Thoughts on… “Did she sign up for this?!”

I know I’ve had very little to say lately.

In part, that’s because I’m sort of processing what’s going on. A couple people have told me that this is not unusual though, so I’m not worrying. Well, not much.

One friend told me that yeah, 18 months old? Yeah, your dog is going to have another round of brains falling out…she’s about due, so don’t worry about it, everything will be fine.

So, yeah, that’s about it. We’re having some regression. It started with not wanting to lie down on the floor of the car. Hilde did this perfectly when we went to Austin, and for a little while after, then a few weeks ago, decided…nah…can’t wanna.

Then, there were portions of some walks where she wouldn’t really want to go. Like she’d do the pokey slow snail crawl. But she’d fly home with all the confidence in the world.

And she’s showing some small fear reactions to some new people who come here. A bit like how she reacted to Sue when we were in Massachusetts. Barking, turning her head so as to not look at them, backing away. Most recently,this happened with Melanie’s grandfather, who is a pretty big guy, and I think maybe she just hasn’t seen many of those, and certainly not in our home. I hope this doesn’t generalize to outside of home, and so far it hasn’t, but it makes me sorry I was unable to get more people over to visit her when she was a puppy. None of that, to tell you the truth, worked out the way I’d hoped. Even for my lack, I think she’s turned out mostly all right anyway.

I should clarify that by “home”, I mean “the place where we are staying/sleeping”, since I guess that’s probably how she’s seeing it. Strange people that look strange in our home? Don’t like it.

So with all of that, I’ve been wondering. Is she already deciding, “Hey, I didn’t sign up for this. I think I’d rather do something else.”? Especially when, sometimes, she reacts to the harness like she’d just as soon not be bothered with it, but if I take it off to let her park on our way, she’s perfectly fine with having it put back on.

So I’ve been sort of watching, and thinking that the time might come where she very definitely says, “Nope, didn’t sign up for this, you’re on your own, pal!”

This morning was such a time. Protested at the harness, did the pokey slow walk, with stopping for no very good reason and dnacing around, then going eventually. Brought some treats to encourage for when she picked it up. When she figured we were going in somewhere, she definitely showed me all the doors and was happy to get inside. Overjoyed, in fact. We had our lunch, and she did beautifully going home, well, apart from sort of taking a screwy direction across the parking lot, but we worked that out. Parking lots are hard, as is keeping a straight line and keeping her from veering into ones that are flush with the sidewalk, as she tries to find a building or something to follow, but I digress slightly. Anyway, beautiful trip home. So i’m thinking,OK, she likes going home, but not going out. Is this nearly successful, though failed in the end?

And then we went out this afternoon so I could get a haircut.

Apart from needing a little initial encouragement to keep her pace up, it was perfect. When I asked her to turn right as we were looking for the entrance to a parking lot, she showed me that she couldn’t, several times, until she could. Beautiful work there, even across a parking lot, beautiful work home, apart from running the curb out of the parking lot, but I’ll take it (yes, we reworked it).

True, we haven’t gone out every day, and that’s all on me. We’ll see, and I’ll keep an eye on things.

So with all that, I’d been thinking, and wondering, if maybe Hilde’s decided