Why does a high always have to be followed with a low?!

I’m about ready to rehome Solei….except before you all panic I could never do that :-P but he seems to be almost permanently stressing me so much. I honestly do sometimes wonder whether he’d be happier as an only dog – or with just one other older/calmer/quieter dog – with an older or disabled person who just wants a lap dog…


As I mentioned in my last post I did some practice with him at the show last weekend and he worked absolutely superbly. Sunday (I think) he was acting a little “the world is out to get me”, can’t even remember now (it’s so not unusual for Solei I don’t even take it in as being odd :-P), later in the day I called him over and went to stroke him a little more enthusiastically than usual (Solei HATES any kind of rough praise or OTTnes) and he screamed at me….now I haven’t been convinced that he’s 100% ok for some time so I went to do it again to see if I could figure out where/what was wrong, and he screamed again….but nothing seemed particularly odd so moved on (the screaming isn’t unusual for Solei, if you do anything remotely rough with him or even try and pick him up in the wrong way he screams at you – he’s a very unconfident, sensitive and dramatic dog!)


I took him to obedience Monday night and he was being really stupid, his heelwork was awful (laggyand very much keeping his distance from the chair) and when I waved the toy gently near him (a long thin tuggy toy) he was backing away actually SCARED of it.


Tuesday night he came to ringcraft to watch and he was perfectly normal, but he’s in one of this “omg the world is out to get me” modes and I can’t remember him ever being this bad before….he actually won’t come to me if I call him, if I insist he kinda inches nearer slowly and then stops a couple feet away.


I have no idea what’s up with him….if he goes out he seems normal, when it comes to food time he seems normal (unless I get the toy out or put my hands near him :P), though I’ve pretty much been giving him a break from any training so that is to say he barks when he knows I’m getting up to feed, then bounces round me whilst I go over to the kitchen and then eats enthusiastically


I have no idea whether it’s physical, mental or a combination….he even spooks/flinches at the lead when I hold it in a certain way, which is definitely mental because it’s not putting any pressure on him in any way….he’s seeing it out of the corner of his eye and flinching at it. Eye sight is fine – he was eye tested by an ophthalmologist last November, and he’s been doing that since before then.


It’s always upsetting/frustrating but this time the fact he won’t even happily come up to me is horrid :-( And I haven’t got a clue what to do with him.

I wrote that three days ago….I think things may be improving slightly. I usually do a training session with half his meal before feeding him, I haven’t done that for a few weeks (thought he’d been doing quite a lot and there wasn’t anything specific we needed to work on, so was giving him a break), and after he started this behaviour I was intending to just leave him alone totally for a few weeks and hope he’d “get over it”.

But then he seemed so normal when it came to food time, I tried doing a couple of things with him – a bit of heelwork, a couple of spins…and he actually worked almost as normal. He’ll even recall pretty well. So I decided it might actually be more theraputic for him to do some obedience, thus we’ve been doing a *very* small amount before meals – possibly just a few steps of heelwork up the room. I’ve also been handfeeding him some of his food, to try and break the association that my hands = BAD!

I have him entered in an obedience show on the 24th and 25th of this month, and three of the four classes aren’t too bad (one is a special class that shouldn’t be too difficult, two are heel on lead, heel free, recall with finish, sit stay and down stay, the third is the same as the two but slightly longer stays and with a retrieve), so although initially I thought I wouldn’t take him, I’ll see what he’s like nearer the time, and as he seems to be ok doing the obedience at home I think I’ll take him and see what he’s like once he’s there - luckily it’s only approx half an hour, so I can afford to do that!

Obviously I only want what’s best for him, it’s just often so difficult to know what that is :-( I really hope he gets over this soon :-(