We don’t seem to making any headway with our work to lessen Rogue’s anxiety or reactivity, even though we’ve adjusted her meds. To recap: 7 weeks of fluoxitine at 1mg dosage which was an error (fortunately on the safe side). Then we changed it to 10mg of fluoxitine daily for two weeks, which made her more aggressive towards the other dogs, and now we are closing in on 5 more weeks at 5 mg. daily. We’ll re-evaluate again at the first of March.
Frustration and impatience. Those two words would describe how I’ve felt about this process with Rogue lately. Well, and then guilt. Probably those three would sum it up. They usually come in that order too. I’ve been reading and re-reading the consult and protocols that we got from Dr. Overall, and this phrase always gets me, “these are the dogs who show you the type of person you can – but never expected – to become.”
When I first read that statement I thought, “yep, living with Rogue will reveal good qualities about us that we didn’t know we had.” How egotistical! LOL What I overlooked was that it was going to reveal many more negative qualities about myself than positive ones as her stress and anxiety wears on me. As we work through this process, I’m beginning to think that it’s more about being willing to see the flaws in your character and being willing to work to overcome them, to become a better person. Just my thoughts for today….
If you look at this blog lately, it looks like we’ve spent the winter sleeping and taking pictures. LOL Admittedly, during the winter, my training seems to take a dive. I have trouble getting motivated to do a whole lot when it’s cold outside. That being said though, we have still been training (at least a little). Fortunately, we have a friend who has a heated indoor building with mats where we can meet to train about once a week. I don’t know what I’d do without her! Another friend of ours has recently acquired an Aussie puppy that’s Layla’s age, so we’ve been driving the 1/2 hour to train together in the heated building.
Which brings me to the title of this post. I’ve been working with Layla on some basics, like “sit”, “down”, “stand”, “here”, “wait”, targeting (both nose and paw touches), walking on leash, etc. I love training the basics again. It gives me a chance to evaluate my training and try to improve my skills. One thing that I know I want to improve this time around is my distance work. I seem to be able to teach the basics, but then I’ve got a hole in my training where I don’t seem to ever teach them to work away from me.
So, I made up a chart that includes the things that we’ve worked on, and then gives me different criteria for the same skills. For instance. “Sit” She is pretty reliable at a close distance 1-2 feet away, but more than that…we need to work on. So, I made small goals of increasing distance to 3-5 feet away and so on. Same goes for changing criteria of training in the house as opposed to training outside in the yard, to training in a new building, to a public park, to a trial site. We’ll see how it goes. I don’t have any doubts that Layla is capable of doing great things, it’s just a matter of me figuring out the best way to work with her to achieve them.
Well, the “dream team” of Twist and Layla strikes again. We were just vegging in front of the TV last night and I had my husband snap this shot of them. Don’t they lay in the strangest positions? Don’t know how they can be comfortable, but they don’t seem to mind. You’ll have to ignore me, I couldn’t crop myself out without cutting off Layla’s feet. LOL
Today is one of those days that you just wish you could have a do-over! I just hate it when a week gets off to a bad start, it’s hard to recover.
First we just got word that one of our friends had to say goodbye to their 14 year old Malinois this morning. He was just one of those dogs that was bigger than life. Even though he was 14, you just kind of expected that he was always going to be around. He had one of those personalities that you just can’t put into words! It would all just be an understatement when it came to him. His passing is just an incredible loss to everyone who had the privilege to know him.
Then I got a call from my husband that they are cutting everyone’s hours back at work. I’m still keeping in mind how fortunate we are to still be employed, but it’s scary…
So, we went for a walk yesterday and Penny found this hole in the snow. I don’t know what it went to, but the series of pictures that I got just cracked me up!
I just had to share a short little clip of Layla and Twist’s morning play routine. They usually play like this for a good 1/2 hour or so before they take a little nap and then start right back up again.
After wallowing around in a pool of my own disappointment for most of the day yesterday, I was brought to my senses by the dogs running and playing in the sunshine (and mud) in the yard. They weren’t disappointed at all by the fact that I’d cancelled our trip. They couldn’t have cared less. LOL They were enjoying the day. It was just what I needed to refocus my thoughts onto being grateful for what we have, not focusing on what we don’t have.
1. The fact that my husband can’t reasonably take vacation time off work right now isn’t something bad, it just means that he still has a job, (which is something to be grateful for, not begrudge).
2. Even though we didn’t get to actually compete at the Nationals, I need to focus on the fact that it was a nice accomplishment to meet the qualifications.
So, a big thanks to my 7 happy, muddy dogs for reminding me of what a great life we have!
