Awful Merlin Nightmare!

I had a long nightmare about Merlin again last night... I don't know why I keep having them!

I was sitting on a building rooftop with Merlin, drawing the phases of the moon, when my brother came up, and I confessed I was terribly worried that Merlin would fall off the building. It started to rain, so I grabbed my umbrella and opened it up. This scared Merlin, and he backed away from me, right over the side of the building. My brother sort of half-chuckled, and said something like, "Well, there he goes."

I was absolutely TERRIFIED. I was sobbing, heartbroken, and the sense of loss was completely real.

A bit later in the dream, I found Merlin's body at the foot of the building, completely stiff like you see in cartoons, with his legs straight up - it looked like he landed on his head. Then all of the sudden, he started moving a bit, though clearly severely injured. I grabbed him up and drove like a maniac to MedVet.

The dream ended while I was waiting at MedVet - except suddenly Merlin was fine, and I had Popper and Roofus there with me too. There was some sort of play area for dogs, so I put those three in it. Apparently, I had driven to MedVet for my tortoise, who wasn't eating.

Completely bizarre dream. Merlin is getting lots of hugs!!!!

Weird dream...

Last night I had a really strange dream...

I was playing paintball with some friends, but instead of a regular paintball field, we were playing above a huge indoor swimming pool. I don't think they make pools as large as this one was, LOL. There were metal railings everywhere to walk on, so footing was treacherous. As I progressed along, tagging more people, I would find my dogs, swimming in the big pool. First there was Roofus, who was pretty happily treading water, and then I found Popper.

The next dog was Merlin - but he was underwater and not moving. I started screaming, jumped in the water, and began to pull him out. Even as I did so, I realized, it wasn't Merlin, but some other corgi, a female, that had a tail. After she was free of the water, she started sputtering and moving around again. I found her mom, who was nearby, crying, and so happy I'd saved her dog.

And that was my dream.

And I've been hugging Merlin and watching him very carefully, as if he'll somehow wander into some water. In November. Inside my house.

Corgis are NOT strong swimmers (legs are too short!) so be sure to carefully supervise your pooch any time they are in or around water.

And no, I have no idea what my dream means.

Motion Reactive Dogs

After Merlin's scuffle at Agility last Tuesday, an instructor recommended I read "Control Unleashed," which is published by Clean Run Magazine.

I have to say, the book is amazing.

Essentially, it focuses on making the dog comfortable being around other dogs that are running and playing. How? By TREATING the dog for LOOKING at other dogs! It's revolutionary! The key point is that after looking at another dog, your pooch should look back at you. You're not forcing the dog to be focused entirely on you (which in a reactive dog is bad news), but rather be comfortable enough in the environment to pay attention to you. They learn that looking at other dogs and things is ok - provided they return their attention to you after a quick looksie.

I might explain it poorly, but if you're interested in animal behavior, it's definitely worth a look. It's not a quick fix, and she even states several times that a lot of dogs aren't cut out for her method (in fact, she emphasizes it so often that it sounds like only dogs with slight reactiveness are right for this training - which are probably the ones not actually seeking reactiveness training).

But I have some new tools I am taking with me to agility class tonight. We'll see how it goes.