Day 4 - A wild ride

Perfect is the enemy of good

I had a decent night's sleep last night– Tera and I are starting to understand each other. I did have to go out with her 3 times– still I slept way better. Even though the sleep is getting better, I do feel emotionally drained. I am too much of a perfectionist, and there is no way I can do this perfectly on my first try. I know this, but still...
There was no way that it was going according to plan– nothing ever does. I need to accept this.

I joined the Dark Side

With perfectionist tendencies come incredible insecurities. Knowledge can be a great boon–but it can also be a curse. Overanalysing things can stop you from just acting. The valley of despair is a very real thing.
Over the past few days, a whole bunch of questions arose and insecurities set in. Besides discussing these with a friend, I also needed professional help. Unfortunately, this help could only be found at the Dark Side.
The private community of Will Atherton's courses exist on Facebook– a place so vile, evil and privacy invading that years ago, I swore never to use it ever again.
For Tera, however, I fear no evil.
I had too many questions and things I had to verify. I needed help from others that also follow the same course at the moment, or did so in the past. There are also genuine experts there.
Besides the puppy community, it is also the place for his Advanced Diploma community. I hate it and I feel dirty.

Overdrive

As I wrote in yesterday's post, I was planning to figure out how to drain her energy a bit more, so she would be less of a handful. A tired dog is a good dog. I noticed today, that at this point, Tera tends to go into overdrive when giving her too much time to run around being silly outside. This is nothing weird, as I found out in the Dark Side, a lot of people struggle with this. Some people say that their pups act possessed, and I can see why. When she got into that state she just wanted to mouth everyting. Clearly overstimulated and overtired. Sorry Tera, into the crate you go. Less time bouncing around next time.

Light

Besides this dark, depressing tangent, Tera lives up to her name. Even though I am having some issues entertaining her when she is awake, I'm having a blast with her. Yes, I worry about pretty much everything at the moment (thank you, exhaustion– very much appreciated), but one look in her eyes and all is right. Oxytocin is amazing.
I do have to keep reminding myself that she is a baby. She needs enormous amounts of sleep, so I shouldn't feel guilty for having her in the crate most of the time. 30-45 minutes of activity, and it is bedtime already. Some of the time we spent today was her on the place bed chowing down on her cow ear. It is just fun watching her chew on it and try to rip small parts off. Yes, eventually she gets too hyped up and turns into a goddess of destruction, instead of light, but that is what the crate is for.

Obedience

Even though obedience is on the backburner a bit, I did train with her today. In a way I did not think she could handle at the moment. This morning on her first 'walk', I tried luring her into a sit. She did it– multiple times. Outside, with tons of distractions. I stopped after a few repetitions, not to push my luck too much. On another occasion, during socialisation with weed-wackers and a mower clearing the reed near the pond, she also gave me a few sits. I am proud of you, girl.
Sit, stay, break is going great. She still dashes to the food bowl, but she is going into a sit and looking at me quicker every time. On the last two, she even offered me a sit on her own.

Wruf

I did keep an eye on her barking/'wruffing' today, and besides one bark at a person this morning– which I corrected– she behaved nicely. A nice observation, is that I have not gotten any comments about it yet.
In the afternoon she met a large dog, and the meeting went amazing; just a sniff to say hello.

Fireworks

Since she does not seem to care about traffic sounds very much, and with new year's approaching faster than I would like, it was time for socialising with sounds of fireworks and explosions. So far, she doesn't care.

Slight change of mentality

Despite all this dark and depressing stuff, some nice things happened today.
Tera behaved herself more and more around other dogs– no more barking.
I decided to enjoy her more, instead of blindly focus on training. I didn't get a dog to stress for months over the outcome.
Maybe due to this change in mindset, the latter half of today felt sort of serene; follow the plan when it comes to crate, potty and structured free time, but enjoy her during that.