#fearful dog

[fbwzoo]

So Emma made a Poor Decision this morning that at least turned out much much better than it could have! But still gave me half a panic attack at work & I need her to not do this to me again, good lord.

Back story: we started doing "adventures" into the front yard with Emma, so that if she did get out there sometime, she wouldn't panic and disappear. She tends to stick with our other dogs, and we're on a quiet side street, so it seemed worth the risk to do supervised yard time to familiarize her with the different area.

Well, the lose part of this - Emma apparently slipped out the front door with Jack & Arte leaving for work this morning, and wasn't noticed bc small black dog & dark. Why she got it into her head that 6 am would be adventure time when normally it takes active encouragement & someone staying with the door open..... no clue.

Anyway, luckily it wasn't 100F outside today. Unluckily, it was raining! Luckily, Joel was off work today and home. Unluckily, he didn't get up and realize something was wrong until 9. So my poor pup was out in the rain for 3 hours!

Win - I doubt she did go explore at all, she did not get hurt, she was on the front step and bouncing at the door when Joel realized. So I guess the adventures did serve that purpose??

He isn't able to touch her so he couldn't dry her off (heck, idk that I would've been allowed to dry her off after all that either), but put towels down in her couch corner and let her snuggle into those. And made her a pot of plain white rice, her favorite treat!

Emma has calmed down about all of it better than I have, honestly. 💀 She's become SO resilient over the past few years with us. I'm really proud of her. Along with so many other emotions. 💀😂

[fbwzoo]

It's such a little thing, but so exciting - did a quick harness session with Emma tonight & at one point put the harness down in my lap while I was squeezing more churu to the top. And she!! Nudged the harness!! With her nose!!

[fbwzoo]

Absolutely bonkers that the dog who I could barely breathe around almost 3 years ago.... tonight let me practice holding her head & lifting her lips for teeth brushing. And even after we were done & I moved to work with Addy, followed me over to sit next to Addy in hopes of earning more treats.

Emma is so smart & has so much more confidence now, and she's so interested in training time. We did nail trims this past weekend & she actively came over where Jack & I were working with the others & wanted to be involved. She was easily nosing the clippers in exchange for a treat within like 3 lured times. I moved to gently taking her paw & while she doesn't like that & retreated once for a break, she came right back within a couple seconds.

Also she's had a general jump forward in trying new things lately - she deliberately went to cuddle Jack with me present for the first time. She watched me the entire time, which was funny, but it was such a surprise. She's also been enjoying Joel petting her back & shoulders lately, and she did a back-of-couch lick attack on Arte for the first time last week, which was VERY cute.

We've also started doing "Adventures" where we purposely let her out the front door to the front yard - always when I'm already out there, so she can go find me, zoomy the yard once or twice, then go back inside. Our thought is that it helps familiarize her with the front yard a bit more and gives her a routine to ending up out there - circle the yard, go back inside. So if she gets out by accident sometime, hopefully she'll be more likely to hang in the yard long enough and know the next step is "go back through door". So far she's calmer about her zoomy in the yard, so we think it's working decently so far.

It's a risk, yes, but we do have a very quiet street, and we figure the controlled practice is an acceptable risk to help set her up better for a potential accident/ emergency if something happens. I do need to get my fucking shit together on harness and leash training though, sigh. She just has more bad associations with harnesses, etc from having them forced on her, so it's rather harder to retrain than the brand new scratch board, tooth brush, etc.

Here's a cute picture if you actually read all that babble of an update! 😂

[fbwzoo]

Girly decided to continue to prove her progress tonight, we had a friend over for the first time. Ran up to sniff & greet with the other two, took a few treats from her hand, then settled with me to keep an eye on new person for a bit.

