sent to the principals office

 Again, yesterday I wrote in the afternoon (when I wasn’t stopping Lupa from getting into trouble), and as night fell last night, instead of finishing up and posting, we had a virtual visit with Olaf and Steph. Which was a better use of my time than the babble that I post here!

So this was yesterday (Wednesday):

I was sitting here on the sofa, Lupa beside me tuckered out from her big trip to Pet Valu, or at least I thought she was chilling, as it turned out she was trying to eat the corner of my tablet… I swear!!!

Today was sunny with very little wind - the perfect day for a drive: destination Pet Valu for some socialisation with Lupa. We lucked in with our timing as there were 4 ladies to ooh and awww over her :-) One of the ladies had bred and shown collies for 30 years and was just starting out with cavalier king charles spaniels. She made a nice comment about Lupa’s conformation (and was kind enough to refrain from gasping over the fact that Lupa looks like she’s ½ something other than schnauzer!). They all loved her colour and rough coat. She lapped it up :-)

Lupa and I walked up and down the aisles with some ‘this way’s to get her attention. It went much better than the last time!

We picked up some raw dehydrated food to hand out as a ‘go back to sleep after your morning pee’ snack - maybe she won’t be so starving and will sleep longer before her breakfast. Of course I’ll have to start slowly with introducing a new food - yikes! She’s fully transitioned to kibble now and her poops seem good. It’s hard for me not to give her chicken hearts and all manner of treats, but I must remain strong and take my time. (on edit: I messed up and fed her something weird at school and she’s shown some poop problems).

Puppy class is tomorrow - I hope she can focus better than the last time.

And this is today (Thursday):

Puppy class was an absolute nightmare. Lupa barked for the first 5 minutes then was totally distracted the rest of the time. While other puppies were practising sit and down, Lupa was standing and straining at her leash. Forget working on eye contact, I couldn’t even get her to look my way. During the off leash parts she either sat under my chair or lunged at other dogs. Not social at all. The instructor says the barking is due to anxiety and thought we might want to check with the vet for some anti-anxiety drugs for now. Hmmm… maybe I should try a low dose of cbd? It works for me so maybe it would help her during stressful situations.

I did come home and have a frustrated, missing Spike cry, then gave myself a shake and started building a training plan database. It was something I could do to make me feel somewhat in control. I’ve never been good at doing things I’m not good at and honestly, Lupa is not an easy puppy.

Awesome!

“Lupa sitting quietly (for a moment) in the store”

“chicken shwarma”