"Hubris Calls for Nemesis...

... and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started."
(Mary Midgley)

We're enjoying the (comparative) freedom up here, Monster running around free of the leash every day - something he never gets to do back home - and me laughing at his antics and finding pleasure in how responsive and focused on me he is. But... The reason he gets to run around off leash is because there's a much (much!) smaller risk of encountering anyone else on our walks (animal, human or vehicle). The reason is not because I think he's magically "cured" here. In other words, I'm relying on the environment to accommodate his issues. But how does it affect me that it does? Because Monster has been off leash daily since we got here, for hours, and every time all goes well. I find myself expecting it to go well, taking greater and greater risks. And naming the beast ("hubris") does not seem to grant me control over it...

Woohoo, why would you want control!?

 


Last night Mom (my mom; Monstermom's mom - this alias business can get confusing if you don't think things through before you set them apparently) wanted to go out and pick some berries. Since she has trouble with her hips and can't negotiate off road terrain very well we needed to stick very close to civilization. We brought her dog Dory and Monster along (I shouldn't have agreed to this, she has zero control over her and while Dory's quite friendly to others she will approach them, and Monster tends to follow her around everywhere). I kept wanting to move further from the road - Mom could stay where she was, a mere two-three meters from the road, but I wanted to take the dogs further into the forest so I could have some time to react in case someone turned up on the road - but Dory would stay with Mom and Monster would drift back toward them over and over again. Instead of realizing that the situation was out of control and calling it quits (leaving or putting one or both dogs in the car), I just muttered, rolled my eyes, or something equally constructive, and just kept at it. I picked berries and kept half an eye on Monster, calling him back to me if I felt he strayed too far but accepting that he was quite a bit closer to the road than I was. And eventually what I knew/ should have known would happen, did happen. A man who walks his (reactive) dog along that road every evening, walked his dog along that road this evening as well. Who'd a thunk it!? I noticed both dogs perking up and taking an interest in the road, Dory setting off for it with Monster close behind. I couldn't see what they were reacting to but let out a loud "YIP!" (my sadly halfassed "emergency recall", nowhere near as well trained and religiously reinforced as it should be, as well as being way, waaaaaaaay overused) to call Monster back - and he turned on the spot, thundering back to me with ears and jowls flapping in the wind! Perhaps he hadn't realized there was someone on the road, simply following his friend's interest rather than being interested himself? But no, when I recalled Monster the man approaching us called out to us too, to inform us he was coming up on us with a dog. I saw Monster notice his voice, but while he glanced in that direction he didn't hesitate for even half a step. He ran straight to me, and sat down at my feet when asked. Of course, as soon as I clipped the leash on him he lost the plot completely, lunging and raging at the man and dog passing by (by then visible from where I was standing too). So what does this mean? Was it a good thing or a bad thing? Well, good things:

• Monster showed a near perfect response to recall, to the point of leaving his friend who was running in the opposite direction
• He showed zero aggression while off leash
• Even with a fairly strong distraction (the man calling out to us) Monster remained focused on me
• While he was by then tense, staring at the man and dog visible on the road, he allowed me to clip the leash on
• ... I suppose it could be a good thing Mom got to see Monster's bad side, as she generally tends to think I'm exaggerating the problem (and takes him out for walks if I'm not looking!) ?

Not so good things:

• As soon as he was on leash he tried really hard to live up to his name
• My complete lack of judgment, putting us in the situation to begin with
• It took some time to calm him back down again
• The good points above

Wait, what? Why are the good points bad? Well, here we return to the point of this post: hubris. It all went well after all, right? Even in this potentially disastrous situation it was an utter piece of cake to control Monster! Surely I can relax and allow us both greater freedoms - what problems there may be, I can handle. Right? Right, let's go for that date with Nemesis right away, shall we?

Bah! I ain't scared!

