The Amazing Shyla

Shyla had a more amazing weekend than I ever dreamed that she'd have. She was out in the world a lot, and she was happy!

Our pack, including Shyla, went to the big city for some time with family. I didn't know ahead of time but Shyla was about to navigate the city streets, including playgrounds, left-over scary Halloween docorations, crowds outside an ice cream store, and a little boy playing on a scooter.

Throughout it all, she seemed to view strangers as potential new friends rather than scary beings. She also seemed to take the oddities in stride. For example, in the past, something as benign as a fake plastic boulder on a city street caused her to be too scared to walk anywhere near it. Last night, she walked right under a fake ghost that was hanging and swaying from a branch just a few feet over our heads. It was incredible.

At more than one point during that outing, my brain said "Shyla can't handle this...". But I was wrong. My brain said that Shyla couldn't handle it when my nephews played at a park with crazy things on the playground that spun and moved in odd ways. But I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I've never been so happy to be wrong.

Then, on Sunday, we went to a drop-in training class that has been the site of more than one meltdown in Shyla's past. I almost didn't take her to the class, thinking that it would be too much after her exciting Saturday. I'm glad that I took her anyway.

During class, I kept thinking that she seemed so capable - so able to cope with things that have ended class early for us in the past. Again, she wanted to meet people - almost all of them. She wasn't upset by the loud handball, volley ball, and tennis games going on around us. She was the Shyla that I dreamed she'd become, way back when I met her more than 2 years ago.

She had only one hiccup during class. There was a dog park at this site, and one dog in the park was barking in a desperate and upset way. He did it intermittently, and it unnerved Shyla so she couldn't focus on class. But, I'd quickly get her moving with our own little private games (like asking her to do her favorite tricks really fast all in a row), and she'd forget that she was worried.

I feel like Shyla's weekend was confirmation that all of the patient work we've done, using positive training to teach her that the world isn't so scary, has been worth it. 

Oddly enough, the weekend was too much for me, rather than Shyla. I've been having "cluster migraines" again, and I had my worst migraine ever last night. I was in bed with the covers pulled over my head for more than 12 hours, and at one point, I started wondering if I needed to go to the ER.

Fortunately, things began to improve at that point... And, as of this morning, I'm on a higher dose of a migraine-preventative medicine. It makes me into a zombie, but after last night, I'm quite sure that's better than having lots of migraines. Argh.

When I was feeling so awful last night, Shyla was almost motherly toward me, licking my face and gently cuddling against me. Perhaps this is part of the maturation that I'm seeing in all of her life. It makes me happy.