Today's Sunshine

Monster and I have been training with Teach again today. I won't claim any amazing progress, but I will say things are getting better nonetheless.

What're you talking about, I'm always awesome!?

Once again we were training against a staged person (as opposed to a dog), this time a repeat from last time. Monster was interested, perhaps even excited to see (and smell) her, but still managed to be quite difficult around her. He was both cautious and suspicious, sneaking around and eyeballing her, trying to distract me from the training by doing other things, and frustrated he didn't get to greet her properly and play with her, which took the expression of him going for the provoking bark ("Come on, interact with me!") as well as pulling my arm out of its socket (well, alright, nearly) to get to her, and refusing to step away from her once he got close enough to touch. All in all I'd say no one watching who didn't know Monster's history would believe today was anything other than a long display of bad and discouraging behavior.

Oh really? I want to have a word with those people...

But, Teach pointed out something important. While Monster is still scanning the surroundings for various (non-)threats, eyeballing everything from a plastic bag blowing past to a man talking on his cell phone as he walks by, as well as lunging for the annoying seagulls (my fault, I drop half of Monster's treats on the ground - coordination and fine motor skills not being one of my gifts) and attacking me and the leash regularly (playfully... well, sort of), this is nothing compared to how it used to be. I don't know how many dogs passed by today, but it was quite a few - Monster was basically fine with them (as long as the situation was managed with increased distance and treats). A group of children walking by began hissing and grimacing at Monster (I assume it was some kind of dare), and all Monster did was bounce a little and look at them, while continuing to walk with me. Cars, bikes, baby carriages, motor bikes, men, women, children, dogs, all of it was processed and for the most part ignored by Monster. While training went well enough today, that little detail really tipped it over into much needed awesomeness today.

Woohoo, no more sulking!

Then there was that damned cat of course...