Today's Cloud

This evening, The Kid had football practice (or soccer if you're American, which I refuse to call it because only one of these sports actually focus on playing with your feet...). Usually, I drive him there and then use the opportunity to train Monster in the parking lot and around the field (which has an enormous chain link fence around it, so don't worry, he's not posing a threat to the children), just basic contact and disruption exercises (like maintaining eye contact when the coach is yelling, or not abandoning correct position when a ball thuds into the fence right beside us).

Come on! I wanna play!

There are never any other dogs there, so we get to focus more on the basics (although it's a highly disruptive environment for Monster, so nothing is easy). But tonight something must have been going on in the sports hall by the field. When we arrived we had trouble finding a parking space, and in the short time I was there more cars kept arriving. People were running and shouting, both adults and children, and Monster couldn't cope. He became increasingly excited, and when one car disgorged a couple of children who were then followed by a large man (presumably their father) carrying something in a raised arm and shouting at the kids running in front of him, Monster snapped. He'd built up tension for several minutes, and apparently interpreted the situation as a threat to the kids (the group was moving away from us at quite a distance, so it's doubtful he could have felt the threat was to us), because he went into full aggressive display...

That was it for me, and we left. There's no reason to be skulking around in a dark parking lot terrifying stragglers, and there's certainly no reason to put Monster in a situation where he's just going to overload. Setbacks like this hurt, though. On bad days I just want to stay home and give up.

Oh no, you won't. I'll start with the carrot, but there will be a stick if this doesn't work...

But! Tomorrow is another day, and all that. And next week The Kid (who got home safe and sound, so don't worry) has football practice again. We'll be there, and we'll do better.

(Although, if the parking lot is as full as it was tonight, we'll probably not even get out of the car. We've got a ways to go before we can handle that...)