But the problem is as I've already said, even though I can see my own hubris I can't control it. I think it's driven as much by desire as success, in that I want Monster to have more freedom so what successes we find have a squared effect on me. A lot of people with a fairly limited experience with reactive dogs (as in they used to have/know a dog who lunged on leash, they tried something or other and the "problem" stopped - they must be masterful dog trainers! ... I used to be one of those "helpful" know it alls...) will claim that the greater part of the problem is the handler's expectations - you expect the dog to react negatively and convey this with your body language, thus causing the dog to react negatively. I'm sure there's some truth to this, but with so many other things it's greatly exaggerated. I expect Monster to do splendidly, I really do. Every time we have a failed encounter of some kind, I'm surprised. The (or at least a) definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result; this may be slightly different in someone else (Monster) keeps doing the same thing in the same situation (reacting with demonstrative aggression to triggers) and I never expect it, but I think it could work as a definition too... I've been aware of this ridiculous optimism before (I consider myself a skeptic by nature while those around me describe me as a gloomy pessimist, so it's rather glaringly out of character), but now! Things just keep going well, even in situations where I find myself breathing a sigh of relief afterwards when I think about all that could have gone wrong, nothing does go wrong. So this stubborn streak of overestimation of chances, underestimation of risks just gets encouraged.

Good!

Maybe you're wondering why that's even a problem, since things are after all going well? See the quote up top. While I'm strangely optimistic in the moment I am aware of Monster's issues being quite real when I'm not in the moment (and usually about .0001 seconds into the moment as well). He is insecure around strangers, he does use aggression to get distance from triggers when he's restrained, and I don't have sufficient control over him to safely have him off leash around strong distractions - he's barely even trained at all around distractions, after all. So I'm taking risks I shouldn't. And I do it anyway. Admitting you have a problem may be the first step towards solving the problem, but it's not a very big step, is it?

I think you're exaggerating these so called "risks". And MonsterGran's with me on this!

I've been meaning to film a walk we take daily, a short one around half an hour, along a fairly deserted road (from the cottage where we're staying to my parent's house) - I realize it's about as boring a film as anyone (other than me) could ever see, but hey, my blog remember? I want to see/show how well he listens to me off leash, how far he ranges from me, how well he responds to recall and other commands, and, perhaps most of all, how well I pay attention to him and encourage good behavior (like checking in). Today I did, and of course it turned out not very typical at all! For one thing Monster was quite bad at keeping the "by me" command (a very loose "heel", where he just needs to keep kinda, sorta by my side), something I've been very happy with so far. But today, nope, wouldn't stay by me for more than a couple of seconds at a time... Maybe that's just because I had to make a more objective evaluation of his behavior, now that I have video evidence? But I don't think so, Monster has truly been performing "by me" in an exemplary way up here, I've been using it a lot (instead of leashing him around blind corners or cross roads, where I usually would) and I've been paying close attention to his performance. On this point I think we were simply having a bad day... Or!? Idea... Perhaps I wasn't communicating with him as well as usual, with my attention (at least partially) on the camera all the time? Was he simply responding to/mirroring my distraction?

I can't see you!

Another thing I reacted to was how much I used corrections with him, and this may genuinely be something I'm guilty of and didn't know before I found a new way of observing myself... Or, possibly it's another effect of being unfocused, defaulting back to old behaviors? Maybe a bit of both. Something to pay more attention to, in any case. (The corrections I'm talking about are simply verbal corrections, lowering my pitch slightly if he doesn't listen or breaks position, sharpen a command to stay if he doesn't stop right away, that sort of thing. From what I can tell it didn't have much of an effect but they were automatic and not something I was doing deliberately. At no point did I use anything stronger than verbal corrections, but I did natter on with those quite a lot...)

I tell you to: STOP! that nonsense...

I also meant to show/see how often I missed Monster seeking contact with me, by a glance or simply by angling his ears back to check for me (he spends most of the time ranging ahead). I mean to encourage all such contact, but I think I miss a lot of it. But today there were few glances (and I think I caught most of them - although I was quite late on many of them), and he kept his ears trained on me more or less nonstop! Perhaps this also was due to the activity of filming him changing my general behavior?

Hellooooo? Anybody home?!

On top of this, we wound up with a couple of surprises along the way. First it turned out there were people picking berries beside the road, Monster was behaving a little "off", showing me he was picking up on something, but I didn't figure out what it was until we came across their ATV parked on the side of the road. Monster didn't leave the road and seek them out, which is of course great - I've wondered if he'd be confrontational if we'd come across pickers ("gatherers"?), especially in areas we visit every day where he can be expected to feel slightly more at home, since there are quite a few of them to be found in the area at this time of year (I've been picking mountains of chanterelles myself, yum!), so I'm happy to see he stayed with me. Maybe he didn't notice them? No, I think he certainly did, as I knew he was reacting to something before I spotted the ATV.

There's something going on over there...

