Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Today's Cloud

Bit of a rough day today. It started off fine, except Monster seemed a bit unfocused and a little all over the place. As we went for a walk I noticed he wasn't winding down between stress exposures, and while he handled the first few things (like a bike passing, small things like that) fine he kept building from one to the next. I don't know why he couldn't relax between incidents today... I decided to be careful and avoid as much as we possibly could, but still continue on with our walk - I think it's important to avoid isolating him as much as possible, but I also know that bad experiences are far worse than no experiences. It's a tricky balance sometimes... 

Maybe I have a headache? I've got a big head, you know...


While we did manage to avoid most triggers and sources of stress along the way it's not possible to avoid everything, and today even the smallest thing became another straw on Monster's back. After about an hour and a half we were on our way home when we met two women out walking with baby carriages, and I knew I couldn't rely on Monster behaving himself around them so I got right off the path and gave them (I believed) plenty of distance. Unfortunately it wasn't enough, and as they drew level with us (only about five meters away, but with a two meter height difference I expected to make all the difference) Monster started lunging and barking toward them - fortunately they just smiled at bit at us and said hello, but I was still deeply ashamed. Threatening behavior around babies (although in Monster's head it's directed at the strange, bulky things people are pushing ahead of themselves like battering rams) is just a step too far, and since I knew Monster had been acting kind of weird all day I should have hared off far enough we could barely be seen... Live and learn I guess, but the question is: am I really learning? I seem to still be making a lot of mistakes.



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