Rain-jeweled front-porch screen on this warm but soggy morning. Dora and I have been out in the backyard a couple of times –– fortunately it's not been raining that hard –– to sniff around and chase the tennis ball, but it's looking like another very indoor day overall. As long as it's just dreary, not pouring, however, I will plan to take a walk with her this afternoon. Days like this are good because they mean lots of people won't be out, and we won't continually be meeting reactivity triggers other than squirrels, of which the world is all too full, all the time.
I have been working through an online reactivity training course with Dora lately, which is very helpful. I've learned a good bit about helping a dog utilize its own calming measures –– I hadn't known before that sniffing (as in sniffing along the ground) is a self-soothing mechanism that dogs employ, and that you can condition a reactive dog to do that, instead of reacting to a trigger. You can also, over time, condition a reactive dog to substitute positive feelings for negative ones in the presence of a trigger, mostly by having the dog associate the trigger (in Dora's case, strange people) with treats, rather than fear or trauma. This picture of gradually working with the dog's brain plasticity to rewire associations also includes avoiding situations that push the dog over his/her threshold for holding it together, so that the dog doesn't continue to replicate the reactive behavior you're trying to recondition.
All of this is essentially Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and is one way that therapists work with people experiencing trauma, to help them move beyond their over-threshold responses to whatever triggers they associate with that trauma. People don't overcome trauma just by being thrown back into situations that seem to replicate the original trauma, without some level of management for confronting those situations. Dogs operate at a far more elemental level than we do, but it's fascinating to me that their brains work in much the same way as ours. Of course, they can't articulate why something presents to them as a threat –- they're basically incapable of the aha moments that represent breakthroughs for humans. Dogs, lacking the capacity for reflection, don't really have personal breakthroughs. They also don't have a concept of the past, except as a (to them) inexplicable source of emotional associations. They don't know why they're barking their heads off at every large man in a hoodie who comes within twenty feet of them. They can't access whatever original experience planted this response in them. They just know that the big dude in the hoodie is trouble, barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark.
We actually had a big-dude-in-hoodie run-in yesterday, which is why I think of that particular example. We'd been having a nice, largely solitary walk along the greenway trail –– passed and chatted with a lady and girl with their manic little dog, from a comfortable and brief distance of about five feet, with Dora sitting and looking at them and getting treats. Otherwise the only triggers we saw were squirrels, which I hated already, but since knowing Dora . . . Want to know how to ruin our day? Send lots of squirrels to wind Dora up to a fever-pitch of desire. She. Wants. To. Kill. Them. All. More about squirrels in a minute.
So we'd walked, I don't know, maybe three-quarters of a mile before the squirrel situation started to get out of hand, and I decided to turn back before she really lost her mind. We were walking along nicely for the most part, Dora sniffing along the grassy verge as we went, but on a loose leash, not straining and lunging at anything. Periodically I'd give her a treat as she came along with me, and every time she actively checked in, coming to me and looking at me. So far, so good.
The greenway trail is an old railbed for a defunct train line; there is an active railroad track that runs parallel to it for some way. As we were approaching the point in the trail where it meets up with the railroad tracks, along came a train. We don't get that many trains through here –– far fewer than when we first lived in this town –- but they do come along. I stopped walking to let Dora sniff while the engines went by at a still-fairly-significant distance, and fed her some treats. She seemed calm enough. The train went by. We kept walking. As we drew nearer and nearer the tracks where the train had passed but was no longer there, her anxiety level started to amp up: she was trotting faster and faster, ears pinned back, tense. We cross the tracks at the foot of our street every time we walk on the greenway, which is most days, but now, when we came to the crossing, she was tense and nervous and actually leaped over the tracks, as though she didn't want to risk touching them. They were probably still vibrating from the passing of the train, and though I couldn't really feel that vibration, I imagine that she could.
So we were across the tracks, and I stopped to let her sniff, have a treat, calm down –– and that's when Hoodie Dude appeared. He had, I guess, been walking along the tracks, because that's what he continued to do once he was past us, but I hadn't been expecting him, and suddenly there he was. I'm not sure how close to us he was, but Dora, still wound up from (I guess) the train vibrations, thought it was too close. Barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark. He went on; she continued to stare after him with an intensity that I've come to recognize, though I don't think she barked anymore once he was going away down the tracks. I led her away, had her sit, gave her some treats, and tried to calm her down, which is about all you can do to salvage a situation where the dog has exhibited a reactive behavior. Try to make there be something positive to associate with whatever has just happened. Anyway, then we went home.