And immediately after we'd inspected the ATV (I let Monster walk up to it and take a look, as all changes and new things are a problem for him) we met a woman walking a dog coming toward us. I don't know if Monster noticed them, I'm fairly sure he didn't (I haven't watched that far on the video yet, maybe I can tell from that), but by then he was on leash already - I leashed him when we spotted the ATV - and he turned immediately when I told him we were going back. We headed off road slightly and let the woman and dog pass by, by then I know he at least saw her (we also called out a greeting to each other) but I don't think he could see the dog over the tall ferns. Either way he handled it very well, calmly curious more than anything else, although he was a bit eager to sniff their trail as we moved up on the road again.

We should be walking in the other direction if we're to catch up with them...

So not our regular walk after all. But probably not an interesting show for anyone (else), I do realize that! Still, that wouldn't keep me from posting it... But it turns out to be completely impossible, since it would take about a day - or more - to upload it, and would use up a lot more than the monthly GB allotment this Internet connection allows! So, you will tragically have to wait for this riveting watch until we return to civilization.

Poor you! I'm so photogenic!

And on that note, it's time to leave you. (Apparently the cows have gone through the fence again. How fun.) A final word of wisdom: enjoy your Internet connections - you don't know how good you have it...

The cows? They're loose!? I'm staying right here until you've fenced them in again...

(Disclaimer: this is a fairly long text - sorry about that - and I haven't the time to read through it for mistakes or off topic - hah! - so it's quite possibly even more unreadable than usual. And there aren't even any new Monster pics to sweeten things up, thanks to the dearth of Internet here. But, you know, the cows are loose, deal with it.)

Err... Hello...

So. Let's just say I've had some sort of miniature nervous breakdown, specifically related to spending time on the computer, and it's in no way my fault. OK?

...

Yeah, didn't think so... How about this: sorry. I'll try to do better!

Hmm...

Fine, OK, I won't be doing better right now exactly... But I'm thinking about it! And it's the thought that counts after all.

!

All right, all right! Here's the thing: the nervous breakdown isn't exactly wrong really, although obviously exaggerated... I've really been struggling with some sort of strong aversion to sitting down by the computer, presumably from having spent so much time here when I was stuck in a cast. That's not an excuse though, I should do better even if I don't feel like it. And the part about being sorry really is true! Also, a while back my sister asked me to dig them a garden pond while they went away on holiday. They life on stiff clay soil, making it quite hard work to dig there. So I spent all day every day at their place digging, until they got back home. At which point they all stood around and stared and asked me incredulously why I made it so big!? (It was smaller than the outline they'd given me before they left, due to some irrigation pipes and the like I had to work around... I was rather annoyed.) And after that the pile of dirt had to be removed as well, which even with help took quite some time. We did fill it with water a couple of days ago though, so now it's finally finished - well, my part of the work is anyway. They still need to finish the edges with whatever they decide, but I'm finally free of it anyway. Unfortunately now they're apparently using it as a swimming pool and don't want to put the fish and plants in... They already have a swimming pool, it's larger (5x12 meters) than the new pond (~5x7 meters), and while the pond may be slightly deeper in some places (the pool is 1,6 meters deep, and on average the pond is probably slightly shallower since there are shelves for the plants) I can't really see why the pond should be better. I think they're just doing it to annoy me... Ah, who cares. The pond is dug, my entire body still aches (oh, back! oh, my feet! oh, my hands!) but at least I'm finished with it. Now, though, I'm leaving.

Wait, whaaaat?

Yep, time to head up North for a little while. It's very late this year, but I can't really not go and now most chores are done here it's definitely time. This year we won't be away as long though! But same situation as last year, (usable) Internet hasn't really made it out to the sticks where I'm from so you won't be seeing much from us for a little while again. See, isn't it a good thing I've been weaning you off updates on this blog already? I'm so thoughtful!

Never mind her, she's just broken... You get used to it.

While I was digging my sister's pond Monster was hanging out with me. They live a little more isolated than we do, and much of their yard is fenced in (while there are gaps in the fence they don't face anything interesting - like the road - and Monster doesn't wander) so he got to walk around free all day. I liked that (I'm still working on the fence around our garden, but still not finished), and in fact that was the main reason I agreed to do the digging: Monster got some freedom. Unfortunately I wound up far too exhausted from the digging (and the heat!) to be able to make much use of the opportunity for off leash training, but he did enjoy the freedom anyway. He also helped me out a bit:

(I know it's an awful video. But that cannot possibly be news to anyone who's ever watched something I've filmed before - it's simply not one of my talents. At all. In this one I'm also prattling on non stop. Awesome. New ways to get worse rather than better... But I stand by my ultimate point, which is: anything with Monster in it is good, even if I've tried my best to ruin it.)

