Today's Cloud

I shouted at Monster today. On our first walk in the morning I told Monster to stop and he completely ignored me - and I snapped and shouted at him. Sure, he stopped, but he spent the rest of the walk as far away from me as the leash would allow and didn't lift his eyes to me once. Not worth it, not even close...

Are you mad at me, Mom?

I think I was still upset about his behavior last night, when he first had such a big reaction to the man and dog and then nearly pulled us into the road in front of a car. I must have held on to some frustration from that without realizing it, because I don't normally lose my temper just because Monster wants to sniff a bush more than he wants to do as I say. Sure, it really is frustrating when we have a sudden (and in this case slightly frightening) backslide - especially when it comes out of the blue like that (from my perspective that is, no doubt there was something that caused it but I have no idea what it was). But making my dog want to avoid me because I'm scary and unpredictable is not exactly the solution to our problems.

Yeah... I don't like it when you do that...