I was thinking as we went on our first, shorter, poop walk this morning, that it depends on where you see us, whether you think I am walking an unruly pup or a well-behaved dog. Before he pooped and when he was in the grip of the urge to poop, Rockwell nearly pulled me off my feet with his need to get onto the grass. Of course, this doesn’t happen only at the moment he has to go but for a few minutes before then so there is a lot of pulling and hauling and “no! no!” from me. FInally, he assumes the position and produces a prodigious amount of poop. It was a two-bagger.

After that, he listens to me again and stays on the path and we walk along nicely for a minute. Suddenly, I spot another dog coming toward us and I put myself into the ready position for dog wrangling. Sure enough, Rockwell spots the other dog and goes ballistic. I finally have to put the poop bags down and just hang onto him until the other dog leaves the vicinity.

On the last leg, coming home, I have him on a slack leash, Occasionally when he sees a squirrel, I just have to gently twitch the leash and say “leave” and he continues to walk nicely. That’s when a neighbour passed us in his car and didn’t stop to chat because he knows Rockwell goes bananas. Rockwell must have looked like the angel he sometimes is - little did Robert suspect what had just happened a few moments before.