After all of the activity last weekend, this one is quiet in relief. We dicked around the house for most of yesterday, working with the dog at her second behavioral class, and she did pretty well. She was attentive and well behaved, and the trainer was kind enough to stay and talk with Jen for 45 minutes after class while I walked her out back.
To be perfectly honest, it’s been a struggle to make a decision about what we’re going to do with her. We made a pro/con list last weekend that came out pretty evenly on both sides, and she had a really good couple of days with us. Then there were a couple of days that went to absolute shit and we all sat up on Friday night talking about it and mostly agreeing that we were going to send her back. Saturday morning we had a change of heart and we’re back to square one.
I don’t want this to sound like we’re a family of dilletantes. Jen and I are dog people. We grew up with dogs, we know dogs, we’re not afraid of the responsibility of dogs. We know what it means to have a dog.
I’ve settled into the routine of walking her in the morning and evening, and as much as I’ve never been a morning person, I like being out when the rest of the world is still sleeping, smelling the dew on the grass, feeling the first chill of fall in the air, and following Hazel as she wanders the neighborhood following her nose. Jen and I get some time to talk with each other, and the exercise doesn’t hurt. When she’s chill, she’s a wonderful dog to be with. What we’re struggling with is her social anxiety, and prey drive. She’s a nervous little girl who is paralyzed by loud noises and flashing lights she doesn’t recognize, and kind of a dick around other dogs after a while.
She’s a smaller dog (although she’s gained five pounds and an inch and a half in a month’s time) so she has a need to meet every dog she sees, but when she shifts into play mode she doesn’t know how to stop. She’ll run and jump and nip and bark, but when the other dog backs off she keeps going, and when they tell her to stop (usually by giving her a solid chomp or, as happened this past week, by knocking her over and putting her in a choke hold with their teeth) she doesn’t take the hint—she keeps going. She’ll continue jumping on them, nipping and barking, and we’ve got to step in and separate them.
We don’t have the DNA tests back yet, so we don’t know what flavor of breed soup we’re dealing with. She’s definitely got some hound in her, because she follows her nose whenever we’re out with her. There’s a fair bit of terrier mixed in, because she loves to dig (god help us). There’s some working dog in her, because her legs are long and she’s built like someone put a full-sized Vizsla in a shrink-ray set to Half Size. The prey drive of the terrier is what worries us. There’s a split-personality thing going on where the super-bright part of her brain knows that our cats are off limits. When we bring her inside and she sees them, she’s now at the point where she’ll sit down on her own and wait for them to cautiously saunter over and look at her. She gets fidgety, and we can see one half of her brain thinking YOU ARE MY SIZE! LET’S PLAY while the other side is saying IF I CHOMP THEM, THE HUMANS WILL DESTROY ME. She’ll get close to them, and the cats will smack her in the face a bunch of times, and she’ll back off. Then she’ll wiggle up to them again, they’ll whack her on the nose a few more times, and she’ll back off again. This continues until the cats nope themselves out.
The problem is that when the cats tear ass at high speed, the prey instinct in her brain destroys all rational thought and all that’s left is I MUST CHEW THAT RUNNING ANIMAL IMMEDIATELY. It’s this dichotomy that has us worried, because we don’t know if it’s ever going to work itself out in a favorable way. The cats are understandably upset; Trixie has gained several pounds in the last month and Nox looks noticeably frazzled. They’re not getting the attention they need and we feel horrible. We’ve read horror stories about Jack Russell terriers getting along amicably with cats for several years and then one day it’s the hallway scene from The Shining. This, and the reaction to other dogs, is what has us up at night.
So we’re in a holding pattern, and she’s snoring peacefully on Jen’s lap in an anxiety sweater.
When I was in college I applied for and got a credit card, because, why not? At first I was very careful with it, but as those things often do, it crept up on me. A couple of years out of school I was running a balance of $4,000 and struggling to pay down the interest. This continued for a couple of years until I upgraded my job situation and then I made a mission out of paying it off. Once that was done I put the card in a drawer and rewired my brain to only buy with the cash in my checking account, and used my debit card exclusively. That was about 20 years ago, and I haven’t had a credit card since then.
You know where this is going, right?
Apple just came out with the Apple Card and I signed up for it. A couple of days later a very small package appeared in the mail and I opened it to find a surprisingly meaty titanium credit card in a small envelope with my name on it. I activated it and put it into my Apple Wallet alongside my debit card, where I can use Apple Pay with my phone or my watch. The plan is to only use it for gas and high-dollar purchases, as I’d like the extra layer of protection against card skimmers and fraud. Plus, the cash back is kind of nice.
Update: be sure to opt out of the arbitration clause.