Raiden, Knox, Dakota, Cody, Jewels, and our Kaiju got together at a big dog park in the afternoon.

It was "Round 2" for Knox and Raiden, who had not-so-friendly "Round 1" some months ago. It was before neither of them were neutered. Their humans looked forward to and felt very nervous about this re-match. They even planned to let the pups meet outside of the park and do a walk together before letting them off-leash in the same space.

Well, none of that was necessary. Raiden and Knox sniffed each other and went straight into carefree happy chases and wrestles.

Kaiju has not improved so much in terms of his inability to walk in most public places without being very scared. He's still on medication, and he will be for a long time.

What has changed recently is that we have sort of given up on doing regular walks, for now. After Dr. D (our behaviorist) told us not to force the issue, we've stopped asking Kaiju to go once around the block, which we insisted before in the mornings and afternoons. Now, Kaiju only goes out for quick potty breaks. At night, we no longer take him to long walks in our residential neighborhood. Instead, every single night, we drive (10+ minutes) him out to a park for an hour walk. It's not a big park, so we make multiple rounds sometimes, to make it an hour. Kaiju loves this park. He runs around, gets the craziest zoomies, chases rabbits, runs around with dogs if we encounter them, mostly in the dark.

Basicaly, we've stopped trying to make him "better". For now, we focus on giving him a fun and safe life. We do ask Kaiju to take extra steps to go some extra feet every morning, with the help of good treats. When he feels good, he does, just for a few minutes. When he does not, he stops and looks back towards home. Then we go home.

Now that we are giving him practically no pressure, his body language during morning and afternoon potty breaks are noticeably more relaxed. We hope that the quality of life for him has gone up considerably also. One thing for sure. The quality of our (the humans') lives have definitely improved. We are not in despair nor stressed at every single walk. We are not sure how long we will continue this, but for now, we are all happier.

Rice cooking sound really freaks me out. I tried to escape and whined loudly. But then I scored some cheese. That calmed me down. A little.

During our long walk in the park, We put a piece of chicken jerky treat on this bench. It's a very high-value treat for Kaiju.

We gave him about 3 minutes.

In the end, he decided that he'd rather not have the treat if it meant he had to grab it from the bench.

Oh well.

Kaiju hasn't been doing well in his scarediness department for the past few weeks. The routine walks that were slowly but surely getting better suddenly worsened. He had not trembled for a long time, but now he sits and shakes staring away from the direction we want to go.

We contacted our behaviorist, and she gave us a go on upping the dosage of his daily medication. So we'll try that. We will also give him a complete break from routine walks during weekends. Instead, we'll drive him to parks, just like we did this weekend.

He's a happy camper at home. We had a guest last weekend whom Kaiju had never met before. He got used to the guest quite fast, and ended up pestering him for treats, like a normal dog.

We take comfort in the fact that he is comfortable and happy where he spends most of his time.

This past weekend was both really fun and stressful for Kaiju. We took him to fun places. We also took him to where we knew he wouldn't do so well.

The visit to my workplace on Saturday was the first of those iffy places for Kaiju. There was nobody there, though, and although he clearly would have rather not been there, the visit was brief (all I needed to do there was to pick up something I forgot on Friday) and he did not have any freak-outs.

Fido Factor iPhone app then helped us find the near-by dog-friendly state park to visit. The place was great. There was no fenced-in area, but the open field was far away enough from any streets that we felt okay about letting Kaiju off-leash to play with dogs. Kaiju loves dogs and sticks to them, so when they are there, we don't feel too nervous. Kaiju was a very happy camper.

On Sunday, we watched Kaiju play with Pudding the Shiba and other dogs at the dog park in the morning. Perhaps because of the more pleasant temperature, Kaiju played for a long time and more constantly than usual.

My walks go like this these days. We start walking. I pause here and there, look around, and stall. My humans say "let's go Kaiju" and give me a pull. I pull back, but have no choice but to walk forward, just for 3 steps or so. Then I pause, again. Rinse and repeat. We eventually make it to my pee spot. I finish my business.

Then I start stalling again. I pull back, and I even sit to protest if I hear some engine noises or the door opening ahead of us. I just don't feel like going near them. My humans let me sit there for a while, let the car or whatever pass, then say "Let's go Kaiju", then a pull.

We completed the 4-page questionnaire last night to prepare for the "Recheck" visit with the behaviorist today, 7 months after the initial consultation.

