Dogsitting

So, I now seem to be looking after a dog as well as two little girls, not something I expected to be doing! She belongs to the girls' uncle's family (mum's brother) but she's going to be with us until Friday. Her name's India and she's a brown and white Spaniel. She arrived last night but as I was out with friends I didn't see her until this morning. I soon found out that she's scared of pretty much everything, she stared at me and ran away when she first saw me! Carlota explained that her previous owner was a hunter who mistreated her which is why she's now scared of all people she doesn't know and loud noises. 

As this was my last free morning while the girls are at school, my plan had been to go into the city centre and make the most of it. However, India had other ideas! She refused to go anywhere near the kitchen where she has to stay when alone in the flat and the girls begged me to bring her with us on the school run so, in the end, that's what happened. The suburb where we live, Montecarmelo, is quite a long way out so by the time I get into the city centre I don't have much time there as it is and India seemed to be full of energy, so I decided to change my plans for the morning and go for a walk with her instead. 

The only place you can really go with a dog here is the bike track so that's where we went. India seemed to enjoy exploring somewhere new and we got lots of comments from passers-by. We stopped to talk to a couple of gentlemen who were trying to be friendly to her, but of course she was scared of them too! We walked for about an hour an a half before returning home where she drank a full bowl of water. The walk seems to have worked as she's warmed to me now and allowed me to stroke her! She also let me shut her in the kitchen for a bit so that I could go to the post office to send some cards.

It seems that Mónica madre is more worried about the dog than her two girls. She left me a note with a load of instructions and rang me to confirm this morning. She's also been texting me to check up on us! This is the first time the family have looked after the dog for more than a day so she's quite nervous about it as they've never owned a dog themselves.

The only worrying thing right now is that I have either developed a cold or am allergic to her... 

India

A well-behaved dog!

The bike trail - it would be quite nice without the motorway and pylons spoiling the view!

Not entirely sure how far it goes as we stopped when we hit a motorway