Tarly Update
A little less than half a year ago, Tarly came into our life. As a shelter dog with a mostly unknown past, he isn't an easy dog. But today I realized how much progress there has been already.
During our morning walk he stuck his nose into some deep grass and when he came out, his face was full of burs. Just a couple of months ago this would have been a huge problem. He would have snapped at us for pulling on his fur and we could not have used the muzzle because the burs where on his face…
Today, however, it was absolutely no problem for me to slowly and carefully remove one after another. He trusted me to be careful and was happy to receive some treats for his patience.
Most of this progress is thanks to Kaddi's steady training with him ♥️. She got him to let us touch his feet, she even gave Tarly a haircut! Just a few months ago we needed to permanently distract him with liverwurst to just brush his fur!
Of course there's still much to learn. Even though he no longer does it with us, his instinct to bite when surprised or when he feels cornered is still there and after a few incidents, we learned to rely on using a muzzle much more. Luckily he doesn't much mind wearing it anyway.
He's even more cuddly now that he knows us more and in general follows commands pretty well. However we still never unleash him outside, for his impulse control is pretty bad. I doubt he'd ever run away from us, but a rabbit or another dog makes him forget everything else. I'm not sure that will ever change, but we will see.
Of course not only the dog changed. So did we. I did not expect how quickly I'd absolutely fall in love with the little goofball.
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