Zeus update
Zeus has now been here for a month and things are going really well. He now walks nicely on the lead and knows to sit before I will throw one of his many tennis balls for him.
The cats have now accepted Zeus as a family member; Daphne still runs away from him, but she would run away from her own shadow if it were possible. Benson is more than happy to inudulge in the occasional ear wash, P'ding seems to take pleasure in tormenting Zeus before fleeing to the safety of the (stairgate protected) upstairs; the others simply treat Zeus in the same way as they treated Karli - in Amy's case this means mostly loving, but with the occasional swipe around the head for good measure...
It had been planned that Zeus and I would go to training lessons together, but it has been decided that he would benefit far more from agility training - we start next week, our progress will be followed here.
Sometimes Zeus tries telling me what to do; he tried making me throw his ball by barking at me.... it didn't work. I asked him to sit, and he tried every possible tactic to make me throw it, but refused to sit. Zeus wouldn't sit, I wouldn't throw his ball - simple. Each time he didn't do as I asked, I walked off and took the ball he wanted with me. By then end of that walk, Zeus had learnt that the only way to get the ball was to do as I asked. Old fashioned styles of dog training involved forcing the dog behave by making it too scared to disobey its master; this type of training is cruel, unneccessary and has no place in a supposedly animal loving society. Karli was always extremely well behaved and all her training was reward based, Zeus will be trained in the same way.
It seems very strange, but Karli's personality seems to be showing through in Zeus - he has started to do things in exactly the way Karli did. I sometimes wonder if my old girl is still lurking around, keeping a watchful eye on us all.....