My photo a day project, and other life stuff.
I love that he loves our dog. After all the main reason I got another dog after Monty died was because of JJ. When we first met Phoenix he went straight to JJ. He wouldn’t go near me at first. I love that he enjoys playing with him and I think the feeling’s mutual don’t you? Look at the smiles on both of them.
And I love that the trampoline I bought for JJ ten years ago still gets used. Don’t see many of these ones around any more.
See all the things I love about him.
I used to add snippets here of the things I love about him (my son) but I haven’t done it since 2006. He was five then. He’s 13 now.
When people ask me how he is I usually sigh and say, ‘he’s a teenager’. Sure, there’s attitude, but there are good things too.
The other day we had to move the dining table back into the kitchen and we were having a hard time getting it through the door. I knew there was a way because it originally got into the kitchen and out again. I was just about to give up when JJ said let’s try this.
His way worked and we soon had the table back into the room.
PS: the photo above was one of many I took, but the only one where he was sticking his finger up.
Yesterday was an awful day in Adelaide. An eight year old girl was tragically killed when she was flung from a show ride. I don’t know the full story but maybe she was too small for the ride. Whatever the story is, it’s a horrible outcome for her, her family, friends, and everyone else who was affected.
JJ’s school has a day off for the Show and I took a day off too. I asked if he wanted to go but he wasn’t interested. Because he’s 13 now he probably won’t want to go with me again, but will go with his mates in the years to come I imagine.
Instead of going to the Show we spent some time putting rubbish in a rubbish skip. I had the skip to get rid of my old kitchen cupboards. Yes, after 15 years of living in my house I’m finally getting a new kitchen.
The old oven that takes twice as long to cook anything than it should is out. I’m getting a dishwasher. I’ve got soft closing drawers and I’ve got cupboard doors that close with ease and don’t have to be closed in a certain way to get them to close because they’re uneven. My house is quite old and the walls and floors are very uneven. Fortunately I know an excellent cabinet maker who’s done a sterling job. Hopefully in another week everything will be done and dusted – literally. Removing tiles creates quite a bit of dust! Not that I removed them. I paid a couple of friends to do the demolition. Totally worth it.
Last night I forced myself to go out to a party an acquaintance had. I wasn’t sure who’d be there but I went along anyway and I’m glad I did as there were a few people I hadn’t seen for a while. One of them asked me if I’d been on holidays this year. I answered in the negative and said that I’m doing my kitchen up instead. As we chatted and talked about mutual friends and 50th birthday parties that are happening thick and fast it confirmed that I’m getting older and I really can’t take life for granted and I need to do things.
It’s hard to be totally free to do these magical things because of being a mum to a new teen and a reactive dog, holding down a job, and running a house, but it’s in the back of my mind that the teen will grow up, the reactive dog will calm down and I need to be thinking about other things to occupy myself when this happens. One thing that’s occupying me at the moment is my new phone. I managed to get selected to review a phone provided by Telstra as part of their Mobile Insider program. I’m reviewing an LG G3. The photo above was taken with my new phone, which I think I’ll keep.
Getting out and about and doing things aside from my day-to-day reality is partly why I forced myself to go out last night. I could have easily stayed in by the fire and the latest episode of Big Brother but I switched off, put on my latest op-shop purchase and off I went.
Life’s too short.
Despite what it may look like in the photo above our dog does not rule our roost.
After our two week trial period and we decided to adopt him it became clear that he’s reactive around some other dogs.
My vet recommended a couple of behaviourists and I got one out and she hung around for an hour or so giving me some tips for him when he sees other dogs, and some recommended training to do with him at home so he’ll stay calm. Of course he’s fine at home, and chucking food at him when he sees other dogs on our walks doesn’t always work. Sometimes a dog will just appear from around a corner and it’s too late to get the food to distract him, especially when I’m trying to hold him as he’s jumping around like a mad thing.
After a month or so of doing this I realised that it wasn’t really working and I wondered about the common sense in getting him not to react to other dogs by not letting him mix with other dogs. It doesn’t help our quality of life, or our dog.
We struggled along for a while and I’d pretty much resigned myself to this is how it is.
A couple of months ago JJ had the side gate open to get some wood and Phoenix got out and bit it. He ran across the road to a dog on the lead who probably hadn’t even looked at him. I don’t know as I was inside. He bit the dog and naturally the owner was upset and I got to pay the vet bill.
I did some more research about dog training methods and realised that there are differing schools of thought to approaching a dog’s behaviour.
It appears as though the behaviourist I got comes from the purely positive dog training and there’s a balanced approach as well where corrections are used. This sounded just like what we needed.
I spoke to a trainer who uses this method and he said to come along to one of his classes.
We got there and stayed well clear of all the puppies and adult dogs because of course Phoenix barked and lunged at them even though we weren’t that close.
