Teaching a Young Dog New Tricks

The grass in the near end of my backyard is a mess.

Correction: The bare dirt in the near end of my backyard is a mess. Thanks to my doggie Llewellyn and his little gifts and deposits over the past year and a half, it might be, oh, maybe one-quarter covered with grass?

And not happy grass, either.

This I need to do something about before the warm fall weather goes away.

Never mind why I didn't rake out the dead matter until yesterday. I had my reasons. But now it's done. Hopefully, I'll get the area reseeded by Saturday. Can I let my poor dear dog range free out there and do his business as usual?

No, I can not.

So since last night, Llewellyn's doing his business on the leash, out the back gate, in the grass next to the alley. Back there, I don't care if the vegetation gets killed. Good riddance to it.

The surprising thing is that he's not pulling on the leash half as much as he does when I try to take him for a walk out front. And this is in spite of the fact that he chewed through his Halti collar when he freaked out at the vet's in July!

In fact, the one needing the discipline is most likely to be me. I start an early class tomorrow, and it'd be soooooo much easier on cold crisp dark mornings to just let him run out the back door . . . ! Especially if I'm running late.

Llewellyn, he's enjoying himself so much, he's forgetting to be a prat on the leash. Maybe it's the novelty factor. Long may it last.