiring as physical ones, we all know this when we have studied for an exam, it tires you out. We can use this mental stimulation to tire our dogs out too. No, we are not going to get them to sit an exam silly! We are just going to redirect their energy, for example, if they bark when someone comes to the door, we can train them to go their bed and wait until our guest enters, before leaving their bed. Now this is their job to do,

instead of the barking.

A little bit about cattle dog’s characteristics and temperament; alert, intelligent, watchful, courageous and trustworthy. They are naturally suspicious of strangers and have very loyal and protective instincts.

Thank you for reading

Kath