Kaiju did better than the last time at the office. Considering we gave him Alprazolam the first thing in the morning, it was expected that he would do a little better. (Mind you, for him, "doing better" looks like the picture below.) Unlike the last time, he started moving around right away in the room. Tail was down all the way and never curled up, but he never sat and froze next to us like he did last time. He also started taking treats a bit earlier.

We discussed the progresses (less trembling outside; faster recoveries from upsetting incidents; more sniffing around outside; more bravery in the house that came with a total freedom in the house), remaining issues (still not wanting to go for daily walks unless it's a large park; still unable to relax and have fun easily; still trembles easily in new environments and busy/noisy environments), and new problematic behaviors (barking, nippy when excited).

She told us that barking was a good sign. Especially barking at something that is unusual is a sign that Kaiju is more confident and therefore more vocal. As long as we can stop him after a few barks, it's not a problem, she said. The way to stop him from barking is to let him know that he doesn't need to bark anymore, that we got the warning and we are all safe.

As to the meds, we are going to increase the daily dose of Buspirone, because we feel that we are seeing some good effects, and it is still below the max dosage. We are also going to increase the dosage for the situational Alprazolam use, and see what happens. We really did not see much change in Kaiju's behaviors with one tablet (1mg), so we ended up not really using it at all during the past 7 months. Before giving up on this meds, we'll try upping the dosage one more time.

Other recommendations included more consistent use of a clicker, even during the walks, and more mental stimulus throughout the day. She suggested, perhaps daycare or some agility training. This will be a bit difficult for us because we don't have transportation means to and from those facilities during the day. However, we agree. Kaiju definitely could use more mental stimulation. He spends all day dozing on and off. She also said it was okay for us to pick Kaiju up and hold him through some particular areas which he has a hard time walking through (and we cannot figure out why). The less stress he feels in those areas, the more likely he starts to feel okay about them at some point, she said.

That's it. We'll just keep on working with what Kaiju can handle, and see where he ends up. No big change!

There is this brand-new dog park in the town next to ours. It has some fun features like tunnels, big stone steps, and a raised plank. Of course, Kaiju would not go into the tunnels nor go up on the plank, although he doesn't mind the stone steps. He also gets nervous about noises coming from the factories nearby during the day, and stays alert which makes it tough for him to really let go and have fun.

So we have been going there late at night when it's quieter. And since there are no other dogs usually at that time of the day, we have to run around ourselves to get Kaiju excited enough to play. It's a pain, but serves the purpose when we really don't want to go too far but want to let him off-leash outside.

We made a trip to this park tonight. Very unfortunately, even though it was late night, there were some big trailer trucks moving about in the adjacent lot. Kaiju was too distracted to even chase us no matter how much we tried. Soon, we were exhausted. He was boring us to tears. So, instead, we decided to try to get him up on the wooden plank...

First, all three of us (Kaiju's humunkle is visiting) walked up on the plank, stood in the middle of it, and called him cheerfully and repeatedly. Then we tried sitting on it and did the same. Kaiju looked up at us and ran around the plank as if to say "i don't understand!! what do you want me to do??". We then tried to meet him half way down on the ramp and lure him with treats. No such luck. So... well, the rest of the story can be viewed in the «video» below.

"Rocking Chair" by Mr. Scruff

It's been half a year since Kaiju went to see a behaviorist for his fearfulness. We have been in touch with her (who happens to be from Japan and very familiar with Shiba Inus) every few weeks to report back the progresses Kaiju made, or mostly lack of it. Kaiju has been put on medication since then, called Buspirone. He has also been completely free to roam around anywhere in the apartment even when we are not here. This was a big change. We used to put him in a small gated area whenever we left him alone at home. She told us to let him explore, make up his own mind, and the most awesome for Kaiju of all, be naughty.

Six months later, he is no longer afraid of paper bags that we bring home from grocery stores (he now sticks his head in them), or the random objects that are in foyer right outside of our door, such as UPS packages for other residents and newspapers. He now goes in to the bathroom to sniff around all on his own, whereas we couldn't even lure him into it with treats before. Outside, he no longer panics and flees when people come out of apartment buildings, and he can walk past trash bins without making big half-circles around them. He seems okay with strollers and rolling bags, too. These days, he sniffs around a lot while walking which he didn't do before because he was too nervous. He is often too nervous to take treats from us during walks, but these days, he is more frequently relaxed enough to not only take treats, but also look at us to ask for them. He even wags his tail a tiny bit once in a while while he is at it.