There, that's all the Monster you're getting for a while. Sorry. I'll shape up! (Eventually...)

Yay!

All right, good news! Monster is safe! I'm not quite sure I understand what that tumour-thingy was, but at least it wasn't malignant! Such a relief, I feel like that cliché weight has been lifted no matter how silly it may sound. At first I wanted to just pick up from a week ago, continue like we'd been returned completely to normal with the good news. But of course Monster still has a very sore foot - although thankfully I think I'm beginning to see the wound close a bit - and we still need to take it quite easy. Not to mention he also still has a sore mood...

Well, excu-use me! I can see the skin on the other side of my foot when I look inside the hole that dreadful man carved into me, pardon me if it chafes a little...

Now it remains to be seen how well I can use this scare! There have been quite a few "if only"s, "I should have"s, and "if we could just"s going through my mind this past week, hopefully I'll be able to remember that and motivate myself with it - rather than forget about it and sink back into laziness and complacency. Even though it was good news today, it's important to remember that we don't have unlimited time together. I need to get on top of our problems so we can have a better quality of life together, and do it quickly so we don't lose any more time!

Hah, suuuuuure! My money's on laziness and complacency, in three, two, one...

No News

So, it's Friday evening and I haven't heard anything from the vet's. They were supposed to get the lab results on Thursday or Friday, but clearly that didn't happen. I've spent the week alternately crying and berating myself, and it looks like that will be how the weekend shapes up too. Hopefully I'll have some answers on Monday at least.

Cranky Monster

We're having a little trouble here lately. Monster isn't feeling too well...

How could this happen to me?

I noticed a bump under one of his paws a while back. At first I thought he'd simply got a minor infection in some little scratch, and figured it wasn't anything to get upset over. Monster wasn't particularly bothered by it, so I kept it clean and monitored it. But it didn't change... After a little over a week, I decided it needed to be looked at. It was firm and didn't appear infected at all, nothing like a cut really. I can deal with the simple stuff, but I was getting increasingly convinced that this bump may be trouble. Now, taking Monster to the vet isn't a fun prospect so this wasn't a decision I made easily. In other words you probably understand just how worried I was getting.

Oh, come on - it's just a tiny bump. I can shake it off like that!

I was prepared for Monster being a bit difficult with the vet, but he surprised me anyway. He went for the vet tech as soon as he spotted her, and he didn't let up. When the vet came in too, it just meant Monster had two targets. He was completely unreasonable, and I ended up having to lie on top of him in order to keep him restrained. I'd expected he would start objecting quite vehemently as soon as someone other than me started to handle him physically (especially since the problem was on his paw, he's ridiculously worried about having his paws handled), but the way he just pulled out all the stops as soon as he got someone in his sights - long before anyone even came close to touching him - honestly surprised me. And would have made me quite sad, if I'd had any emotional room for that right now. The vet only made a brief check of Monster's paw before deciding he needed to sedate Monster in order to continue. I'd hoped (although this hope had been fighting quite hard against some darker suspicions) that we'd simply get out of there with an ointment or something. Part of me was still arguing that it had been ridiculous to take Monster to the vet just for a little lump that didn't even bother him all that much, after just a week or two - especially considering the situation for both Monster and the people at the vet's office. But the vet quickly put a stop to that annoying voice in my head (and replaced it with a Greek chorus of woe, naturally) with one word: tumour.

I can't hear you!

We won't know anything for sure until the end of the week, when we get the lab results. But I'm FREAKING OUT! My baby Monster! Oh god, it's going to be bad news, isn't it...? I, quite honestly, can't handle this. I've been crying like an idiot on and off since we got home yesterday. Which is stupid, I don't know anything for sure yet! And Monster is so young, far too young for the c-word, right? Oh, please...

How did mom die again...?

While I'm trying to keep my wits about me I'd at least like to say that the people at the vet's office were great! They didn't get the least bit worked up over Monster's apparent hatred of them, they stayed calm the whole time no matter what he did and reassured me that as long as I could just hold him there really wasn't much of a problem. They were incredibly patient and helpful.

