These boots are made for walking…Adelaide’s first big walk
Today was Adelaide’s biggest walk to date. It started out as just a simple walk to Salvation Army with Dad. 12 minutes on Google Maps. How hard could that be? 2 hours later and Ryan has learned a thing or two about walking a little Italian greyhound on the streets of downtown Toronto. She wants to meet everyone that passes. They want to meet her.
We’ve got the elevator pitch down. Her name is Adelaide. She’s 9 weeks old, 3 pounds, will grow to be 10lbs, Italian Greyhound (it’s like a toy greyhound).
While she wants to meet everyone and they want to meet her, it also means that we have to be extremely cautious. She hasn’t had her full vaccinations yet so while other dog owners would love for their pup to meet ours, we have to scoop her up quick when stranger dogs come close. We’ve also been cautious avoiding letting her sniff areas where other dogs have been. Another thing we look out for is what she might try to pick up in her mouth. Adelaide seems to love eating grass, even through pavement cracks! While she would have experienced grass out in the country, I’m sure the new exciting treats like cigarette butts become enticing too. Luckily she has been easy to scoop up quick and behaves well when we catch her trying to eat something she shouldn’t (no, little rocks are not kibble).
Before we make walking in the city sound all doom and gloom, let’s look at the highlights! We met babies in carriages, a man in a wheel chair, got some cuddles from a nice lady going home to feed her cats, and even got photographed by a man with a film camera! She might have been a little squirmy but dad’s been working on her comfort levels with cameras and we even had a photoshoot in the park.
It’s early days, so walking is still a work-in-progress. Adelaide tends to walk slightly behind you and curiously likes to switch to the opposite side from where you’re holding the leash. We’ve found that if you lower down and call her name to coax her, she’ll catch up. A snapping sound has proved to be useful when we lose her attention to adoring strangers. Glad she doesn’t have the urge to lunge at anyone or anything (although pigeons have become a potential interest). We’ll continue to be observant as our walking adventures continue.
People just love Adelaide! They want to pet her, they want to pick her up and even want her picture. Photo booth potential perhaps? Pet Expos...hit us up. Funniest moment of this walk was when a man interrupted his own business call to ask if he could take her picture. Telling people that she has more Instagram followers than her mom has been a hilarious topic of discussion, and gathered even more followers.
After the walk to the Salvation Army, we also visited mom at work - one of the studios where she teaches fitness! So many clients were eager to see our little girl and this visit didn’t disappoint. After many cuddles, we went to a local pet store on the Danforth that always carries great toys. We’re getting a better idea of what types of toys she needs so we picked up a new rope, treat-hiding ball, and chicken flavoured bone. We also picked up a harness. Luckily, Adelaide was with us so we could try our best to fit it properly. Her size right now is an extra small (shockingly they even carried an extra extra small size... for once we found something too small for her!) We’d been previously using a simple nylon puppy collar but we know this isn’t a good solution for long. Iggy’s are a bit tricky to size because of their neck/head size and broad chests. In future we might try a wide martingale collar, but for now this harness is a pretty good fit. We’re glad to have a padded harness to avoid any irritation under her arms. There is also the added benefit of the leash not hanging in her face. To top it all off, the harness happens to be pink - so people might start guessing that she’s a girl now 😂
We’re excited to see how our little girl grows and builds up her stamina for big long walks. Mom and Dad love to walk (just ask their Fitbits). We can’t wait to take you with us on all of our adventures, Adelaide!