Sunday, February 14, 2010

Zen and the Art of Raising Shane

Shane and I attended a clinic on dog massage Friday night. I'm on a mission now to learn how to calm Shane. So far, he's on L-Theanine and Tryptophan supplements. We have stopped walking around the neighborhood, which causes extreme arousal. We haven't been to agility class in weeks due to the weather. He's been pretty relaxed.

So, Friday night we arrive at the training class. I took Shane to pee and he heard some barking dogs in a car and got very aroused. Treats. Entering the building, more barking dogs. Great. More treats. Shane is alert, but still OK. We set up our stuff and do the little labyrinth in the middle of the room. All still fine. More agitated dogs arrive. A little corgi over in the corner and Shane are the calmest in the class. Who would have ever thought it.

The first part of the class was lecture. We had some calming tea. Shane laid down at my feet. I could tell he was still on alert as his ears twitched when he heard a sound. Still, he was a very good boy.

At break time, we went outside to pee again. All good. Back inside, we do the labyrinth again and just as we exit, a giant dog growled and lunged at Shane. Lots of treats. Back through the labyrinth. I was furious. Can't be furious. We did some more exercises to calm the spirit. Not working too well.

Finally, get to the massage. Shane lets me do a little. He gets up to have a drink and that's that. He walks away. I feel lucky that I got to do as much as I did considering all the agitated dogs in the room and the lunging incident. I can't wait to try it at home with no distractions.

The most important thing I learned was the effort I had to put in to calm myself before we begin the massage. A little calming herb for me and a little for Shane.

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