What!? Are you taking their side!?

Right now Monster has a fairly sizeable cut along one side of the metacarpal pad on one of his paws. He's getting painkillers and antibiotics. And he's grumpy! Forget all the progress, Monster in pain is Monster in attack mode. He will lunge at anything, and he's barking and growling in the house whenever he hears anything outside. And every couple of hours or so he comes cuddling up to me and sticks his wounded back paw in my lap, clearly begging me to fix it so it doesn't hurt him any more, which just breaks my heart further... I really want to fix it. Oh, do I ever!

You'll know when I know - at least provided I can manage to communicate.

Monster Gets New Clothes

So... I swear I meant to start up with the daily posts last time I wrote. But obviously that didn't happen...

Heh, you people are really gullible!

Aaaaaanyway.... Today we've been off to see Teach again. We were working against the world's tiniest Poodle! The cutest little fluff of black lint, at first neither Monster nor I realized there was a dog there - but she had a pretty big voice, and made sure she got noticed! She also seemed to share Monster's fascination with sticks, some of them bigger than she was. (Monster likes big sticks too, but when he goes after the ones bigger than him - which does happen - we're usually talking about still rooted trees...)

We could play together! I've got a great stick collection. I promise I'd be careful...

Unfortunately today didn't go very well. We've been having quite a few setbacks lately, and this continued to show in the training session. While Monster seemed OK from time to time, he also lost the plot completely several times. He was reared up on his hind legs (making him taller than me), snarling and lunging, air snapping, slamming into both me and Teach - you know, generally making a nuisance of himself... This is depressing, especially in light of the progress I've been seeing (imagining?) lately. Setbacks like this make me question if we're really getting anywhere at all, and while I know that's an overreaction born from disappointment it doesn't change how it feels. I know it's a very temporary slump, but right now I'm a bit disheartened.

Sorry, Mom...

But as Teach pointed out: Monster's behaviour - at his very worst in his current state - is no worse than you see a dozen small to miniature dogs behave whenever you go out on a walk. Monster's size (and, let's be honest, his looks) makes his behaviour a problem that must be dealt with, while owners of smaller dogs can - and do - ignore it and live with it. I'm not making excuses here, I am working on Monster's issues and I want to make him more pleasant for everyone to be around, but it helps put some perspective on my feelings of failure. At least I'm working on it, you know...?

I beg your pardon? You're working on it?

Anyway, Monster having a bad day in training gave me an excellent opportunity to test some stuff out! (Silver lining and all that, come on let's all be optimists!) I've been getting more and more desperate to find gear that fits Monster well, not to mention that feels safe. Being easy to use - and comfortable - is certainly no small thing either. But I haven't managed to find anything, no harnesses and not even simple collars are good enough. They chafe, don't fit right (understandable considering how many different body shapes dogs come in, "size" is never going to be enough of a descriptor), and most importantly: they break. That's not OK, and definitely not OK with Monster's issues... So I've given up, I can't find anything that works - most gear for large dogs just makes the item bigger, but uses the same strength/size of buckles, straps, etc, meaning they snap or break at some very bad times for us - and have decided to try making something myself!

Hah, you crack me up! You come up with the darndest ideas!

Now, what you need to know about me is that I have some serious spatial reasoning issues - we're talking genuine disability here - and I'm a complete fumble-fingers in all things crafty. So this is not a decision I've come to lightly... But what am I supposed to do!? There is seriously nothing out there that fits Monster and is safe - let's not even go near "easy to use". So, I've been mucking about a bit, and today I realized if I was going to try using gear of my own design it would be the perfect opportunity to do it in a training session! A chance for a solid test run in difficult situations, while there also being some extra security in it being (somewhat) predictable plus Teach was around to help if I'd need to grab Monster and needed someone to get some backup equipment... So, I spent all day at the sewing machine (well, a lot of time was also spent swearing over a seam ripper), and just made it in time! Take a look:

Hah, I've stolen the roll of nylon webbing, now you can't make a harness! Hey, waaaait a minute...

This is made of nylon webbing with some sort of soft plasticy/ruberry thingy underneath (it used to be a yoga mat, if that tells you anything). The straps are adjustable and connected along his back and under his chest, making it impossible to back out of.

OK, how do I get out of this thing!?

