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Sunday, February 10, 2013

scary rubbish

So far so bad.
I must say I'm somewhat of a blog hoarder. I begin a blog and it falls by the wayside. Seems to be a recurring theme. Honestly, I don't have a huge amount of time to blog in the first place so possibly I should quit while I'm ahead, but I'd like to make a go of it.

I thought maybe some 'features' would be a good idea. Like: Tricky Tuesday (whereby I teach and film (fingers crossed) a new trick, or get better at an old one).
Or how about... Photo Friday - gives me an excuse to get more photos of Lu.
And... Well, maybe Monday can just be dedicated to wonderings, problems and rambling. Thursday could be 'Thoughtful Thursday' but Edgar's Mission do that so I'm stealing their idea. And Wednesday could be more of the same for now.


So. Today is Monday.

Tell you what, I'm super excited about hard-rubbish collection time. I'm not sure what everybody else calls it, but it's when you dump piles of old furniture, bits of wood, broken toys, old TVs and the like on the side of the road and it'll get picked up by the council, or by your friendly neighbourhood scavengers. Nic loves hard rubbish for the free stuff. I love hard rubbish because suddenly, scary, weird and strange-smelling monsters have manifested themselves all around our streets and it gives me the perfect opportunity to practice 'Check it Out'/Treat & retreat.

Big scary pile of stuff? Great - we go towards it to where Lumen is comfortable, she gets praised/fed, we move away, we go close again, treat, move away. We repeat this, and usually, it only takes about 5 back-and-forths before she is quite happily sniffing or climbing all over the object in question. Theoretically, I could probably just march up to the object myself and praise her for coming, but I see her big grin as we retreat, turn around, and get ready to start the game again that I know this works for her. I also see her 'check in' with me more often when there's scary things or cars, or something she's unsure about. Is she wondering if we're going to play the game? Checking my reaction? Showing me how brave she is? Making sure everything's ok? I'm not sure, but I get the sense she's trusting me a lot more lately, and I'm really enjoying watching her become a brave, confident, and well-balanced dog.

We also ran into a cat today, and getting her to 'leave it' or look away AT ALL (even when I stood right in her field of vision) was SO not happening. But that's another post for another day.

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