Jazzy Loves Her Walks

If Jazzy were to list the things she loves most, her list would look something like this: 

1. Rabbit Treats
2. My Mom and Dad
3. Going for a Walk

I'm okay with coming after her rabbit treats.  They bring her joy that I can't seem to compete with.  I am, however, happy that I can provide her with one of her other joys: taking her for walks.  

Jazzy adores her walks!  She has Adam and I trained to give her three walks a day, despite the fact that we have a fenced in backyard.  I wake up every morning at 5:00am so I can take her before I get ready for work and then I take her on another walk when I get home from work.  Adam runs with her at night before we go to bed.  We all definitely get our exercise in each day!  

Jazzy sure knows her routine.  In fact, she'll remind us when it's time to go for a walk by glancing ever so subtly at her leash that we keep on a hook.  Or she'll lay on the rug by the front door and look pathetically unhappy until we ask her if she wants to go for a walk.  

We have to be very careful not to say the word "walk" unless we actually plan to take her for one.  Jazzy knows what "walk" means and goes crazy when she hears it, as evidenced in the video below:

  

When she hears the magic word, she'll run to the door and wait patiently for us to put on her harness, collar and leash.  We taught her to wait until she hears "free" before she's allowed to go out the door, even if the door is already open.  We make her do this because she was a bit of a bolter when we first got her. She would run out the door and tear down the street.  After running after her a few times, we decided we wanted to nip that habit in the bud!  While she doesn't run away from home anymore, she still waits for the word "free" before she heads out the door.  She's such a good girl!  

Jazzy does very well on her walks, for the most part.  She does like to smell all the smells, which can get a bit tedious.  And she will eat any sort of morsel that's around...hunks of bread, cicadas, Taco Bell wrappers.  But mostly, she's very well behaved.  She even knows to stop before crossing the street. Sometimes we have to remind her to stop, but she stops on her own pretty frequently and waits for the word "free" before she crosses the street.  Maybe I'm giving her more credit than she deserves, but I feel like she knows when a car is going by and won't cross until the coast is clear.  Our thinking in teaching her this is so she'll stop and look for cars on her own in case she ever gets out.  I don't think she'd go very far if she did get out.  She's got a pretty good life.  

  

To end her walks, we let her off her leash once we get close to our house and tell her to "go home."  At this point, she'll make a mad dash for her house.  She likes to dive into the bushes in front of our house and make sure no rabbits dare to hang out there.  

I guess the fact that she gets to go on three walks a day explains why she's so exhausted at the end of the day.