Christmas dog day
25/12/108
We went to my parent’s place in the morning to open presents and hang out. For some reason, Amika was more anxious than usual. She may have seen something when I was getting her out of the car. I didn’t see anything, but she hackled, woofed and tried to see around the car.
I spent a lot of time working on getting her to look at me while not whining. Besides being annoying, it is a sign of arousal, which she doesn’t need any excess of when going in to greet people. Spent ages just getting in the front door. Once we were in and she was getting that she needed to give eye contact she quieted down and greeted everyone on lead pretty well.
I think the other source of anxiety was the strange ritual of present opening. We all went and sat in the family room, which is not the usual habit of the humans. She got the wrapping paper, and lots of kibble treats when she settled and downed at my feet. I had to cue this some of the time, and she kept looking out the glass door like there was something out there.
The wrapping paper game started to settle her down a bit I think. It went: grab paper when invited, tear it in two, catch the bit I threw. Towards the end of our gifting she was holding the paper down and tearing it like she does cardboard.
Amika’s main gift was a rope toy. But it was wrapped in paper, inside a cardboard box wrapped with wrapping paper. She LOVED this. She got to tear the box to bits, and somewhere late in the process, a rope toy fell out! She was rapt. She decided to take the rope toy with her wherever she went after that. The gift she got before that was a pack of peanut butter flavoured dog cookies, of which she highly approves.
Unfortunately she wasn’t going to be able to handle christmas dinner at my partner’s family’s house- with another dog and two cats. She did great when she was 12 weeks old, and has never forgotten wrestling with my partner’s brother. So Amika stayed home alone for the afternoon / evening. We’ll make it up to her tomorrow by taking her back to my parent’s for dinner.
