No Bloody Weather, All Right

I'm so bloody tired. I've been getting something like 3-4 hours of sleep a night in the last few weeks. My house is a mess, my head hurts (bloody, bloody sinusitis, may you die a thousand painful and humiliating deaths!), my mother's turned up for a sudden visit, next week The Kid is going in for a week long medical exam, I have a ton of apples rotting on the lawn, there is still no fence around the yard, I've run out of clean clothes because bending down to fill the washer makes my brain implode from the pressure and run out my nose, Tin Can is making a very discouraging noise when you drive over 40, and that bloody mouse gnawing on the walls just will not die!

Right, yeah, poor you, I'm really concerned, etc...

So excuse me if I don't make any bloody Sunshine/Cloud report of our day, and instead go and set my hair on fire just to have something else to think about, OK?

Yeah... What can I tell you - she's whiny and nuts, nothing new.

Today's Cloud

Aaaaaand, nothing lasts for ever, right? On that same walk (Sunshine post), just a couple of minutes away from home, Monster and I met a couple of boys. They were perhaps 10 years old, presumably heading home from school. Monster and I didn't spot them in time to avoid the meeting, but I thought we had a chance to make it without Monster going full monster on us (I was probably high from the truck-success, cue eye roll). But as they were getting closer they started a little playful scuffle, raising their voices and waving jackets and bags around. Monster = monster...

OK, you're starting to hurt my feelings now...

He lunged toward the boys, snarling and growling, hackles up... I held him as the boys walked past us, apologizing to them and telling them to not worry - he's just playing silly buggers. Fortunately they didn't seem the least bit worried, one of them never even looked at us or stopped talking to his friend, and the other just glanced at us and looked slightly confused about all the fuss before moving on. It's not OK to scare children!

Awww! I just wanted to play!

As I said, we got lucky. Those boys could just as easily have been terrified... No more getting close to children, even if that means climbing over a hedge into someone's garden.

Today's Sunshine

Today on a walk we first met a moving van. It was backing out into the road right in front of us, on a steep hill, and then drove right past us. Meaning it was doing a lot of things Monster doesn't handle very well when it comes to cars. To begin with, it was rather large - that on its own can be enough to set Monster off. Secondly, it went from cold to running with us right there - also an almost certain trigger. Next, it was behaving erratically (going one way then another, stopping, starting, etc) - yet another thing to make Monster lose his mind. And the sharp incline and heavy load meant the driver was revving the engine quite a bit - in case you haven't yet spotted the pattern this is also a sure thing for Monster Madness.

I don't get it...? Are you questioning my sanity? Why?!?

But nothing happened. Monster did watch the truck rather curiously as it was passing (body slightly arched, ears forward, mouth nearly closed and so on), but made no attempt to kill neither me nor the truck!

Me? Kill???

But then! Another truck! This one a giant DHL trailer, turning onto the road far down the hill, meaning Monster had almost a minute of solid staring time! Considering whatever tension he'd already built up with the first truck, considering we'd only just started our walk so he was pretty wound up to begin with, considering there were cars parked in the road so the truck would have to pass us on our side of the road, and considering there is no chance we'd get lucky a second time, I started looking for a way out. Unfortunately there was a woman with a child approaching us from the side road and a couple with a dog coming up behind us. No way out! Since trucks are a lot harder to terrify than people and dogs, we kept walking - the lesser evil, you know. And Monster did fixate on the approaching truck (fortunately he hadn't spotted the other triggers), shortening his steps, closing his mouth, and raising his head. Uh-oh. And as the truck Monster tensed up, pulled forward - and took a step to the side, away from the truck, and calmly watched it pass! How awesome was that!?! Pretty awesome, people.

Uh-huh. First she insults me, then she compliments me. No wonder I'm all messed up.

Today's Cloud

Today we've been training distance targeting, which is a struggle for me. I find myself expecting Monster to more or less think like a human, and I can't seem to snap out of it. I know dogs don't generalize things the same way we do, but I can't seem to wrap my head around it in this particular exercise.

I keep telling people she's stupid, maybe now you'll believe me...

We're working with a mouse pad as a paw target. I put it down, Monster steps on it, click, treat. No problem. I move the target so he'll have to walk away from me to target it - he has no idea what to do. He starts experimenting with anything else he can find and completely ignores the mouse pad. We move closer to it again, Monster targets, click, treat. I leave the target where it is and walk away myself to create distance. If I move more than three steps away (give or take), Monster again has no clue what to do. We move back to the mouse pad, I begin sloooowly moving it, just a few inches between each repetition (which is of course what I should have done from the start, but as I say I seem to have some sort of weird, unshakable expectation Monster'll think like a human in this exercise), which goes fine. Until, that is, we reach an invisible border where Monster yet again can not figure out what the exercise is about. I try waiting him out - eventually he'll stumble on the target if he keeps trying anything he can spot, right. Oh, he does. He does indeed... He focuses on the mouse pad, makes the connection that this is an item to be targeted, picks it up with his mouth, carries it back to where it was when we started, puts it down, and proudly, with great emphasis, targets it...

Done! Fork over the goodies!

The thing is, this is kind of brilliant in its own way, right? It's just not what you'd expect - or at least not what I'd expect. And it's not at all the result I'm going for. It's not right, sure, but it's also not exactly wrong. He is targeting it, after all.

Exactly! I earned this carrot.

Now, my point isn't "Oh, woe is me, I have such a stooopid dog!". No, Monster is just fine - the cloud this post is about is my stubborn difficulty to understand that Monster can't think of things the way I do. I keep getting surprised when "problems" like this turn up, and I can't figure out why that is. Why do I expect him to think of the target the same way when it's in a different place, or when we're approaching it from a different angle or distance? What else am I looking at this way without even being aware of it...?

Today's Sunshine

Got nothing really positive to report. Today's been a dark, wet, cold and windy day - we've not spent much time outdoors, and neither has anyone else in the village, meaning there have been zero trigger events.

I'm bored...

Hey, maybe that's sunshine in itself!

Today's Cloud

Today as we were leaving the yard some people with another dog turned up behind a hedge. They were walking past us / away from us when we spotted them, but Monster still lost it. He had his hackles up, he was bouncing and lounging, yodeling and growling, air snapping and shaking... We had to wait for them to move about 150 yards away before he could stop focusing and follow without losing his marbles all over again.

I'm gonna get you!

I know you have to expect setbacks, believe me! But it's still disappointing when they happen.

Today's Sunshine

Today my sister dropped by while Monster and I were outside. I'm still not feeling very well, but we were out in the garden with Monster on a long line and me staggering around trying to do something about the tons of fallen apples on the lawn (armed with a snow shovel). I was wheezing and coughing and generally disoriented and had decided to give up and go back inside, and when I went to put the tools away I discovered my sister was in the garage. Now, I hadn't heard her but obviously Monster had - but he hadn't raised any fuss about it! Further, as we were walking around the garden (looking at the massive amount of work I've left undone) we of course got within reach of Monster, but all he did was calmly sniff my sister, look at what we were doing, and generally be a really good boy!

Of course I am.

Again this may not sound like anything to brag about for those of you with... simpler dogs, but Monster's tendencies to wind himself up beyond reason, guard our home from people entering (although I will say he's very good once people are actually across the "border"), greet people by head butting them, and generally make him difficult to have around people - including people we already know - are not only hard to deal with but also a symptom of the general problem. Him dealing very well with an unexpected visit from my sister is something great, and shall be so commemorated here. So say we all.

Yeeeaaahhh... Did I ever tell you Mom's a total nerd..?