Today's Cloud

This evening I had to drive over to The Kid's house, to give his cat her pain medication (and put her cone collar back on which some genius had taken off her). As I was about to put Monster in the car, a German Shepherd came up behind us. I decided to take the offered opportunity and BAT against it just a time or two before we left. But I misjudged which way they were about to turn and wound up with them on the other side of a hedge. Which always drives Monster wild, because he can't see the trigger which means he loses control. I managed to drag/call Monster away, but we had to move away from the car. Once we were at a distance where he could calm down again I decided to give him a little time to do a sniff-n-pee, so he could get rid of some stress. Only, another dog came up behind us when neither of us were looking. Monster just bounced around and looked at it, but it was moving toward us and I could see Monster getting a bit more tense. I knew I couldn't wait for him to make the right choice, especially with his already high stress levels, so I tried to call him away before he was ready. Which made him pull the leash taut and start staring the other dog down. Nothing for it, I had to drag him away under loud and energetic protest. I got him in the car, saw that the dog was right by the road where we would pass it very close, and drove out anyway!

Why do I do stupid things like this? Would it really have mattered if I'd sat in the car for one minute, letting Monster calm down and the other dog move away? Perhaps it would hurt my tiny, tiny brain to think of it. Monster of course went completely nuts again when we passed by the other dog. Monster never reacts to triggers when he's in the car. Great job by me to put him in extremely high stress and then drive past an active trigger at crawl speed! I couldn't have been more effective in training Monster to react to triggers in the car if I'd planned it...

Ooh! Ooh! Can I say it this time?! Bad Monstermom! Bad!