I'm not too sure about the "comfortable" criteria, Monster didn't exactly seem to love it - but he certainly didn't hate it any more than anything else he's ever worn...

You want me to model a collar too!? Right, I've had enough!

I made a collar as well, or rather I made that first since it's a great deal easier to figure out than a harness. I've reused metal parts from old, broken gear - unfortunately I only had one D-ring large enough to fit the width of the webbing so for the collar I reused a similar thing from a Rogz collar. Unfortunately that detail is the one thing I really hate on the Rogz collars, since the design creates a lever effect when the dog pulls, causing the fastening to dig into his spine... I need to find more D-rings, but that seems to be difficult if you want some larger sizes?

Haha, I'm free!

Anyway, the harness passed the test unscathed! It held Monster securely, there didn't seem to be any danger of anything giving out and all seams appear intact... How about that!? And if I do say so myself, it doesn't look too bad either! (As long as you don't look too closely...) I'm also very happy with it turning out so soft! There's one metal ring on Monster's chest (to allow the two shoulder straps and the chest strap to meet freely), and a metal D-ring between his shoulder blades to clip the leash onto. On the collar there's just a clippy-onto-thingy. That's it. The rest is fabric (and, you know, that plasticy rubbery thing - but that's really soft). Instead of buckles I've used velcro, and I'm very happy with that choice. I've made the velcro part quite long, and made sure it follows a curve. That way any force will move along the velcro rather than pulling at it, making it quite secure. This harness is just a prototype of course, I can see a lot of things which need to be fixed! But it is actually good enough to be usable right away, and I never would have thought I'd be able to make a usable harness if I had a hundred tries. Not ever.

But please don't tell my sister I broke her sewing machine, OK? Maybe I can fix it...

I knew it.

Bribing You With Monster Pics...

Yeah, I know: I haven't been posting anything for ages! Let's see... I've had my head stuck up Tin Can's back side (one of the shock absorbers broke in half and fell off - that's not serious, right?), I'm back on the crutches on and off (my ankle joint can't quite manage to decide if it's going to stay in or just bloody permanently dislocate), and, err... a monkey stole my computer. There, that buys me an excuse, right? No? How about this then: I've got my real camera back again!!!!!!!!!

Awww, ffff... fridge! I thought I hid that so well you'd never find it again...

And I found some photos on it from last summer I don't think I've shared with you! So what do you say, I show you those and in return you won't mention the whole blog neglect, "where have you been, you irresponsible whiner!?" type of thing, OK? Thought so, let's go!

Not everyone thinks Monster is scary, and he in turn loves kids - especially the teenage boy variety, they tend to agree about how to really play:

Oh, you were going to push me in the water, kid!? Heh, let's see who gets wet...

We went on a lot of walks in the woods, here's one that took us almost a whole day:

The terrain was pretty rough...

Up...

And over...

No match for me!

He was off leash most of the time, he doesn't (or at least didn't then, not so sure now) bother the wildlife and he doesn't range far from me at all - however the terrain can make it difficult to keep him in sight anyway:

Where's Waldo Monster!?

There he was!

*bouncing over the tall grass* Coming, Mom!

We discovered one thing that would drive Monster completely nuts: bogs! Back home you find these if you go up almost any mountain, they usually have a cold spring in the centre and while I sink to my knees (or more) in the peat, moss and black water and get so cold I quickly lose all feeling in my feet and legs, Monster loooooooves them:

Ooooooh... Can I, Mom?

Thanks!

See ya!

One more lap!

Not done yet...

Monster will just run and run, black water spraying up behind him. He'll keep at it for ages, occasionally collapsing on ground solid enough to keep his head above water (and muck...) to rest for a minute or two, and then off he goes again. It's awesome to see, and anyone who saw it couldn't help but burst into laughter - which admittedly weren't a lot of people, not too many bother to walk that far.

Well, that's all of the "new" photos... Actually, it's not but I can't find where I put the rest and I can't be bothered to look any more. I don't know why I've developed such a distaste for blogging (and answering correspondence - I'm sorry, my conscience is working on me, I just more or less panic when I try to sit down with my mail...), but I'm going to try to get over it. We've had another session with Teach again too, and I'll try to write about that sooner or later. But for now this is the most I can manage: we're still here, we're still working on Monster's issues (with some tenuous success lately, I think), and Monster is still the most awesome - and handsome - dog in the world!

Get. That. Camera. Out! Of. My. Face!