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Walk Schedule

These guys are fine if you can take them out three times per day:

  • Morning

    • Ideally shortly after you start getting up/moving around, because they’ll hear you and be excited to go out. Chunk might begin his morning squeak serenade.

    • Preferably before 9am, so they don’t have to hold it super long

  • Midday

    • Anytime midday is fine

    • Often times Chunk will start squeaking / asking to go out around 1pm, in which case we let that be the midday walk

  • Evening

    • It’s fine if the time varies from day to day

    • Within an hour or two of when you plan to put them to bed, ideally, so they have a last chance to go before bed

Exception: if Chunk is squeaking/whining at some point during the day, this means he needs to poop! So if he starts doing that, he needs to go out. He’s pretty good about continuing to squeak until you wise up and take him out.

Putting on their harnesses

Hold the harness like this, so the leash is facing you and the loop is on top. The loop goes over their head, and the buckles clasp behind their front legs.

Where the dog goes... not to scale :)

I just leave the leash attached to the harness for ease.

The loop of the harness goes over their head (for both Jackson and Chunk, the bright green piece is at the top of the loop), and the strap goes between their front legs and buckles on each side. The leash hangs down from the front of their chest. (See pictures!)

If a piece gets twisted, or if you need to adjust or start over, no big deal. They’ll be happy to go out, so they’ll tolerate a lot of fiddling around if it means they get to go outside.

Bright green piece goes on top

To take the harness off, just unbuckle both sides and slip the loop off over their heads.

Poop Stuff

They usually poop about 1-2 times per day.

When they go out, they will be excited to see what’s going on out there, and may forget to poop if it’s a very short walk. One lap around Ridgeway should give them plenty of time to remember what they needed to do.

They (especially Chunk) will eventually choose a favorite poop spot and use it routinely, so if you notice that happening, make sure to swing by that location on your walks.

The pink poop bags are compostable… very compostable… so if the roll gets wet, they may start to stick together a little bit.

Walking ‘Eccentricities’

Jackson

He can still be very excitable around other dogs, although this continues to get more toned down. Basically if the other dog is calm, he’s calm. But if the other dog is freaking out, he’ll get pretty revved up (understandable, I guess).

The 100% best thing you can do is create some space, either by crossing the street, putting your body between him and the other dog, waiting for the other dog to pass, changing direction, etc. You can also hold the leash closer/tighter/shorter so that he can’t get as much inertia going if he jumps or pulls.

Jackson isn’t aggressive toward other dogs — really he just wants to play with them! So if something accidentally happens where he does have contact with another dog, no worries. We just err on the side of caution of not letting him meet unknown dogs, because you never know how the other dog is going to act.

Also even a friendly off-leash dog can be an issue, because it’s a weird social dynamic to be approached by a free-roaming dog when you’re on a leash. That said, Jackson has been approached by off-leash dogs before, and it was fine. I just try to avoid it if possible.

Chunk

Chunk is very good on the leash, and is definitely the lighter puller / easier to handle of the two. His only issue is that he’ll get ‘stuck,’ as in: plant his paws and not want to move forward. This typically happens in two situations:

  1. He is unhappy with your agenda. Maybe you are walking away from someone who was petting him. Maybe you are walking away from a dog he didn’t get to meet.

  2. You are going the ‘wrong’ direction. If he’s used to a certain route, and you deviate for some reason, then, silly human, you’re going the wrong way! Come this way instead!

The best way to get Chunk unstuck is to hold out a treat in such a way that he’ll have to walk in the direction you’re headed to come get it. If that doesn’t do the trick, you can also just start pulling on his leash and walking in the direction you need to go, and eventually he’ll come along. (This doesn’t hurt him, don’t worry.)

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