Who needs a snow plower when you’ve got me?

This is MY toy!!

i love the snow! but it’s hard to go fast

Played with another dog at a big park with a lot of snow!

the ritual before every long walk. musher’s secret balm application!

my new (girl)friend Cinnamon and me, playing in the snow

walking during a snow storm is a lot of work! (from a few days ago)

Kaiju is at Paul’s parents’ place again. He was just here a month ago for Thanksgiving. This is his 3rd time here, and he is clearly feeling a lot more comfortable. As soon as we pulled into the driveway, he showed clear signs of excitement. He got out of the car happily, and insisted to be taken to his “regular” pee spot which is about 5 minutes walk away from the house. When we finally walked into the house, he headed straight to our bedroom, but came out to roam around in the kitchen and the livingroom soon enough, although carefully. We did not give him any meds for the arrival, unlike the last time, but he seemed okay. And of course, the backyard is making him happy as always.

He was pretty skeptical of the big Xmas tree and all the boxes around it, but we managed to lure him closer with some treats last night for some photos. And, although he escaped to the bedroom as soon as the boxes started getting unwrapped, he scored some very nice toys from his Grand Humans and Paul.

Today was a big day. A bunch of relatives came over to this house to celebrate the holiday. We made sure to medicate him and to give him a plenty of fun time before people started arriving. We wanted to tire him out to help him relax. We had the bedroom ready for him to hide out, too, so he wouldn’t feel pressured at all to be anywhere near the crowd.

Then, he gave us the surprising performance. He stayed in the living room where Paul was sitting while more and more people arrived. He stayed on the couch, definitely very alert but also curious. Paul and I were beside ourselves with joy. It was most likely the effect of Xanax, thanks to which he was able to enjoy the attention from everyone. It rained treats wherever he went. Instead of running away, he was taking them very cautiously.

He even followed the aroma of grilled Greek sausages and ventured into the dining area where everyone stood around and talked. He didn’t get the sausage, but he got tons of beef treats. He also begged to be let outside to the backyard. When we did, he went a little too crazy, running at a lightening speed in big circles non-stop. The whole situation was a bit too stimulating for him, it seemed. We had to grab him and put him back inside to prevent over-excitement.

Eventually, he retired to the bedroom and rested for the remainder of the night. After many glasses of various drinks, Paul also joined him in the sweet little slumber party.

Here is what happens. We bring him outside. He walks quite fine until he finishes his business. Then, he starts pulling back. He refuses to move forward. He looks back towards home and then sits down, trembling. We look around, and there is nothing moving, nothing coming our way, and nothing making any noise. He used to at least not tremble. It started this fall.

This video was taken just around the corner from our place.

This is really hard on us. We need to walk him for exercise. We know that exercise is good for fearful dogs. But he does not have fun walking in our neighborhood. No matter which directions we go, he is scared. He just does not seem to want to go further away from home. Treats does not work once he is in this mode. He just looks away and shuts down. This makes us feel really mean, especially while we coax him to move. We often have to pull him quite hard only to end up dragging him, at which point we stop pulling.

The video on the left was taken on a better day, a quite Sunday afternoon. This is before peeing, so he walks without resisting. You can see that he’s still quite nervous.

The funny thing is, after 5-10 minutes of coaxing, we do get far enough from home and he suddenly starts walking. Still alert and hesitant with frequent stopping and thinking, but he moves forward, on his own. He also trembles much less. It’s like he decides to just get it over with.

And once he realizes that we are headed back home, he is much more confident. He even pulls forward quite hard to get home.

Those daily walks have not been fun for us. It is stress-inducing. We are always on the look out for possible fear triggers, so we can avoid them. It is sometimes maddening.

Deep breath. Deep breath. Ommmm….

Yesterday was a big day. I went up and down the stairs for the first time since Feb. 28th!

For all those 6 months, my people carried me up and down the 7 steps of stairs to go outside for walkies. I was small when it started, but I’ve grown 9 pounds since then. They often complained that I was getting heavy, laughed, and gave me kisses.

Chris, the physical therapist, told us yesterday that we could now try the stairs as long as I went slow. My people were sooooo psyched!

I know I’m a bit rusty, but I’ll get better at this soon (and will try to go super fast when they are not looking!)

Kaiju will have his 2nd Flowdog session on Monday.

His first session was on the 5th of August. We were so nervous as to how he would react, to the therapist Chris, or to having to go into an unfamiliar building, being touched, and most important of all, the swimming pool…

Good thing we brought his favorite blue towel (and a rope toy). He let us walk him around in the lobby while waiting, but would go straight back to the home base to sit on afterward.

We had alerted Chris, the therapist, of Kaiju’s shyness via email ahead of time, so she approached him accordingly. When the session began, she ignored him completely for the first 20 minutes or so, and Kaiju hid behind the chairs.

Eventually, we got him out of there, laid him down on his towel, and went through some lessons of manual stretching. All those things we learned, we’d have to do at home every day for the next few weeks.