All About Bruno: An introduction
Allow my dog and I to introduce ourselves...
When Bruno, my golden lab cross, arrived in late April 2022 from an overseas pet rescue in Italy, he was not what most people would describe as a “good dog”.
He pooped in the house, never came when you called, and didn’t like going for walks.
But nor did any of that make him a bad dog either. He was just a dog that didn’t know anything.
He didn’t poop outside, because he’d never learned that he should.
He didn’t come when I called him, because he didn’t know his name yet.
He didn’t want to go for walks because – in short – everything outside of the four walls of my flat petrified him.
The outside world looked, smelled and sounded very different to what he was used to. And – as his guardian – it was my job to help him make sense of his new surroundings, while giving him all the time and space he needed to do that so he wouldn’t become overwhelmed.
Ten months have passed since he arrived in the UK, and he’s nothing like the fearful, nervous and anxious wee soul I picked up from a service station car park in April 2022.
But we still have a long way to go (and have a lot of training and desensitization work to do) before he becomes the totally confident and optimistic canine I know he can be.
I’ll be documenting all the work we’re doing (and have done to-date) here, as well as some other related musings and learnings about the weird and wonderful world of dog training, which I was oblivious to until Bruno came into my life.
And here he is… Meet Bruno!
