Emma's Territory

I am not a very good mother. I mean I try to have rules for my kids and dogs, but I don't have very many. I am quite leanant on Emma and her wearing a leash. Espeically on our street. Everyday we walk back and forth to the end of the street where the park is. She always stick with me, although usually a few paces ahead. She rarely runs away and if a rabbit runs and Emma feels the need to chase her, Emma will always come back. Usually I'll find her sitting on the front porch after I've been wandering streets. She generally stays away from cars as she is quite scared of them after her adventure trying to cross Deerfoot Trail (a highway here in Calgary) so I quite trust Emma to walk off leash as we head up to the park for our daily romp.

It seems though becuase Emma gets to roam free on the street she now thinks it's her territory, so when she sees other dogs on the street it makes her unhappy. Most of the time she just runs by them, but today one wanted to stop and play. Of course it was a puppy and I had to oogle over it, but the puppy wanted to play with Emma. Of course Emma would have none of that so she growled and nipped at the dog. I guess it's like a younger sibling who is bothering you and you want them to stop. Just in dog language it comes in the form of a growl and nip. Emma is around dogs fairly often, we take her to dog parks once a week. She use to go to doggy day care a couple times a week and we never heard of any problems with it. She also has her best doggy friends. Maybe she is getting grouchy in her old age.

I guess I am going to have to start to enforce a new leash rule. I am just not a strict mom....


Edit To Add: The puppy was just fine. Didn't even yelp and still wanted to play with Emma
Till Tommorrow

Jenn