July 7, 2013
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Progress Report
The cool of the morning is wearing off, but it remains damp and sticky. The varnish on my desk, which is old, has a gummy quality to it. Everything is still. The leaves hang from the six-inch forest without moving. Annie has collapsed on the couch, moving every now and again to stretch a cramped muscle or to snore. Riley is MIA. (He could be behind the couch in the living room, he could be under the outside bench or wadded up in the vine that clings to the side of the house--or did, until he took up residence there.) It is very quiet here.For one, we are not under fire from explosives just now. Most of the neighbors appear to be elsewhere.
Three bags of treats 2 1/2 days later, one of us--at this very moment--is not driven to dash to the front window, the front gate or the side fence and begin barking hysterically at movement, forms, buggy wheels or (OMG, OMG) other dogs. I do not credit the training with this so much as possible ingestion overload and the sheer absence of things to bark at. We could begin a new day any time now.
It is important for me to keep sight of the goal, since I have no idea what I'm doing with this dog and it seems fairly clear she has no idea what I'm doing either. My goal is to keep her from escalating to the point of sheer sensory overload which results in explosive barking, compulsive running from bark site to bark site, leaping at the windows, and when in absolute desperation, throwing herself on the couch hard enough to all but knock the couch over. I need to remember that it surprised me when she did that last night and to understand that we ARE making progress: there was a time when keeping the couch upright was work. Yes: 42 pounds. When Nancy had her hip surgery we admitted that only one of us ever sat on the couch and she was facing hip surgery. We bought blocks and raised the couch to the point where she felt she could get up off from it, which was two blocks per corner. Unfortunately when a small black flying missile threw herself at the couch, she would knock it off the blocks and I, with my waning strength and bad shoulder, could not lift it enough to get it back up on the blocks. Nancy by then was drugged and groggy and used a walker. We now use one block to raise the couch, Annie rarely if ever throws herself onto it, and the couch no longer comes undone. We have made progress.
This is the progress we have made this weekend: Annie has become my constant companion. She naps on the floor beside my chair. When she gets up and runs outside she barks, I call her and she comes vaulting through the dog door to my chair side and lays her chin on my thigh, waiting for her treat. When she doesn't bark, I don't call her: she then comes vaulting through the dog door to my chair side and lays her chin on my thigh, waiting for her treat. We have had discussions about coming sooner to my call, coming always to my call, paying attention to my call, not making me get up and go outside to get her to answer my call, not barking like an idiot, treat overload, why I should dispense treats for a dog that comes whether I call her or not...
Things that bother me: like Riley, she tends to inhale her treats and then trot outside wheezing like an asthmatic.
She is outside growling now. And doing something I would almost call...yodeling. It's a sort of bark, in varying pitches, which seems to be saying, I'm really not suppose to bark at you but damn, you're making me mad...
Well, she's awake, no question of that. She has made seven trips outside to bark at suspicious behavior so far.
I'm running out of treats.
