Before Guusje came to live with us, we were all prepared for training. I was determined to take Guusje outside in her Aviator harness. It took me months to train with her, I watched every single YouTube video about training, but I still couldn’t get her to wear her harness.

One day, I decided to try and just put her on the harness. We struggled a bit but she was okay with it. Our first time outside was awesome! We both enjoyed it so much! Or maybe I enjoyed it more than Guusje, haha. 

For a couple of weeks/months we took our walks outside with the harness. We took many pictures and made lots of videos.

But then Guusje got really sick… It took her months to get better. Luckily we have a really, really great vet Rob van Zon in Utrecht and his team. They took really good care of Guusje – and saved her life!

And after that Guusje wouldn’t wear her harness anymore. So we decided after some research to buy the Pak-o-bird backpack from Celltei. It was really expensive and not available in The Netherlands. So we took a huge risk buying it on their website and let it ship to The Netherlands. But the reviews were all good, plus we have had personal contact with Celltei, so we decided to take the risk. 

And as we hoped: it was totally worth it! 

It took Guusje a couple of days to get used to the backpack: first I let her discover the backpack on her own with walnuts around the backpack, her favorite nuts. Later I put seeds in the backpack and she was a bit hesitant, but then ate the seeds without a doubt. This went on for a couple of days. Then I tried to take her outside in the backpack. Only in the garden for a few minutes. Yes! This was awesome!

This went on and on, we built up our walks in the neighborhood and eventually Guusje got to go everywhere with us. Even if she needs to be in her backpack for like an hour or longer, she’s totally fine with it!

I am so happy we bought this backpack. This is even better than the harness!