When we arrived, Tilde noticed her friend Emil was amongst the group waiting on the parking lot in front of the entrance and they celebrated an excited reunion. I left Kenzo at home for the day, in an attempt to spare him as much as possible while we await a 2nd opinion from the vet. Tilde was her own excited self, although she missed her mentor and backup Kenzo, and she was slightly more careful when she met all the new dogs and people in the group.
She was still very much herself though, and she didn't forget to leave a muddy paw print on the people who wanted to meet her and in Tilde's case, eye contact is enough for an invite. She wiggled herself through a couple of legs too, to test if there was a good back-rubber in the group. She wasn't disappointed.
When we started the walk, she pulled the leash in her usual excitement. But so did a lot of other young dogs, and I thanked her for not doing her Bungee-Jump-Walk demo, sparing the tendons in my arm for at least a little bit. The rules of the park we walked required all dogs to be on leash because there is a lot of wild-life, so we couldn't set them loose.
In hindsight that was my luck. For a while at least.
Tilde being Tilde, had a little surprise up her sleeve. I noticed how the sniffs of the male dogs were just a tat too intense and longer than usual. She is a flirter, but this was more like something else was cooking. Strangely Kenzo hadn't pointed it out to me earlier that morning, but it was around her "time". Could it be, I thought. The male dogs left no room for mistake. Tilde had just started her heat cycle.
Holding on to the leash more tight and trying to avoid the males as much as we could, we walked all together for about an hour until we found a slope with a bench at its top for a coffee break. From there we had a beautiful view of the estate in the middle of the park and a flock of deer grazing in the fields in front of it.
I might have relaxed a little bit too much, and the one dog who definitely shouldn't escape her leash, did it again. Tilde was on the loose, and she was already dancing through the group.
Great. A dog in heat on the loose in a group with many healthy male dogs and a flock of deer on the horizon for her to hunt. Correct that, not a dog, but Tilde. I could only imagine how her brain was working overtime to figure out how she could best take advantage of the abundance of options for some serious mischief laying at her feet, and how all that energy inside cropped up by walking on the leash was about to explode. It appeared to be a new episode of our chickenshit drama was unfolding, only this time with more witnesses and without the cursing - at least so far.
I took a few steps towards her but stopped in surrender. It would be futile to chase her, or even call her. Tilde was dancing though the group and flirted with some of the dogs nearby when she suddenly looked back at me. I said nothing, and to my surprise she came running back to me. Not because she was finished with her antics, she maybe wanted to lift my spirits and come and get me to join the fun, or maybe she just missed that last touch of bravery, she usually gets from having Kenzo around. Whatever it was that brought her back, just as she bounced away from me again, I could grab her leash.
I thanked her for being merciful, and held the leash even more tight for the rest of the walk. We made it back to the parking lot without further escapes.
***
Thank you very much Pia S. and the Danish Hovawart Club for organizing the walk.
I hope we can soon do it again. Without the heat thing that is.
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