Today's Sunshine

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I've been working hard, at least!

Er, Monster's been fairly tolerant of his lousy owner today?

No, I know! I can do what you do in a job interview and turn a cloud into sunshine. I have been very good today, in realizing a mistake I've made.

Monster used to be very well behaved on leash, when no dogs were around. By that I'm not trying to make a "My dog is wonderful, except..."-claim, I simply mean that he'd never pull on the leash, he wouldn't try to stay and sniff if I wanted to move on, if given free rain on long leash he'd generally choose to stay by my side. He was simply very well behaved.

But when we began our positive training, while he got better when seeing dogs, his general behavior on leash got worse. He started pulling and stressing, demanding to be allowed to sniff and mark territory, he'd pick up sticks and demand to play, and so on. I was told this was to do with his general stress levels, from changing methods, which made sense. I was to keep my focus on the goal - removing or at least reducing his aggression - and not worry too much about the initial stress.

And so I let it go. But today it hit me, Monster's not showing general signs of increased stress any more. He hasn't for some time. But his behavior on leash is still rude. I've let it go on for far too long. Well, it stops here! As of tomorrow, Monster's rude leash behavior will no longer be tolerated.

What!? Who snitched on me!?!