We had a three-day setback over the weekend with the ever-illusive Coming Inside Problem that only crops up in the summertime and only in the evening. As usual, I’m unable to peg what caused Lilly to decide once again that the house was SUPER scary, but it seems to be better. Even though, get this, Tom is currently in the basement using a small jackhammer-like thing. …
After a rough week emotionally, I decided to take Lilly along to the Golden Fine Arts Festival last Saturday. She has been to this event, near her favorite city path, for several years running. And, honestly, I needed my girl that day. I needed to get out, and I needed my Lilly with me. Some days are like that. All in all, Lilly did well … despite MANY challenges. …
Today is a rough day in Lilly Town. First of all, my sister meets with her oncologist to get the full diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment plan now that she’s 10 days out from her mastectomy. She has been up for hours already, steeped in anxiety, so if you can send her a prayer for inner peace, I know she would appreciate it. Secondly, today is Katie’s last day in Lilly’s life. We. Are. Crushed. …
Shot this video clip this morning. It demonstrates things Lilly has learned from Ginko and from Katie. It takes a tremendous amount of trust for Lilly to A) go belly up in front of another dog and B ) actually play a little in front of another dog. …
Since I’m on a streak of avoiding real life as much as possible healthy and completely normal coping these days, Lilly and I went to class on Wednesday … even though it was scorching hot. We hadn’t been to class in 6 weeks. It was a new park location we did not know. She did NOT do particularly well. …
We haven’t had much time for formal training lately, but Lilly and I caught up with Tom at a motorcycle swap meet Sunday morning as a little outing. Lilly did really well. …
With medical dramas — human and canine alike — coming at me from all directions these days, I feel woefully behind on our training updates from our new behavior modification plan to continue counter-conditioning Lilly’s fears and retraining a few scenarios where she ramps up her nerves. Here is a recap that I hope does some justice to our efforts so far. …
We’re thinking about the fear-recovery cycle in a different way after our follow-up behavior consult. While Lilly’s fear responses are smaller than a year ago, we’ll be working in the coming weeks and months on resetting her fear cycle frequently so that her emotional roller coaster never leaves to station. …
Last Saturday, we met with Jennie (our behaviorist) for a follow-up consult. We first saw her in summer 2008. I had hoped to check in earlier this year, but time and financial constraints made that impossible. So, we spent a year doing the behavior modification work that many people do in 2-3 months. We’re working on a new plan to take Lilly’s training to the next level — with an eye toward returning to agility training (and maybe possibly competing, even though we’d be the oldest novice team in history). I’ll be reporting on the various details in …
