Reading Signs

I am missing something.

One of the things that I very much want to ask Ivan about tomorrow is the disconcerting pattern of behaviour following walks. While it's not every time (thankfully) and I actually thought that we had moved past it until it happened again today, this "come back from walks, sit beside me, track Cannon and attack" thing has got to end. And honestly, I really want to know what sparks it.

We actually had a really good night walk tonight. I did some work in changing directions to try and reaffirm that he should be paying attention to me and that seemed to be helpful. I was actually really happy when we got home. When we got here, Trigger seemed a bit strange so I did a session of petting Cannon while he sat and watched and I thought he had calmed down. I had grabbed the laptop and had put my feet up on the coffee table and was about to do a sudoku puzzle when I noticed that Trigger was sitting beside me with his head under my legs, staring out at Cannon from the space between the table top and the shelf beneath. I literally got "what are you doing..." out of my mouth and was moving to grab him when he busted out and went after Cannon. I broke them up and had them both in a sit-stay, and then took Trigger to put a leash on him. Once I had the leash on, he laid beside me with no further issues.

Beyond the fact that I don't want one of my dogs going after the other, it also leaves me on guard pretty much all the time. Because I don't understand what's sparking it in those situations, I'm constantly paranoid that it's going to happen again. Typically when I'm down in the basement with the dogs, they love to play - Trigger will run around and around and jump over Cannon and they will play-fight and it's great. But there's always this lump in the pit of my stomach where I'm terrified that he's going to snap. At least if I had an idea what I was looking for I might be a little less on edge.

I guess it's just really hard because I feel like I'm in a battle fighting without any tools. While I don't expect tomorrow's session to be a panacea, I do hope that it at least gives me a fighting chance. Particularly with Marlies away for three weeks right now and me alone with the dogs, I would like to start feeling empowered to deal with them instead of worried that eventually they are going to seriously hurt each other.