We've had a very long time without any real problems with Willow. But, of course, the snow arrived two nights ago. What does the snow bring? Avalanche blasting.
Yesterday morning, we went through the parking garage as normal to start our walk, and Willow freaked out. Totally freaked. I didn't hear anything; I don't know whether it was the fact she knew it was snowy outside, or maybe she heard a blast that I couldn't. It doesn't matter, she turned back and started throwing herself at the end of the lead to get out of the garage the way we had come. Normally when she's scared she shuts down and refuses to move forwards, but this was so much more extreme. She doesn't have the traction of Luna, but she was pulling as hard as she possibly could. I chucked Luna's lead at J and ran with her back inside.
Once inside the apartment building, she was happy to go up the stairs and out the front door of the block, but she was nervous as soon as we got out - J was walking up the road from the garage entrance with the other dogs to meet us. We heard a quiet blast, Willow froze but I threw her a little party by kicking snow (a game she adores) and she relaxed. We walked up the road a little, playing some confidence games, and she had a wee and a poo. Then, a huge blast. Bollocks. She froze, and it was clear that was our walk over. J took her back inside while I carried on with the others.
The rest of the day she was a bit nervy in the house; she only wanted to be in her safe spot in the kitchen or on a donut bed right next to me. I wanted her there, and typically all the other dogs (who normally laze on the sofas) decided they also wanted to be in that bed, so I had to keep rearranging them all so Willow could be with me. I got some duck fillets and every time there was a rumble (either blasting, or the plough going past on the road, which makes a deep rumbling sound, even though it's a long way away), I rained bits of that down on her head. She wasn't completely relaxed; wouldn't take lower value food, but the duck fillet, yeah! The other dogs thought it was brilliant.
In the evening, she came out more than happily. This is often the way; the scary things happen in the morning, so she is happier to go out in the evenings. She was a little wound up; the second I took her lead off, she threw herself on Squidge for a game of chase and wrestling, which was great fun but seemed to be a bit of an emotional release for her, rather than coming from a happy place. She did relax, though, and we had a lovely walk playing lots of snowy games - hunting kibble in the snow, chasing pine cones, which get buried in the snow when you throw them, digging holes, mouse pouncing on cones, snow kicking...
So that was brilliant. Even if she just has one good walk a day, that's fine by me. I need to see it as still being SO much better than she was. She wasn't frozen and tense all day, she was just on edge. She went out in the evening, when previously she would have been inside for days afterwards. So, positives, positives. It's really hard to see her scared, though.
I saw this piece online earlier and it really spoke to me. It's about having a disabled child, but it works for a fearful, or reactive dog, too. Sometimes we don't get what we think we have signed up to. People on the outside think how terrible it must be for us. But Holland is beautiful, too.
Welcome to Holland
Written by Emily Perl Kingsley
When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”
“Holland?!” you say. “What do you mean, Holland?” I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.
But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.
So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It’s just a different place. It’s slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”
The pain of that will never, ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.
But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.