So this is something I know about Dora: she doesn't like big guys swathed in a lot of clothes. Even absent the stressor of the train, she was fairly reactive to my younger son at Thanksgiving, he of the Viking mien. He is a large man with long hair and a beard, who wears a lot of layered clothes –– t-shirt, flannel, usually some kind of jacket. This guy yesterday was in much the same mold. Who knows why she sees that particular profile as a threat; she just does. Now, even though she barked at my son every time he came down the stairs, she would go to him and let him pet her, and would be basically fine once they'd broken the ice, over and over and over. I am contemplating how to manage their interactions better over Christmas (when we will have a houseful of people, and Dora will chill in her crate a lot, but has to come out sometimes). She also barked at a friend of my husband's, another large man, who came over last weekend to bring us some fish he had caught: the men were in the driveway dealing with the fish, and I brought her into the front yard, where she could see him from a distance of some yards. It was still too close; she barked at him, though she calmed down some when I scattered some kibble in the grass for her to sniff out. Now that I know more about the therapeutic power of sniffing, I can go prepared to scatter food wherever we are.
Speaking of squirrels, and also of sniffing, I've found this technique to be helpful in the backyard when she shows signs of wanting to chase a squirrel over the fence. Her recall is pretty good, even when she's fairly wound up, but it's really good when she sees that I'm scattering food. She's very food-driven. Now what we do in the mornings is go out in the backyard, and I almost immediately scatter kibble in the grass for her to sniff out –– it's a mental exercise for her, and it calms her down. She's gone over the back wall after a squirrel once, but now, even though she notices them, and on one occasion was wound up enough that I thought she might jump the fence, I have been able to get her to refocus with this technique.
So that's the Dora news of late. It will be interesting to see how she and my husband get on together in my absence this coming week, when I'll be on the road to collect the college students.
Dora's current vibe, absent the terrifying Hoodie Men:
Her wants are simple: to spend eternity on the couch beside me. That's really it. That's all it takes. As long as she is no more than five inches from me at any given time, the Hoodie Men can exist all they want (elsewhere), but they cannot shake her happiness.
In other news, I'm trying to plan my packing for this road trip, which is complicated by the fact that the weather has been so up and down, and I will be passing through multiple weather zones, going from here to Memphis to Dallas and back. It's a lot easier to pack in a tiny capsule when you can anticipate the temperatures, and even easier when you know it's just going to be HOT.
Items I am considering including:
*charcoal-gray Sierra
*midnight-blue bamboo long-sleeve swing dress
*grape Pact cotton dress
*purple crop leggings
*marble bamboo leggings
*gray merino tights
*green J.Crew cotton cardigan
*gray Athleta drape cardigan
*purple Xero Oswegos
*Birk Madeiras
*camel boots
That's as far as I've gotten, though I might pare down/substitute rather than adding. I need to look at my shop-my-closet features to remind myself of outfit options.
I could pare out the bamboo swing dress if I need to, and just make do with two dresses. Heck, I could really just wear the Sierra every day. That's what I did with my blue Camellia when we took the kids to college in August. That might be what I do . . . in fact, yes. I think it will be what I do. Even if it's 80 degrees in Dallas, I can wear Sierra, and I can add layers as needed.
So maybe:
*Sierra
*purple leggings
*marble leggings
*merino tights
*green cardigan
*gray cardigan
*blue cotton pullover
*purple Oswegos
*Madeiras
This could work. I do need to pack fairly small, because my daughter, especially, is bringing tons of stuff home: her guitar, bass, and amp, plus a lot of art. Good thing my son has left most of his bulkiest valuables, like his swords and shield, at home to begin with.
In the meantime, wearing Sierra again today:
Tastefully accessorizing here with secondhand teal cashmere cardigan and wet hair.
It's warm today, with a high of 70, so bare legs and Oswegos complete the look.
I'll probably wash Sierra when I take her off tonight, because I'm not sure I've washed her since I've had her –– over a month now. If this is the only dress I'm going to take on my road trip, she might as well be clean.