Fear Factor

Our dog has grown fearful and wary over the past month or so.   I’ve been taking her to dog training classes and while initially she was curious and excited to be around the other dogs, she’s now not interested in participating, even if she’s very hungry.   This past Monday she was showing a fear response, even though she’s been in the training room with most of the same dogs for three months now.

The two trainers there said her response is age-appropriate, but we want to do what we can to help her through the time by exposing her, calmly, to various environments and lots of people.  On Tuesday I took her for a walk and saw a dramatic change in her: she watched everything around her and was spooked by a man in a parked car, looking back for almost a full block.   A mother with a stroller a block off had her jumpy until we got out of sight of it.

I signed her up for “Day School” with one of the trainers.   It’s at the veterinarian’s office and is designed to give the dog experiences around other dogs and people that she wouldn’t get with us here.   We might only need a few days to get her more comfortable with her new level of puppy awareness.

I dropped the dog off this morning and Alexandria, the trainer, had to carry her to the back because she was cowering in the corner—something I’ve never seen her do before.   At the end of the day Alexandria said she wasn’t going to charge me for a full day because they couldn’t get Matisse to do much more than edge towards the door of any room or area.   She wouldn’t take food, no matter how smelly-dog delicious it was.

We’re going back on Friday for another day of Day School and then we’ll decide what to do next.   If we don’t expose her to things now, if we coddle her and not help her through the fear, she might be stuck with it—and that’s a disservice to her.   The flexibility of a growing dog’s brain is what we need to take advantage of now, while she’s young.

Hopefully this phase will pass as quickly as it’s come on.  She was so incredibly laid back at first, it’s very strange to see her fearful.

The Big Boy Update:  I was telling my son how I wasn’t impressed with the choice he had made for something last night.   He knew he had chosen poorly, but he (successfully) changed my mind about his behavior when he offered up, “I haven’t pooped in my pants in a while though.”  And he hasn’t, I realized.  Sometimes you don’t notice a thing when it doesn’t happen anymore.   He used to streak his pants all the time because he didn’t want to stop what he was doing to go to the bathroom.   It’s been a good while though.   I had to praise him for that.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had homework to write a journal entry.   She had several choices but selected writing a poem about thunderstorms.  I wasn’t there when she wrote it but my husband got to see what likely happens at school when she has assignments.   She sat down at the braillewriter and started typing very fast.   There were several other people in the room, children over playing, but that didn’t stop her from coming up with the poem and calling it out as she typed.   I think she had a two-page poem created in about three minutes.  It was pretty good, too.