New Year and Back to Square One Again

First off, Happy New Year everyone! No new years resolutions this year, I don't really feel like adding to my list of things to do for the first week of January!

Moving on, the new year hasn't exactly been great for Oscar so far. We went on our walk yesterday when he was shocked by an electric fence wire that was knocked down by some trees that fell in the storm. I'm unsure if he got shocked on the nose or the paw but either way he did not like it. I'd always assumed that the fence was turned off and I've never really had any reason to check it because we can get under the fence easily without touching it and any time I have touched it, it's been with my coat so I wouldn't feel anything anyway. But now I am under no illusion as to whether or not it is on or off. Needless to say, Oscar was not pleased and let out a good yelp when it happened. He proceeded to run straight back home with no interest in stopping. He was so shocked (sorry) that he wouldn't take a treat, even the dried sprats that he loves.

I wasn't about to give up there and then so I clipped his lead on (it's a good thing that I remembered it) and continued with the walk as we usually would. He was fine with that and plodded along next to me as we made our way to the second field. In there I let him off the lead again and he went about his usual business and started to eat treats again. He did occasionally stop and turn to go back home but he came along when he was told to until we got to the 3rd field. Here, he legged it home yet again for no apparent reason (there is no fence around that field, just ditches and banks). Off I went again to get him and back we went to continue our walk.

By the time we got to field 4 he was fine, let him off the lead again and he was totally back to his normal self. He walked home off leash as we usually would and all seemed to be fine. It may have been a frustrating walk going backwards and forwards again and again and chasing Oscar all over the place but I thought he'd be fine after that.

But was I wrong! Today he started to make his way back home again as soon as we were half way through the first field. Luckily enough, that was the only time he did it and the rest of he walk went very much undisturbed as usual but it's clear that he isn't comfortable with the field anymore, at least not one side of it anyway.

I spent months getting him back into the fields because of the incident with the horses but now I may be back to square one again! I just hope it will be a simple fix though. I'm going to walk the other way around the field for now and avoid the side where the fencing has fallen down but by doing this I am risking him being scared by the GSD down the road that likes to charge at the fence and bark at us. If that doesn't work I might just have to resort to keeping him on a lead until we get to the 2nd field and wait for him to come around again.