| I’m taking a break from the blogs I was doing about the 10 Years of Born 2 Run to talk about your dog mental health!! If you haven’t noticed, the world has gone slighty mad. Supermarkets are bare because folk have decided to stockpile, the elderly and families are struggling to get the basics and a lot of people have to work from home. People are scared, worried, panicked, depressed and stressed. It’s shitty times for sure. And while you’re sat panicking about what you’ll wipe your arse on when the loo roll finishes and having a distrupted routine, your dog is sat there wondering what in the holy hell is going on?! Dogs love routines and the more sensitive ones can get really upset with chaos. They can go off their food, they can start to become distructive and they may actually make themselves ill. With the looming possibility of a total lock down, we need to totally change our lives. While we understand why this needs doing, our dogs do not. Try and keep some form of routine with your dogs. For example try and get up around the same times and do their morning routines. Then if you usually go out to work and leave them in a certain room or in a crate with a kong or similar, try to do that too. While we aren’t on lock down, try and keep your dog walker (if you have one) coming as usual too. A client of mine puts her dogs in their crates for a nap after I’ve walked them even if she’s home, because she likes to keep the routines. The danger is if you are suddenly with your dog all day and being by your side becomes their new routine, they will struggle when you go back to work. Separation anxiety is a real worry. With all this in mind I’ve created a new challenge group! In the group we will do one challenge each week for 12 weeks, with the aim of tiring out your dog mentally, creating a fun environment, giving you something to focus on other than bog roll shortages and having fun! Sound good? You can join the group by clicking here! Stay safe folks. Wash your hands, keep away from people (for me this is normal!) and be excellent to each other! Thanks for reading guys, Tam. |