Today's Sunshine

Our walk this morning turned out quite interesting. My foot was bothering me and I wanted to keep the walk fairly short and on level ground, leaving two of our usual routes (one circling the outskirts of the village and another winding round the countryside) out of the question since they involve too much walking up and down hills. We have another regular walk (Monster's reactivity requires specific qualities from our routes, like predictability, no or at least few blind corners, regular escape routes in case we get cornered, and so on) but it's incredibly boring, not to mention we've walked it a lot these past couple of months while my leg's been complaining. So I made a somewhat reckless decision and headed off along the road cutting through the centre (such as it is) of the village instead...

Woohoo, I hardly ever get to walk here!

At first all was very quiet, but soon we came across the first potential problem. A woman with a baby carriage left her house across the street and headed out onto the sidewalk. Monster looked at her... and looked away! But then we came to the church, which is having a lot of work done to and around it right now. There were two young women riding around raking the gravel with a lawnmower across the road, and closer to us a man was using a lawnmower in the more conventional way in the graveyard. Up in the tower a couple of guys were shouting at each other over whatever noisy tools they were using. There was no side of the road with nothing happening, and honestly I should have just turned back but I didn't. Monster has a huge problem with lawnmowers, attacking our own with suicidal frenzy... But I let him watch, moving slowly forward at a pace he seemed able to handle, and while he had a couple of moments of fixation he was able to snap out of it and move on with very little prompting from me. Quicker than I could have expected, we'd passed the church! Then we came to a pasture where someone keeps miniature ponies (don't ask me what kind, "brown" is as good a description you'll get from me)...

Wait... Are you saying those weren't dogs!? They were smaller than me!

They proved to be quite a challenge for Monster, he needed to stop and study them repeatedly as we moved along the fence. One of the ponies became interested in us and came up to the fence to take a closer look, which fixated Monster. After a moment or two I became concerned he'd break and lunge, frightening the horse (at no point was he close enough to actually do anything) and I made the mistake of trying to pull him away. That was of course very much the wrong thing to do, and Monster started barking and protesting (the pony looking at us didn't change his curious body posture and the others continued grazing, so Monster's behaviour didn't appear to read as very threatening - presumably they're used to barking dogs since they're pastured in the village along the main road). I immediately relaxed the leash and praised him, and he relaxed right away. We moved on away from there, but Monster needed to stop and look back a couple of times at first (the strange dogs could be following us after all). Then our walk was uneventful for a while, until a man exited his house with a toddler and started walking toward us. I decided we'd had enough excitement, and I didn't want to risk Monster frightening the child so we turned back to avoid meeting them. Of course now we'd have to walk past the same triggers again, only this time with someone coming up behind us so we couldn't keep our own pace...

You didn't think this through, did you?

We passed by the pasture on the other side of the road. Monster wanted to stop and study the horses several times, but I encouraged him to walk along right away since I knew we'd probably need all the head start we had once we got to the church. You know, the church with no safe sides to the road... We got there, and it was worse than when we walked by the first time. Now one of the women was crouched down on the gravel (pulling up weeds?), the riding mower was much closer to the road, the other mower was right on the curb, a car was parked with two men unloading building equipment, and as I stood there looking another car drove up behind us and stopped right in the middle of the road to unhitch a trailer. Behind us the father and child were catching up. We walked forward, and I kept a close eye on Monster all the way. He was very interested in all of it, and I made sure to both keep him close and not tighten the leash, and I praised him constantly - and made sure to do it loudly and in a very silly voice, so people could notice I was coming up on them with a dog who maybe was uncomfortable in the situation. We walked right past!

Of course we did, what did you expect!?

Half a minute later we met two women walking toward us. I immediately changed to the other side of the road but kept walking. In retrospect I wonder if I should have stopped and let Monster study them - he often shows greater reactivity when he's standing still, he appears to feel more vulnerable when he isn't moving as well as it giving him more time to wind up, but on the other hand he can accept a lot more if he's given a chance to study a trigger and figure out if it's really a threat... Right choice or not, this time he broke. As the women drew parallel with us, he lunged and barked and bounced straight up into the air. Fortunately they were more surprised and amazed than frightened, and simply called out a greeting and moved on. As soon as they had their backs turned Monster let it go.

They looked suspicious if you ask me...

Almost home... But no, one last problem. As we were passing a house a dog ran out at us, barking and growling, bouncing back at the end of its line. And not only that, but it was a German Shepherd! Shepherds are Monster's nightmare, he's been attacked by enough of them to consider them all very dangerous... As the dog appeared (scaring even me with its sudden "attack") Monster started to square up against it, but then I saw him change his mind in the middle of the motion and instead turn back along the road and start running away! Now, you may think that's a bad thing but I completely disagree. I want Monster to take the cowardly choice, if there's an escape he should take it! The old Monster would choose confrontation every time, escaping is preferred by far. Unfortunately running isn't so easy for me, messed up ankle and all, but I really tried to reward his choice by letting him run. I didn't make it many steps but it seemed to be enough for Monster anyway, he relaxed even though the dog was still frantic behind us. After that it was smooth sailing all the way back home.

