Good Days & Bad Days

Yesterday we got our usual noon time text from our amazing dog walker. She let us know that Barry "...went #2 in the back room." That stings a little when I hear that. She's texted us that before but it's been quite some time since he's done that. The same morning on our normal AM walk he didn't go poo. I always have that in the back of my mind; that if he doesn't poo with us on our morning walk he might go in the back room again. And he did. Not only that, when Husband got home yesterday after work, Barry had gone once again in the back room. He went poo twice in the back room in one day.

I got home and Husband was cleaning the carpet and scrubbing. Heart sunk.

What can we do at that point? Just clean the mess and move on. Discuss a strategy. Did we clean the carpet well enough? What are we doing wrong or differently? Should we change the times we feed Barry? Wake up earlier? Am I giving him too much in his Kong? Should we get new carpet? Wood floors?

This morning for Barry's morning walk as we waited for the elevator a nice lady and her small pug waited with us. Barry was adamant about meeting this dog. He wanted desperately to sniff the pug. He did his whistle whine and continually jumped at the dog while we waited for the elevator. When the elevator arrived the lady with her pug went in and I saw there was another lady in the elevator with a baby in a carrier. I gulped and silently called on all of my calm energy to direct to Barry and we all got onto the small elevator. Disaster. The lady with her baby carrier is just a prop in this story, but an important one. Barry wasn't interested in her or her baby. He wanted to KNOW this pug. He wanted to MEET this pug. He needed to SNIFF the pug!!!!! 10 seconds of banging around, heavy dog panting, knocking into the poor lady with her pug, pug running behind her legs and cornered, Barry wrecking into Husband, pulling on the leash and jumping up at the dog (that was all for show because there was no need to jump since it's a pug) all between our laments of, "Sorry!", "I'm so sorry!", "Sooo Sorry!" Meanwhile Lady With Baby is huddled into the corner covering her child for fear of the safety of the baby. I don't blame her. She was not on Barry's radar and was on the other side of the elevator but Barry made such a ruckus that she was justifiably scared.

I'm just a dog after all. Sometimes I go nuts. Sometimes I don't.

Finally the suffering ended and we were all off the elevator and onto our separate routes. No one was hurt, the pug was fine but Husband and I were very embarrassed. We couldn't do much about it. I know a few people that would suggest beating/spanking him. Some would say to us that we just need to control our dog. Others would assign some other form of punishment. For punishment and beatings - well, once we're off the elevator it's AFTER THE FACT and doesn't do any good anyhow (not to mention that Husband and I would never beat Barry anyway). Beating Barry will will create more aggression - or spark aggression I should say. For controlling our dog, well, anyone that thinks it's that easy has either never had a dog, has never dealt with a leash reactive dog or has a dog that never has to be around other animals ever and probably doesn't go on regular walks. Don't judge until you are in our shoes. Here is what we should have done: We should not have gotten on the elevator in the first place. Barry was already in an excited and keyed up state that we were not going to be able to get him down from. It was just going to be that much worse in a small space combined with the fact that there was a woman with her small baby also on the elevator. Some day we hope that Barry can be calm and mind his own business in a similar situation. We're just not there yet. Not today anyway. We will move on for now and consider this a learning experience.

We're all learning together. Barry sitting for Husband and sliding on our wood floors
trying to keep himself still.

Our AM walk was good. Barry walked mostly fine. He stayed close and didn't pull too much (he's getting better with the pulling). He did NOT go poo, though. He was very distracted with the trees today. Even though his pulling was minimal he was still super focused on the trees. This is something that started around a month ago. We've been slowly working with him to unlearn this new talent. When we walk next to a tree Barry will bolt to the tree (or fence, he also likes to do this with fences) and want to jump up with hind legs on the ground and front legs on the tree or fence staring up into the tree or top of fence. Some days he's overcome with curiosity and can't snap out of this obsession. Other days he's okay and only stops and looks up at all the trees rather than trying to jump up the trees. Either way, nowadays, he's always at least interested in all the trees we pass. Today was a Bad Tree Day. He was obsessed with all the trees today. So obsessed he couldn't go poo.

Here's a look at some of the trees we pass everyday. These are at the back of our building
in the parking area.

Tree and fence all at once!!!!!

I don't know if he'll poo in our back room today. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Or wait to hear it from our dog walker.

I'll try to make you proud today.