Today's Sunshine

Just got back from a training session with Teach, so I'm going to try to use up whatever mustered up energy I have left to get some posts up. If something just dies out in the middle of a sentence, I've fallen asleep on the keyboard...
(Didn't realize how tired I was before I got in the car to drive home again, and nearly fell asleep at the wheel waiting out a red light. Not an ideal spot for a nap.)

You're way too picky - every spot is a great spot for a nap!

Today's session was a lot of fun! No dog today, just a person - which for Monster may actually have been worse, I'm not sure... I had trouble reading some of his reactions, to be honest. But for the most part things went very well, he rarely fixated (actually it was difficult to get him to care about the staged person at all at first), he responded well to walking away, and at least initially even his reactions and lunges were playful. Not so all the way through (I think), but this is the Sunshine post after all.

Which leads me to: Teach helped me realize something today. It's actually a pretty big deal, and I can't explain how I've completely missed it so far. When we first started our training sessions with Teach, Monster would bite me - not very hard, but a clear warning - if I put my hand near his face once he'd locked on to a trigger ( = gotten far too close, to the point that an attack was imminent). It was impossible to feed him treats at that point, which I had to warn Teach about when he was about to try it. As he brought up that memory today I realized I have no idea how long ago it's been since that was last an issue. These days, if Monster gets completely fixated on a trigger I don't even think about a risk of him biting me if I try to get his attention physically. That's... wow. What a difference!

Bite you? What are you talking about? If I'd wanted to bite you, you'd have one less hand. Just so you know.

It may not sound like much, and the fact that I hadn't even noticed it may make it sound like even less of a big deal, but I think this may be one of the brightest Sunshines I've ever posted here. It's a big deal, people.