Bathroom Spray

Marlies' soccer team is in a tournament this week-end. They played at 12:00 and at 4:45 out at the ESA complex (about 40 minutes from our house) so we were out for most of the day (not much point in coming home between games only to leave right away again). Marlies' parents stopped in to check on the dogs, but we didn't see them between 10:30am when we left and about 10:30pm, when we got home.

They were both acting kind of strangely when we got home. I let Trigger out of his crate and they both went outside to pee. They came back in and I fed Trigger (Cannon didn't get dinner as Marlies' dad brought over a box of Milkbones and decided to leave it on the counter. Cannon ate the whole thing). Marlies and I then started getting ready for bed. I was putting away some clothes when Marlies called me from the bathroom, asking why Trigger's hackles were up.

Good question. I have no idea what sparked it, but Trigger was all messed up. He was sitting in the bathroom with wide eyes, staring out with his hackles up. I called him from the bedroom, but he wouldn't move from his sit. I grabbed a leash and snapped it on him and then led him over into the bedroom. He went and sat on the dog bed. I gave him a down command and he laid down. I moved to a different part of the bedroom and he came. Same thing again, sit and then down. He still seemed entirely tense.

When Marlies came out of the bathroom I had her hold the leash to make sure he stayed sitting and went to pet Cannon. It was obvious he was staring her down pretty intently. I kept petting Cannon while Marlies pulled Trigger's focus back to her when he would try to focus on Cannon.

From there I picked his leash up again and we went on some walks through the living room and kitchen interspersed with sits and downs. After a couple of rounds of this, he finally seemed to relax and calm down, until he was laying casually in the kitchen (I don't know how else to describe it - but it was almost palpable, the tension leaving him). Finally I called him out of the down and he was a bouncy boy again, wagging his tail. He wanted to go outside so I let him out to do some business.

When we had first gotten home we realized that something was rotting in our garbage and carried with it the stench of nastiness. Marlies emptied the trash and put it outside but it still smelled pretty rank, especially in the kitchen. When Trigger came back in, I took a can of Air Wick air freshener that had been sitting on our kitchen table and sprayed it. Go figure, I didn't want the house to smell like garbage. Trigger freaked out.

I don't know what happened that made him afraid of spray cans but he was freaked right out. He wouldn't come near the can. I spent about five minutes with him in the kitchen with this bottle, trying to get him to not react to it in the same way. At one point he started batting the bottle around with his feet and trying to play with it, but was still quite skittish of me with it in my hands.

I have no idea where this has come from, but I guess now it gets added to the list of things to work on.

Now at least everyone is ready for bed. Cannon is sleeping on one dog bed and Trigger is passed out on the other. Tomorrow is a new day. Walk time first thing in the morning. We'll see how things go.