No Parking

For a while now, we've been planning slightly longer than usual Sunday morning walks with Bingley: but these Sunday saunters seemed destined to fail! Firstly we couldn't get Bingley to engage with the Metro service, then the following weekend he was too ill; and this weekend he wouldn't cross the road! Or rather, he wouldn't come back across the road.

We'd decided to take him along to the local park; it isn't that far and much of the walk included familiar territory which he'd covered before. Walking to the park was fine, and once there we had great fun exploring all the new smells and playing with the piles of autumn leaves and fallen sticks. The only problem at that stage was with the camera which has decided, somewhat in Bingley fashion it must be said, to not always do what we want it to. Nevertheless, we had a very nice time whilst we were there; but it was on the way home that the problems started. We left the park ok, and Bingley was happy to trot along the pavement; however, we then had to cross the (thankfully very quiet) road. Bing made a start without any hesitation, but three quarters of the way across he decided that he didn't like that other, more built-up, side of the street: his ears went flat, his tail tucked under and he lay down and whimpered. Not the best place to park himself, but it was still early Sunday morning so there were very few people around and there was virtually no traffic moving. So what was spooking him?! He was happy to bound back over the road and continue along the other pavement, but a few yards later we tried crossing again with the same result. This behaviour wasn't at all like his I don't wanna go home tactics: he really was frightened of something. Possibly it involved approaching tall buildings with lots of windows and doors; we've already worked out that he doesn't like going through new doorways - including ours: the first time we tried returning home through the front door we had to give up and walk him around to the more familiar back door.

We eventually found a more exposed stretch of road, and B crossed with slightly less anxiety and we returned home without further incident.

It was both a surprising and distressing experience; we've got no intention of wrapping Bingley in cotton wool, but it's made us appreciate how we can easily take too much for granted. Bingley now weighs 22 kilos and is beginning to look like a dog; but really he's still just a puppy and he clearly needs a bit more time to get used to the world around him.