Incidences still pop up, but this was good.

I was downstairs on the phone, lying on the couch close to Moki’s crate. Moki was lying down about a foot away from it. My conversation got boring and I started to scratch my fingernails on the nubbly back of his crate. He immediately stood up. His lip quivered like he was about to snarl, but he didn’t. Then, he walked a few steps away and lay down again.

Progress . . . but it still spiked my fear a little.  He's still kind of protective about his crate, but not as much as before.  Baby steps.

The pack leader takes care of the pack.

I had just taken Moki outside early in the morning. About one hundred feet away, I see two little girls outside with a little, fat, white dog without a leash. The dog looks at Moki and starts running toward us as fast as its little legs could carry it. We couldn’t make it to our door in time, so I start yelling at the top of my lungs, “NO! NO! NO!” and pointing to the dog. Finally, it stops ten feet in front of us.

A woman hurries over to where we are and picks up the dog. She says, “It won’t bite.”

I said, “I didn’t want it to attack my dog.” She took the dog away.

It seemed like Moki trusted me even more after this. He had been wagging his tail a lot, but after this, he wagged all the time. It was like I proved that I could protect him, and now he trusted me to provide and protect. I did my job which now allowed him to do his job: be a dog.

Being right.

If you've read my book, The Dog Who Rescued Me, (by Jerri Kay Lincoln!), you would know that part of the issues with Moki were my issues.  So, here's another one.

A couple weeks ago while Moki and I were hiking, I looked ahead on the trail and saw a couple dogs that looked loose. I called out and said, “Are your dogs on leash?”

The woman replied, “No, but they’re fine.”

I said, “My dog is afraid of other dogs,” and I took Moki off the trail so they could go by. While they walked by, I pulled Moki behind me. The first dog started to come over, so I said, “SSShhh,” to it and it continued up the trail. The second dog tried to come over and the woman stopped it.

As the man walked by, he said, “Lady, you need to chill out.”

I was furious, although I didn’t say anything at the time. All I could think about was giving him a synopsis of what had happened and tell him a thing or two or three.

Days and days went by before we took that trail again. Sure enough, we ran into them again. When I saw them, I told the man the synopsis and told him he shouldn’t be so judgmental. He said, “You’re crazy, lady.” He used an expletive, and the woman said to him, “Brad!”

As the woman walked by, I told her that it was honestly a true story. I got to say to him what I wanted to say and it didn’t make me feel one iota better.

Moki and I continued down the trail and I had a revelation. I needed to be right! When I was in therapy with Ryan, I had told him that I didn’t think I needed to be right anymore. And here it was evidence that I still needed to be right.

And it woke me up to something else. I had been wanting to write an email to Steve and Hildy saying that my fear should have been enough reason for them to honor my request about their two dogs. My friend, Jennifer, told me that I shouldn’t, but I was going to write to Ryan hoping that he would agree with me. When this happened with “Brad,” I realized that writing to Steve and Hildy was again trying to prove that I was right. Get over it! I really don’t need that anymore.

Don't Look at Me!

Sometimes after I fed Moki, especially in the evenings, I’d sit on the couch afterwards to read. Often, I would look up to see that he had stopped eating and was looking at me. When he finished, he’d come closer to me and give me another look, that could have been challenging.

When I talked to Janice about it, she said that I shouldn’t look at him when he’s eating. She said that I’m focusing too much on him and I shouldn’t. That gives him too much power over me. I need to do my own thing and let him do his.

The Watermelon Fix

Something new came up with Moki. After finishing dinner, he gave me a look bordering on challenging. It didn’t feel good. At first, I thought it might be because after I fed him breakfast, I’d go upstairs to work on my writing. But, after I fed him dinner, I’d stay downstairs and read. So, I tried reading directly after breakfast, and he was fine.

My next experiment had to do with me eating. I always ate breakfast first. Since I have my big meal at noon, when I fed him dinner, I ate nothing before him. So, I ate some watermelon, and then gave him his dinner. There was no challenging look afterward. I think that was it.

When I wrote to Janice, she said, “He is so smart and so sensitive that in this case I would say maybe try it that way. Also try not to look at him and be so focused on him. If you notice that he is looking at you in a certain way then that means you are too focused on him and looking at him to see what he is doing. Remember it is not about him. It is about you and what you want to do when you want to do it. Give him attention and then you remove the attention before he decides that he wants more. Remember, you have to provide and protect.”