Weekly Training Update (April 18)

Last Sunday, Lilly and I went with Gigi and our classmates to a busy area in Boulder. The crowded commercial streetscape overflowed with people, dogs (some loose, some not), kids, strollers, skateboards, bongo players, traffic (loud diesel trucks, louder motorcycles) and all manner of other nutty things.

Lilly coped the best she could, but it was a tough, tough day.

I do my best to gauge potential problems and work the program before she can freakout, but sometimes I just can’t keep track of everything. Lilly, however, CAN and does. The first skateboard caught me off guard while we were crossing a street. A domino effect of noisy reactions from other dogs in class made Lilly worry.

Others began to warn me of skateboards, rollerblades and loose dogs, so that helped. And, when a dog came out of a store and seemed bent on “meeting” Lilly, I called out for help and got it. (Thanks, Claire!)

But, when a classmate pulled a flyer from a real estate box, the lid slammed … and that was that. Lilly threw her very specific shutdown body posture at me. She … was … DONE!!! Thankfully, that came at the end of class, so we made our way back to the car.

One the way home, I realized that I had a killer headache, but I thought Lilly deserved some down time before going home, so we stopped at our usual in-town trail and went for a walk. I didn’t ask much of Lilly. I just let her walk and unwind.

When we got home, she ate, then disappeared to her crate in the basement. She essentially put herself to bed. We did get her to come out and cuddle a bit later, but it was clear that she’s had enough, thank you very much. So, I honored that and let her rest. Not a word, not a cue, not a demand from me.

Some weeks are like that.