Was relaxed enough for the evening to actively snuggle & kiss me and Jack, play with me & Spring multiple times, and even followed Scary Dad & stranger into the kitchen in hopes of dropped food! And she ate her dinner promptly, though we also let her eat in her couch corner so she wouldn't feel pressured to go past new human to eat. That's become standard protocol for dinner with other people present, to help keep stress low & set her up for success.

I'm just so proud of her. 💙

[fbwzoo]

We had a loud storm last night, though thankfully not as bad as some parts of our area. But it still scared the hell out of Emma. :( She was freaked out enough that my lap wasn't safe enough, so she squished between me and a pillow, and then I pulled a blanket over for a blanket fort. The fort seemed to finally help calm her shaking.

She normally hates being under blankets, but she stayed under for at least an hour, and went back into the fort 3 times before she decided it was safe enough to lay on top of the blanket again.

[fbwzoo]

I had to stay at a hotel overnight for work on Monday night, and Emma was apparently a ball of anxiety over it - Mom doesn't leave after dinner! So once I got home on Tuesday, she buried her head into the back of my knees & I got this pic. 😂

[fbwzoo]

Had one of those nights of basking in the happiness of how far Emma has come!

From being afraid of all new things, not recognizing toys as toys, and shaking over chews or any presentation of treats that wasn't just handing them over.... to learning to enjoy shredding tissues & palm leaf flowers... to learning to use a snuffle mat & pull apart a paper ball with treats in it, then actively looking forward to being given enrichment items with treats.

And now tonight, she willingly stuck her head into a wide box to grab kibble stuffed paper balls, fully ignoring some serious chaos - my partner burned himself on hot oil, smoked the house up, the rest of us were coughing, the other dogs were shredding their boxes & paper, the cats were showing interest in the whole mess.... no big deal, she said! I got kibble to liberate here!

Sadly didn't get a picture of the foraging given the chaos, but got one of her & Spring snoozing off their exciting dinner after. 🥰 I'm forever ridiculously proud of my little dog and how far she's come.

[fbwzoo]

Yall, I'm literally so proud of Emma!!!! She's still constantly showing how much progress she's made. We had friends over last much - she's met the mom K & one kiddo (12 years) once before, but we also had dad G & kiddo's bestie along.

From beginning to end, she handled it SO well. She immediately darted up to kiddo to sniff her before I even got back to the couch with her. When K sat next to me, Emma immediately leaned, wanting to sniff, so I took her arm & brought her hand over for Emma to check out. She did the same thing later with G.

They arrived around 6:30, so it was pretty close to dog dinnertime at 7. But after the initial intros, settling, and such, when Addy started moving around, getting excited for food, Emma also hopped right up and started wagging & dancing around some, never mind to the kids that were on the couch right there!

She ate her dinner! Sat next to me in her safe corner, but she steadily ate with few concerns, with the kids on the couch near us & the adults in the kitchen talking.

Multiple times people stood up next to us, walked around, we were eating food around them, we had Ripley up from the basement..... she handled ALL of that pretty in stride. No lunging at Ripley (though I had to keep a close eye & offer support), no barking at anyone, no shaking. She even did silly snuggles with me a couple times.

Most astonishing of all - she took treats from both K's and G's hands, AND...... she actually let K pet her, with one finger, very carefully. She wasn't really happy about it - it was a similar reaction to initial petting from most of us, kind of ".... really? Why. Can you stop please" side eye. But she didn't flinch, jump away, no major reactions, and just went back to snuggling with me after.

They were over for over 5 hours, and she did get a little jumpier at the end - I sat in the Wrong Place at one point & she got a little frantic over that for a moment before I moved. But she was SO brave and handled it all SO fucking well. And of course, she was very ready for bed after they left & practically led Jack to the bedroom.

But even today, she's not had any major increases of stress reactions - immediately tackling me for morning snuggles, played with Spring, even wanted to participate in a training session (though her threshold for that was definitely lower), and handled cat proximity to me & to treats with very limited reactions.

Sorry for the long post, just!!!! Ahhhh!!!!