I decided that this would be an exceptionally good opportunity to work on tethering (having Dawsyn and Milkyway attached to each other by a tether). To my way of thinking, being tethered to Milkyway should give Dawsyn a greater sense of independence since she won't have to be holding the hand of an adult. Unfortunately, Dawsyn did not see the logic! She tugged and she pulled and she squealed and Milkyway, the good old boy that he is, stood there and took it like a trooper!! I'm sad to say that, because we actually wanted to ENJOY the day at the zoo, Dawsyn won this battle ... but I still have hopes of winning the war.
It may have been for the best anyway because Milkyway got a little skittish when we got close to the animals. I can only imagine the complete overload of scents in a place like that so I wasn't too hard on him. I just made him remain in a heel and tried to get him to focus on me as much as possible. It took him a good hour to calm down enough to behave as if there wasn't another animal in the world. I don't think that's too bad for a one-year old puppy in a ZOO!
I'm so happy that our trusty helper Emily had come along. There is no way I could handle Dawsyn AND the dog if they are not tethered together. We will definitely have to keep working at it in a less stressful environment. Fortunately, we had the foresight to take Dawsyn's stroller along. I was very handy for lugging the lunch cooler and purses in and eventually Dawsyn crawled into it and let Emily push her from sight to sight!
All-in-all, it was a fun day and we managed to arrive at home weary but in possession of all the children we had left with!
Just outside the front gate of the zoo.
Matt's on his tail, McKenna under his chin and Hunter on his trunk!
You can't see this one as well but McKenna is about to be
pounced on by a mountain lion.
2 comments:
Milkyway did very well to behave and so did Dawsyn. Zoos are fun places. Now if it had been a Southern Zoo, they would have had recipes on the cages as well as animals names.
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