Moon Has A Lot To Teach Me Part 2 Trusting

Part 1 of this series was all about Moon getting to pilot her walk on leash on the Moss Lake trails. But you might be asking why this is significant or why aren't we teaching her to heel or to follow us where we want to go. Is this about letting a dog have no boundaries, no training? Am I saying a dog should just be able to decide when she wants to come out of the car, get in, and where she wants to walk and how long it takes? Well not exactly. Moon has learned along the way that she has good reason to be hesitant, suspicious, fearful, and the biggie, not to trust humans. We don't know the whole story and honestly it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that we read her body language and use that to help us learn what we need to do to help her to trust us. What we did was set up a time when she could be her own pilot, when we knew we had the time to give and not be in a rush. There is plenty of time for her to learn to sit and stay and earning her trust as quickly as we can will only help us when it is time for more boundaries. Right now we are building a relationship with her so she will be excited to do some basic training, she will want to run outside to go potty when we ask, she will want to get her harness and leash on, she will want us to pick her up, and those won't just be more things for her to feel suspicious about.

As we were walking along and I was contemplating Moon and trust and fear. How would I feel if I was feeling scared and someone decided to flood me with whatever I was afraid of? Or someone was making me do the thing I was afraid to do too fast. I would freak! I have a fear of walking over logs on hikes that have running water going under. I know intellectually that I can swim and that I will be ok but it just scares me to do it and sometime I freeze up. If my husband just touches me, takes my hand lightly, I can go right across. I don't know why that is, except that I trust him, and so that allows me to be able to do the thing I don't feel I can do. If someone said "come on, just do it!, hurry up!, go go go", I would freeze and if pushed get pissed or break down.

So my thought for letting Moon make a whole bunch of choices for herself, and us having the time to let her decide for herself in an environment where that was ok to do, that she would learn that she could trust us. If she learns she can trust us then the other sides of Moon can shine. If she learns to trust us then she will feel with us like I feel on the log, that she can eventually let us guide her and she will be safe. She could start to let her guard down and be a silly, playful, sassy, intelligent, ready to learn new things and go new places to meet new people kind of dog!

Here are a few more examples of Moon on our walk that day and the good news is she really is blossoming and showing us what a resilient girl she is!

There are all sorts of little tchotchkes people have planted on this trail.

Moon has discovered she loves to smell everything! I think some fun nose work games are the next thing I will be trying with her.

In the first few walks we did with Moon she would always stay behind us, not wanting anyone to walk behind her. If we did get behind her she would either freeze or she would make a fast maneuver to get back behind us. On this walk she decided exploring trumped her worry for if we were behind her and she actually took the lead for the better part of the day. Here Moon is in front of all of us including our dogs! (she is leashed, just doesn't look like it)

That small white spot at the front is Moon, leading the way.

Typically Moon has not felt comfortable in our walks to go potty on the leash or away from home. She would literally hold it and then once we got home, which could be quite a few hours, she would go in the yard where she felt safe. In this video she was feeling confident enough to stop and pee. This might not seem like a big thing but it really was significant for her. She is learning to trust her surroundings and being on a leash.

This next video is taken in this real overgrown mossy part of the trail where there are a lot of twists and turns. Moon had turned up this trail and she did just great on it.

We could really tell on this hike that Moon was learning she could trust us. We even passed a couple of other people on the trail and she was so busy sniffing she didn't really pay much attention to them. She met a big dog too. I picked her up at first but she wanted back down so I let her down and she sniffed the dog and then continued on her way.

This next video is of a little brook I love. Moon only felt comfortable to check it out briefly and then she moved away. Skip on the other hand had to check it out more thoroughly.