Mastering Your Fear!

Sometimes, it is the unexpected things that give us pause.  That make us say, OMG!  That frighten us or make us timid and shy.

Sometimes, it is only repeated exposure that make us comfortable with those things, with the OTHER that has frightened us.

And so it was with Coach.  We were shopping for some things to help with our Halloween outfits when we headed down an aisle that had a whole big wall of FAKE BIRDS.  Who knew that fake birds were so scary.  I didn't.  But to Coach, it was like meeting a zombie.

He reared back and wouldn't go near them.  If he had been human and knew karate, he would have kicked that stand down and stomped those fake birds into dust.  Or perhaps not.  He really didn't want to get close to them.  I think he was afraid they would leap onto him.  I swear we have not been watching Alfred Hitchcock movies at home!  He is not channeling Tippi Hedren.

So, when met with a object that your puppy finds scary, as a Southeastern Guide Dog puppy raiser, we are supposed to get our puppy to at least come back and try to go next to it or get closer to it.  And try again until they gradually lose their fear.

We were in a pretty empty Michael's, so I whipped out my iPhone and started to video tape the exercise.  I thought he was pretty good.  He would get close and then back away.  But ultimately, he grew annoyed with me and gave a huge big boy bark, just one, that the entire store heard.

"MOM! Enough already!!"

Ooops.  Sorry, buddy.  I'll stop filming now and take you away from the birds.  I did however, buy two of them and we continued to deal with this issue.  In the end, well, I'll let you see how Coach finally masters his fear of fake birds by watching the video I put together.

A Very Observant Puppy

Sometimes I forget that Jam is a lab.  That he has a history of hunting and chasing in his genes.  Some things will just come naturally to him.

So the other day when I was down in the lower division library in a meeting I was surprised to find Jam staring very intently at something.  But we couldn't figure out what it was. We followed his line of sight.

This year's theme for reading in lower division is Soar Into Reading and they have bird houses all over the library.  Bird houses with fake birds living in them.  Bird houses with fluffy fake birds all around them.  Most of the faux birds are very small, but there were these two owls...

Out of the entire library, Jam had found the two big owls and he stared at them.  He still followed commands and even went over to pose by them.  But he was aware of them and what they were.

I thought he showed enormous restraint.  Good boy, Jam.