Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Today's Cloud

One thing we do occasionally when out training, is just standing outside our house by the road and watching the world. We just stand there, listening to children laughing in the distance, the neighborhood dogs barking, watching cars drive by, that sort of thing. I do it to let Monster take it all in, let him understand that the world is full of things happening that doesn't concern us at all. I don't ask anything of him when we do this, just that he stays calm beside me, but if he chooses to seek eye contact with me he gets a reward. This is not very easy for Monster, keeping still makes him more jumpy and he'll start looking for things to react to. When we're out walking and he reacts to something he's given a choice. I ask him to do something (like turn in a circle, or shake my hand, or something) instead of reacting to the dog/cat/whatever. But when we're just standing out by the road he gets to make his own decision. If a dog barks a few houses down, he can fixate on that, or he can sniff the grass, or he can choose to look at me, but I won't tell him what to do.

Since this is so hard for Monster, we don't stay out there for long (10-15 minutes), and I keep my eyes open so we'll be alone out there. There's no point trying to let him see a dog pass by as we're doing this, I know he'd fail so why put us through that?

But today the postman drove up as we were out there. Monster had been doing pretty well, the man was in a car, and the mailboxes are on the other side of the road... I figured it made for a nice new addition to the situation, I could see Monster was very interested but still calm. So we stayed.

Look, I keep telling you she's stupid. Why are you surprised?
Only, the postman didn't just drop off mail into the boxes and leave. He had a package to deliver, on our side of the road, making him get out of his car and pass right by us. Monster almost made it, but it was too much. As the man was returning to his car Monster started barking and growling at him (most likely because the man was moving away from us, making Monster braver).

This of course upset the postman, which I can absolutely understand. He was just out doing his job, and suddenly a giant dog is threatening him. While Monster was several yards away when he started acting up, and he was very firmly leashed (not to mention that if he could somehow get off his leash - which he won't - he'd run off in the other direction. Mr Bravery he is not...), I'm sure he looked very threatening to this man who didn't know him or understand that he was just putting on a show.

I had put all three of us in a bad situation, one which could have been completely avoided if it wasn't for my recurring bout of hubris... Shame on me, quite honestly.

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