Every day, Kingston gets to either go out for an hour-long run in the bush, or a brisk walk around the neighborhood. Today, we did both.

Our usual spot out in the bush had a ton of huge dog prints, I became a little worried that there might be wolves, as there are tons of deer out there! The tracks were as big as my hand and you could clearly see the nail marks in the snow, they looked much longer than most normal dogs, it made me especially worried because we never really encounter too many dogs back there, just the random lab/german shepherd/or the group of small dogs decked out in fancy coats.

So I decided that we would go a different way, in order to combat Kingston’s fear of vehicles as well. We took a long snowmobile track to the busiest street and set out for home. He’s doing really well, only transports and buses panic him. We made it home and promptly went for a run in the other bush behind my house to get all the yuck off his feet. Kingston tore through the wide area so fast and it was the first time I haven’t been able to call him back, but he looked so happy just racing around that I let him have his way. He came back and we took a look at a giant raven that eats the scraps of meat we set out on the shed for him.

After getting inside, it was crawling practice. Kingston sits, stays, lays down, rolls over, shakes both paws, twirls, and can stand up on his hind legs longer than most dogs I know… So I decided it might be cool to get him to crawl. After only ten minutes last night, he grasped it, and today I sat down with him and he did his ridiculous crawl accross a whole room. Mind you, it’s not perfect, he’ll keep crawling along his side, it’s quite humorous!

I always practice proper etiquette when it comes to treats. Sometimes he’s so excited he’ll do multiple tricks without a command. I set the treats on the floor and corrected him when he went after them. It happened twice, and he then laid down. I continued corrections when he got too focus and waited until he completely relaxed and stopped being fixated on the treats, then he got his reward!

Invited onto my bed, he promptly rested his big head on my stomach and fell asleep, snoring, as usual.

It’s days like these that keep me going. Not only am I caring for this being, but he rewards me in respect and loyalty. I’ve never known such an amazing creature, I hope that soon, the ban will be lifted and I can bring Kingston with me all around my city, but we always have to look out for the Humane Society truck as they will probably let me know about the dangers of walking around without a muzzle.

I will always disagree with the muzzle. Unless it’s a proven dangerous dog, there is no need to keep them muzzled. It gives off the wrong signals to people who might already be scared to approach, but every day, we meet many different dogs free of that muzzle and I’m sure people come out of it with a different view of what a pit is.