Day 7 - A messy mistake

Two potty breaks last night. Since I don't think she wees all that much around midnight, I am thinking of pushing it forward a few hours. Tera never whined to go outside, I just take her pre-emptively when I wake up during the night and I think she is a bit restless. Since I would love to sleep through the night again, that is an experiment for the coming week.
I also weighed her this morning; pretty much 6kg.

Socialisation gone a bit wrong

Today, I thought it was an idea to go for a short drive with Tera to get her used to the car. The idea was to let her fall asleep in the car, drive home and wait until she woke up. Tera had other plans. She was crying and howling and would not let up. There I made a mistake. Instead of parking somewhere remote and addressing it by taking it a bit slower, I decided that I could outlast her– let her realise that it was not getting her anywhere, self soothe and fall asleep. That was me misreading the situation. I thought she was being a drama-queen, but in hindsight I think she was scared out of her little mind. On the way back, I heard the familiar sound of the expelling of stomach-contents. When I came back home and opened the boot, I was treated to the punishment of my mistake, and a very shook up pup. Luckily, when I put her on the grass to evaluate her, she had a wee– telling me she at least held that in– and after a few scratches from me and her 'shaking it off', she was her happy self again.
I put her in her crate inside, cleaned up the crate in the car and got Tera back on the horse. This time, I put her in the car-crate, left the door open and started giving her treats and scattering them in the crate. After about two to three minutes, I picked her out again, praised her and went back inside. Her last memory of the car crate was positive and fun.

Energy management

As I discussed yesterday, I also tried to see how I could give her some exercise, but not too much. This seemingly went well, but due to my car adventure, I only tried this once. I will do this again tomorrow.

Almost, maybe an accident

Early evening, after her meal, I was putting on my coat before we were to go out, and Tera was starting to run around the living room a bit hyper. I felt that she was going to drop a present on the rug, and as if she read my mind, she started to squat next to it. I was lightning fast, since I saw it coming, but could not prevent a few drops. Crisis averted. If you would call this an accident, then this is number one. I count this as a very close call. Luckily I had enzyme spray to break down the scent of the drops to hopefully prevent her from thinking about that ever again. It was my mistake, but I do not want her to think that is an okay place to take care of business.

Obedience

Due to the socialisation attempt today, obedience once again was put on the backburner. I feel that for a number of reasons, mostly me trying to manage her energy and mouthing, I should still be spending more time on this. This evening I trained on her name, 'sit' and started to lure a 'voet' (heel). I separate the 'sit on my left' command from the 'walk nicely next to me' command. From what I understand, this is standard in the IGP sport, but it makes more sense to me. She is nearly there with her name and 'sit', I feel that her focus is the biggest hurdle– she wants to please me, sniff around and mouth things all at once.

Mellow sharknado

It feels to me like her mouthing is a bit less today, at least towards me. She still likes nibbling on her Yak-stick, but she goes after me less and less. I am trying to not only correct her for going for me, but actually have an alternative on hand, even on our outside adventures. Since it gets dark so soon, I sort of broke my 'rule' of no excitement in the house and started a lower energy variant of tug with her. She has the tendency to bite the toy as close to my hand as she can. All in an attempt to see how I can drain her energy without overstimulating her.

My goal for tomorrow is to have a few more short training opportunities, and a little bit more structure for myself.

What was your biggest socialisation mistake? Did it have a lasting impact?