MACINTOSH MONTHLY

Macintosh has always been a bit shocking off lead. He's never really nailed the basics of the recall command 'come' and just tends to do his own thing. However recently he's been behaving a bit better. As a result we have been allowing him off lead a bit more, in select locations. 

He behaves really well off lead on the aqueduct (pictured above) so we let him off whenever we go there. He's also been behaving pretty well on the Pacific Crest Trail up near our house. He loves running ahead but always waits for us to catch up with him. So again we have been letting him off there.

Until the other day. 

Above is a picture of the area of the Pacific Crest Trail we usually walk. It doesn't really show you how steep it is but you can guess its fairly high up because the wind turbines look small. Anyway we went for a walk along this trail with our small group from church. There was quite a group of us and despite the cold wind it was great fun. However Andrew, in his infinite wisdom, decided letting Macintosh walk off lead was a great idea, despite the fact there were lots of people and it was harder to keep an eye on him.

At first it was great. Mac ran backwards and forwards between all the groups of people and kept the children amused as they chased him. So I began to relax and not worry about him so much, especially as Andrew had "got it under control". Then it happened, the inevitable. Macintosh smelt something and off he went. Slowly at first, but then gathering more speed. We watched him zip down the side of the hill we were on and up the next. I began to panic obviously and this only got worse when we saw the rabbit he was chasing. Now I knew we were going to lose him! 

Up until this point Andrew was insisting that Mac would simply come back when called, but despite pretty much everyone calling him Macintosh was simply ignoring us. When he went over the brow of the next hill Andrew decided that my stress and panic was clearly too much so off he charged down the hill after him. Thankfully my husband runs like a mountain goat when needed so he got down pretty rapidly. After a few mini games of hide and seek, and being cut off from the other side by another rather quick lad, Macintosh was eventually apprehended and placed firmly back on the lead. 

I wish I had some pictures to show you but in my panic I didn't take any. All I could think was; that dog is never going off lead again, we nearly lost him, I'm going to have words with Andrew and other things to that effect. 

So there we go, Macintosh inevitably broke his good streak and we are back to walking on the lead at all times!

H