Wanna go again!?!

While he couldn't handle every situation flawlessly, I can't even imagine what would have happened in even one of these encounters just a few months ago. Monster may not be an easy dog to live with, and we may have a lot of restrictions on our daily activities, but for me an experience like this walk is priceless. He's doing so well!

Thank god there weren't any cats, or the whole thing would have been a disaster...

Today's Sunshine

Slow day today, not much to report... I've had to leave Monster home alone a lot, first for my appointment with the physical therapist and then to pick up The Kid from school and get him ready for tennis practice. Picking up The Kid was unplanned (his other people ran into a bit of disorganisation), I try to avoid leaving Monster alone twice in one day since the second time he starts off already at a higher stress level. Fortunately he seems to have dealt well with it which was a relief. While Monster isn't particularly destructive when he's left alone I know it upsets him and makes him stressed.

Well, yeah! I'm all alone - what if something happens?!

But as I said, in spite of me not having been able to plan ahead (and make sure he's in the best possible mood beforehand) he seems to have handled it well. So, it's not much but it's a little sunny, right?

The Mouse And The Monster

I've been having a mouse problem in my home lately. I discovered it one evening when I noticed Monster sitting kind of oddly, staring into a corner of the living room, seemingly doing nothing. So I went over to see if he'd finally gone round the bend completely, and as I approach I see a small dark shadow scuttle off along the wall, with a little fffffrrrrrrttt pitter-patter of horrible little paws... A mouse! And it was under my couch! Monster seemed mildly concerned that his new little friend had run off, but soon forgot about it - while I was sitting on a chair with my feet up, all lamps on, more or less waiting for dawn so I could manage to start cleaning!

I don't get it... What's the problem?

About an hour later, the little horror comes back out from under the couch and races back toward the corner where Monster first discovered it. Monster gets up (alerted by my gasp for air) and follows it, startling it and making it stop halfway. At this point I'm half horrified at the thought of a mouse slaughter in my living room, and half delighted - yay, Monster's prey drive finally turns out to be useful for something! But no. Once he'd "caught" it, he just sat down about a foot away and started staring at it again... Eventually I get up and try to figure something to catch the thing in, but when I move the mouse finds its legs again and scuttles off. Whereupon Monster turns to me with this reproachful look, like "Look what you did!"

Well, seriously...

Next day I went out and bought mouse traps, baited them with everything (cat food, smoked turkey, cheese, chocolate, apple, sunflower seeds, raisins, peanut butter, and some sort of synthetic bait goop), and put them down in every room, five of them in the living room, and put some in the basement too. And the mice? Ignored them completely. A couple of days later another mouse (or the same one?) scuttled through the living room again and back under the couch - aaaaauuugh! On its way it must have passed about seven different traps, depending on where it got in, and none of them even tempted it.

But! Today, as I'm checking on the oven, I hear some rustling from under the sink... I quickly yank open the door, terrified - with no idea of what I'm going to do if there really is a mouse there! At first I don't see one, but as I'm standing there looking, the rustling starts up again, and I can pinpoint it to an empty pot scrubber bag that's fallen down between two containers. In it: The Mouse! The rustling is coming from it trying to get back up the slippery plastic, and not quite making it. I stand there staring at it for a while, wondering what the heck I'm supposed to do, but eventually I realize I have to get it out of there - I can hardly leave it to starve to death under my sink, and I certainly don't want it to manage to get free eventually! So, displaying great bravery (anyone claiming it took me about five minutes, with me yanking my hand back every time the mouse moved, would be lying - lying, I tell you), I reach in and carefully pinch the plastic closed and then lift the thing out. But then what? I can't kill it - using traps is frankly almost too much for me, if it wasn't for the hygiene issue I could never have managed even that - but I also can't let it go. As I'm standing there Monster comes over, curious about what I'm doing and why I'm holding something out as far away from me as I can. He looks at the mouse through the clear plastic and goes to sniff it, making the mouse rustle around again - and Monster panics, racing away from the scary thing, body low and claws scrabbling to find traction on the floor!

What?!? You should have seen the teeth on that thing!

Monster's fear managed to breathe some courage into me, so I maneuver myself into shoes and a jacket - still carefully holding the bag closed - and drive about a mile off to set the mouse free. Terrified the whole time that I'd manage to drop it and it would get loose in my car! But all goes well, and the mouse is now - hopefully - far, far away. I'm aware you shouldn't release them, as they supposedly just return, but this one will have to cross a couple of roads and (more importantly) pass about 15 cats to get to my house. Hopefully we're safe! But before I left for my heroic quest, I managed to document the event. So, here's the scary, scary beast:

Eeeeeek!