Endlessly sick.
I feel it’s endless, but of course it’s not. It hasn’t yet
been 5 years.
But because I can’t see the end, I think there won’t be one.
Last year we bought home our precious dog. He is my fur kid,
best friend, blanket and all day entertainment. The novelty is yet to wear off. Of course we
wanted a good doggie, so we took him along to puppy school and read books on
training.
His extreme excitability
meant we moved at snail pace through obedience school – he was the vocal,
distracted, bark at the other puppies, dig holes, sit the wrong way, and ignore
commands kind of puppy. He was the puppy who had to stay in pre-school while
his peers were moved up. If he were human he would certainly have been
diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Ben wanted to quit after two weeks. We walked away with our
eyes averted because he was so mortifyingly yappy and squealy. But our trainers
said he would get there in the end, he was just a young hyper crossbreed. I
kept asking them every week, are you sure? Are you reeeeally sure? Because I
see no progress.
We were determined to train him to heel at our side on the
left, as is recommended for leadership reasons, rather than let him pull us
along tractor style. The romantic evening stroll turned into night time
training terrors. No more, ‘How was your day babycakes?’ and a lot more, ‘HEEL
Wolfgang!’ He would pull again two seconds after his last correction. I would
come home with blisters on my hands from restraining him. The last few months,
hope of him ever walking without pulling waned. I was contemplating allowing
tractor style and giving in on all training philosophies. Is there anything
worse than effort put in with no returns? {Ok, probably. But, it’s
fricken annoying.}
And then it happened,
seemingly out of nowhere. The first time he walked by my side, no tugging, no
blisters, I thought it was a fluke or serious illness. But it happened a second
time. And a third. His was not gradual progress over a year; it was as though
the light bulb finally went on inside his stubborn fluffy head after 12 months
of rebellion and he’d figured out that it was in his best interests to heel. He
has occasional silly excitable days where heeling does not happen, but this is
now the exception.
Whenever I walk him now I think to myself ‘that might be
what happens with me’. I’m going to struggle along and feel like I am going
nowhere at all. And then one day, the time will be right. My body will just
start to function like it used to. I don’t get the power to decide this; but it
happened like that when I made massive progress last summer – swift and
magical. I was so shocked by my improvement that I cried often; I thought it would never happen. There’s no warning bell for life events: today you will meet your life
partner, today you will conceive your long desired baby, today your health will
turn the corner.
It’s illogical to
think that because it’s not happening now, it won’t.
Never think never.
