New Year Blues

Sleepy Momo

So our new year hasn't started off so well. The dogs have been ok - their owners not so much. We've already packed in a years worth of hospital visits and had a death in the family. I'm pretty sure all of our bad experiences have already happened so the rest of this year should be smooth sailing. Or at least, that's what I'm going with.

The holidays went by pretty easily. Mokey got to meet her Grandma and it only took us 4 days of treating and staring to get to a tail wag and chest rub. While that's extremely slow, at least Mo did eventually greet her. That's something, right?

This winter has been pretty dismal as far as winters go. No snow, warm temperatures - just mud and rain. Yuck. I'm a huge fan of winter and the snow we usually get. So when I got up this morning and we actually had a couple of inches I was pretty happy. But probably not as happy as Mokey - she immediately went out and tried to get Chase to play with her. Then she dunked her face in it. Must be a dog thing.

 Recently Mokey and I started taking nose work classes. Which is basically where you teach your dog to recognize three different scents and then find the hidden scent in a room. There's different levels and different titles you can accomplish. Right now we're still working on finding treats but Mokey's already a huge fan - and really what's not to love? Free food. She doesn't even have to do a trick. The whole purpose of this is to try and give her a job and help build her confidence. It's something she can focus on without getting revved up about her triggers. We've already practiced at work - a place where she's normally nervous - and it did help her calm down and focus. Besides all that it's nice to do something that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with her reactivity.