Grumpy Old Man

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It's official. Seth is a grumpy old man. You wouldn't know it from the picture of Seth and my nephew taken a couple of years ago. Seth is now more than 10 years old and my gentle constant companion has gone from being a reasonable if somewhat reactive 'fun-police' older dog to being a proactive 'nobody gets near Rory' grumphead at the park.

I brought him out for a Ridgeback walk today - the first time I've let him join Tamzin's crew since Seth and Halo took a round out of each other a few weeks ago. Seth is entirely fine offleash running around with Rory and any other dogs who might come sniffing along. But again today, as soon as Tamzin arrived at the park with Raimi and Kenya, Seth had his hackles up and immediately lunged for Raimi. Poor Raimi had done absolutely nothing but look forward to a good time bouncing around with Rory. Seth was taken back to the truck where he had stayed while the other Ridgebacks wrestled and chased. It doesn't always take me three strikes to figure something out, and this is one of those times. Two times is enough to convince me that walks with Seth will be limited to those that don't involve any Ridgeback group antics. It is a sad day for me since that is one of my favourite things to watch, but it's obviously too stressful for him and certainly not fair to the other dogs. ...Kathryn