I wish I could say that I knew exactly how to walk my dogs perfectly.  Okay, lets not say perfectly, let’s go with ‘correctly.’  Yes, I know the fundamentals of walking a dog, and yes, I know how to heel, cross the street, and walk past other people without having Luna lose her focus.  What I do not know is how to avoid having Luna freak out when walking past a large parked truck with its engine running, or walking on a gutter drain. Luna avoids these things at all costs (read: she panics), and in a purely frustrated state I have even resorted to picking her up and placing her on the drain grate so she will understand that she is not going to fall through and get washed away like the little rat character ‘Remy’ does in the movie “Ratatouille.”

Lets now add Penny to the pack.  I have heard that all Dachshunds pull on their leashes, and let me just say that when Penny is on her leash she pulls like she is competing in the Iditarod.  My pleas of “slow down, Penny” must translate to “Mush, mush, mush” in Dachshund-speak, and she obliges as her little feet carry her on like a sprinting rabbit.

So here I have a dog that is fairly consistent on her leash except when passing by large parked trucks and drain grates, and the other dog that behaves like a wind up toy.  What is my solution? I place them side by side and ‘pack walk’ them either on my left, or directly in front.  Something changes when I put the girls together like this; it somehow calms Luna down, and Penny tries to match Luna’s leisurely pace. All in all, it makes for a much better walk!  I hope someday to walk like the pros do – my goal is to walk like The Thundering Heard pack!  They have it down!