Hello blog,
So last week Tuesday something happened and I felt terrible. I felt like a complete and utter failure. Echo jumped into the playpen with Lucas and he bumped Lucas on the eye and gave him a shiner.
My knee-jerk reaction was that, that was that for the dogs. We needed to find them a new home STAT. The dogs had hurt my baby. I had failed to protect my baby. I felt so ashamed. I had failed as a human mother, my son had been hurt by one of my animals and this hurt could be serious. What if this happened again? I had failed as an animal mother. I had not managed the situation and my animal was able to hurt my son.
I phoned the Labrador Retriever Club’s Rescue person and just got voicemail. I did not hear anything back for the whole afternoon. I phoned again in the evening, and spoke to a charming lady named Ruth, who referred to me to a dog behaviorist named Samantha Walpole. I phoned her and got through to voicemail. So on Wednesday I phoned Samantha again and this time I got through.
Time and Riaan had calmed me down and I was no longer going straight to the option of rehoming the dogs, and I am very grateful for that.
Samantha came through to our house on Tuesday and had a very thorough consultation with us. I had caught the dreaded incident of Echo jumping into the playpen on video. I had been trying to catch some footage of Lucas being cute to send to my sister. Because of this, we had the advantage of being able to get a behaviorist’s perspective on what had happened, and some strategies to handle things differently in the future.
She also gave us a number 0f practical tips on training the dogs, and helped us do some exercises with them. And, while it is an exaggeration to say that they are new dogs there has been an incredible improvement with them and already this week they have stopped jumping on us and are behaving much more calmly.
Love and optimism,
Trisha