Today's Sunshine

Monster had a great time with The Kid yesterday! I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but The Kid and I have come up with Baking Tuesdays where I pick him up right after school and we spend the rest of the day and the evening baking something fun - anything from tiny cake pops to three tiered, heavily decorated cakes (obviously with some preparation ahead of time from me, since there's only so much you can do in one afternoon-evening). We've been doing it most of the fall semester and I thought back through the months today, and you wouldn't believe the difference there is in Monster from the start til yesterday! In the beginning it took lots of preparation, setting things up so not only he'd be fairly tired and content, but also so there were ways to manage him if (no, honestly, when) he became too rowdy, treats, games, training, etc. He loooooooves The Kid, but has problems handling it (same as all other emotions really), he'll jump and climb, demand attention, fetch 3000 toys, whine, paw, beg, and so on and so on. As we were busy doing things that interested us but bored him (he's not even allowed to taste what we bake after all) he'd build frustration all the way through and we really had to find ways to work around his behavior (The Kid - who is a wonderful person all around of course - is absolutely great with Monster, so patient (which is not a strong suit in general) and actually finds it fun and interesting to take some breaks and spend time with the crazy dog instead of finishing the cake!). But yesterday: nothing. Monster didn't jump once, didn't push or climb, didn't b- no that's not true, The Kid had a shrimp & egg sandwich so there was definitely some begging... And when we set up to start baking Monster watched for a while and then wandered off to another room to sleep! So relaxed! Sure we took some time outs to be with Monster anyway, but the difference is we could choose when and do it just because we wanted to, not because we had to if we wanted to be able to do anything else. The Kid even spent half an hour crawling around on the floor, wrestling and playing tug and being very physical with Monster, and Monster stayed controllable all the way through! While he certainly doesn't want to hurt The Kid he can get far too excited - very, very quickly - and become... less than gentle, let's say. Normally this kind of play is limited to a minute or two, and not too often either - I can play quite violently with him to push his boundaries and try to get him to learn to "land himself" (rather than having to be talked down by the control tower like in a bad 80s movie), but The Kid naturally needs to be a bit more protected. But like I said, yesterday there was no problem! And looking back, this is not an isolated incident where maybe Monster was having an extremely good day or perhaps was even sick or tired: this has been building up over the weeks and months in a very clear trend! Monster has been getting calmer and gaining better self control.

What!? What!? I can't hear you - wanna play!?

In no way is he a calm and self controlled dog. But he is calmer and he has better control. I really like little realizations like this when you can see such a clear pattern. Way to go Monster!