{"id":1858,"date":"2022-02-25T05:00:41","date_gmt":"2022-02-25T13:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=1858"},"modified":"2022-02-24T21:51:47","modified_gmt":"2022-02-25T05:51:47","slug":"separation-anxiety-human-not-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2022\/02\/25\/separation-anxiety-human-not-dogs\/","title":{"rendered":"Separation Anxiety (Human, not Dog’s)"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a stressful week (month), even by the standards of the 2020\u2019s. And in four days, I\u2019m going to do something I swore I never would.\u00a0 <\/span>I am going to hand my dog over to a trainer, and walk away.\u00a0 <\/span>For three weeks.<\/p>\n

Three. Weeks.<\/p>\n

They call it \u201cboard and train.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ve been referring to it as \u201cpuppy boot camp.\u201d<\/p>\n

I’m stressing out about it, hard.<\/p>\n

I know that I\u2019ve taken Max a long way in 20 months.\u00a0 <\/span>She\u2019s a sweet, loving, playful girl with excellent leash manners, she knows all her commands (even if she still has trouble with her recall), she\u2019s a great car-ride companion, and is A+ at letting me know when she has to go out (and holding it, if I can\u2019t get to her right that second).\u00a0 <\/span>And she hasn\u2019t destroyed a single thing other than her own toys since she finished teething. She\u2019s practically perfect, and the not-perfect\u2026.well, that\u2019s just a matter of fine-tuning.<\/p>\n

But she still reacts with fear-aggression under certain circumstances, and while I can handle<\/i> it, that\u2019s beyond my current paygrade to fix<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Part of me feels like I\u2019ve failed, that I wasn\u2019t \u201cgood enough\u201d or attentive enough to be and do everything Max needs.\u00a0 <\/span>That somehow it\u2019s my fault she has that particular quirk.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve had trainers reassure me on that fact: dog brains are mysterious things, same as human brains, and sometimes they just\u2026 get wired a certain way.<\/p>\n

Part of me believes if I\u2019d put in a little more<\/i> time, studied a little more, done more exercises, I could have done the rewiring myself.<\/p>\n

And maybe I could have.\u00a0 Probably I could have.\u00a0 I know the basics, it would just require, well, a lot of time.\u00a0 Constant, dedicated time. And I<\/span>\u00a0have a job (several, in fact) and a real need for sleep.<\/p>\n

I’m reminding myself that<\/span>\u00a0just as writers need editors and<\/i> copyeditors, sometimes puppies need a little extra help, too. Nobody’s good at\u00a0everything<\/em>, and we don’t have<\/em> to be.<\/p>\n

And Max isn’t going to love me any less for it.<\/p>\n

So she will go to Puppy Boot Camp, spending three weeks with S., who will give her the 24-hour professional care and training needed to erase old habits and build new ones.\u00a0 <\/span>And when we are reunited, S. will teach me how to maintain and build on those.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good thing. It\u2019s also a bloody expensive thing, but it\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n

And maybe, rather than boot camp, it will turn out to have been Officer Training School.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to miss her, a lot. But I also suspect the time will be well-spent, reconnecting with (spoiling) Castiel the Kitten of Thursday, and also writing a LOT in the time not spent exercising and training.\u00a0 <\/span>Which is good, because\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m supposed to be writing the follow-up to SOMETHING PERFECT<\/a> next month\u2026.<\/p>\n

But until then, Max and I are keeping each other chill.<\/p>\n

\"cream-and-red<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a stressful week (month), even by the standards of the 2020\u2019s. And in four days, I\u2019m going to do something I swore I never would.\u00a0 I am going to hand my dog over to a trainer, and walk away.\u00a0 For three weeks. Three. Weeks. They call it \u201cboard and train.\u201d\u00a0 We\u2019ve been referring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[57,441],"class_list":["post-1858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals-pets","tag-laura-anne-gilman","tag-writers-and-dogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1860,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858\/revisions\/1860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}