I found the trainer and he came over with a choker chain and a long lead and took our dog. He walked over to some other dogs and when Phoenix started doing his lunge and bark he gave him a correction. After about two more of these he handed the lead back to us and Phoenix didn’t leave our side even though he was on a long leash. A little dog came near us but with a small correction Phoenix was fine.
We hung around for a while then joined in the socialisation component of the class and towards the end of it (with no more reactions from Phoenix) he was sat in the middle of a circle of dogs and was just fine.
I’ve since taken him to three more socialisation classes and we’ve been to three obedience classes. The previous behaviourist had not recommended Phoenix attend obedience training because being around the other dogs might flood him.
I’ve been doing some training with him at home and out on walks too. He sits as soon as I stop and now he drops on command 99.9% of the time. He’s even dropped at socialisation classes with all the other dogs around him.
He still pulls on the lead and as I took a break from socialisation the other day, the trainer asked me to come into the middle and put him into a drop. As I was doing this I didn’t have a hold on the lead properly and he got away because a German Shephard looked at him. They had a scuffle and then both got taken aside to do some socialisation with each other. I felt really bad because the German Shephard had been attacked by a dog when he was younger so my dog having a go at him wouldn’t help. Now I know why this dog is so reactive as well. Who knows, maybe the same thing happened to Phoenix.
And the car sickness? He’s been a lot better with that too. He still drools a bit but nowhere near as much as he used to. We even did a two hour car trip a few weeks ago and I dosed him with ginger tablets. The medication I got from the vet was $70 for four tablets and goodness knows what’s in that stuff. He hasn’t been sick in the car for a few months now.
So I’ll continue with obedience and training classes while I can. He’s definitely better out on walks now. Occasionally he’ll growl or lunge still, but overall he’s a lot calmer when we encounter another dog. Unfortunately I won’t ever feel comfortable taking him to an off-lead dog park but they’re not the be all and end all of a dog’s life anyway.
Just as well I love him ey?
On the weekend my beloved teenager went on a hiking camp with scouts. Two years ago he did the same thing as shown by the photos above.
I don’t often get a childfree weekend and it just so happened that a friend had a big party on the Saturday night. So I had an early to bed Friday night and prepared myself for the shindig on Saturday eve.
It was far enough away from home that made it hard to get home that same night, and there was room for camping so I borrowed the aforementioned teen’s tent and set it up at the party.
I didn’t know how long I’d last at the party because I’d not been feeling 100% all week but as I fell into bed around 4.30am Sunday morning, I quickly looked at my Fitbit and saw that I’d done 14,000 or so steps since midnight. Obviously I’d found my second and maybe my third wind. Dancing a lot will make those steps add up. My legs were already killing me and even after the paracetamol tablets I still couldn’t get comfortable.
But let’s rewind a bit.
The ex was at the party with his new girlfriend. I thought he might be attending and I’d heard on the grapevine that he was seeing someone. He didn’t go out of his way to talk to me apart from mentioning Rollng Stones coming up soon when he came across me and couldn’t avoid me. I wish I’d made an effort to ‘bump’ into him and see how he acted around me and his new squeeze. Afterall, this is the man that wouldn’t even introduce me to his ex-wife even when we were all standing together at a function once. But I was unmoved that he was there with her which I’m glad about. I can pretty much predict how their relationship will be and I don’t miss that at all.
So onto new pastures for me and in an effort to be on the lookout kept my eyes out and ended up dancing with a fella later on in the evening. He was becoming very friendly and it was nice to have some male attention. I was quite ready to go to bed earlier than I did but he kept hassling me to stay and I thought I would as I didn’t have to be up early the next day.
We moved outside and he told me I could call the shots. I could take that a lot of ways but I was thinking that my shots to be called would be that I was going to my tent by myself. As we stood there a girlfriend of mine joined us and casually asked him if his wife had gone to bed.
I was shocked that he was married as he’d been acting the way he was with me although I did then spy his wedding ring. She went on to say something along the lines of how inapprorpriately he was acting with me when he’s married. He said that he ‘just wanted to dance’. I told him that he was suggesting a lot more than dancing. He was still ‘apparently’ oblivious to his actions. Tosser!
I was annoyed with myself for being so trusting with someone. I was glad that it didn’t go any further. I was annoyed that I’d wasted my time on him at all! I felt sorry for his wife. I’m sure this isn’t the first time he’s ‘just danced’ with someone. But I’ve learned my lesson, that is if someone’s clearly flirting with me to suss out their situation.
I may as well have stayed up as I couldn’t sleep because of the noise and my sore legs but at least I got to lie down and rest.
I got home to a quiet house and enjoyed the peace until I picked up the dirty, tired teen.
We both had early nights and deep sleeps.
