The Hachi Chronicle

"Happy Hachi" is his nickname when he has that joyful spring in his step. He almost always has it during our evening hikes. He's at that age when he spontaneously leaps just for the fun of it.

I think that Shyla loves their afternoon romp as much as Hachi does. She gets amped up as we walk toward our favorite meadow.

They trade off who initiates each round of chase or wrestling. However, Shyla still appears to be the leader during play. I think that she's teaching Hachi important lessons with her playful and never aggressive demeanor.

Hachi is doing fantastically with his counterconditioning for nail clipping and general handling. We do it when we return from our evening hike, and Hachi voluntarily goes to the spot, lying there waiting for the session to start. That's such a good sign that he is not at all stressed out by our sessions.

He now gets happy when he sees almost everyone on our forest trails. He's ready to be friends with anyone who appears to behave normally. We have observed, however, that he can pick up on unfriendliness from a long distance.

We will be continuing the very slow ramp up in his Paxil. So far, it seems like a breath of fresh air in our lives. I think that it's made him able to learn that many things that used to scare him are okay or even fun.

Hachi doesn't mind the "stay at home" and "social distancing" rules. Aside from the excess energy that he has due to being a young dog who'd like to run all day long, he seems happy.

Happy Hachi!