Isis still refuses to leave the car park unless body-blocked or carried. I have a dilemma: do I continue to fight her and insist that she goes where I want her to go, or do I let her do what she wants to do.
I reflect on how she spent her first three days in the garden, checking it, twirling, sniffing retracing her path over and over again. She made the garden her own and soon felt perfectly at home there. Perhaps she needs to do the same in the park.
I think it might be a good idea to consider my blood pressure, stop being exasperated and let Little Hairy stay in the car park as long as she wants. This will be my new, dog-centred approach.
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Isis enjoys her forty minutes in the car park. She sniffs exploratively round each car. And then retraces her footsteps and sniffs each one again.
By the fifth round, I am bored. But I don’t say anything, telling myself that she is a dog and aesthetic considerations are not in her remit.
Fortunately, she discovers a gap in the railings and snuffles her way through it into the shrubbery.