So last night I got home from work and got the doggies all dressed up in their harnesses and leashes and got tons and tons of little cheese snacks cut up and in my pocket, and grabbed a poopie bag and we headed out the door. As SOON as I heard the door click closed (and locked), I realized that the one thing I had forgotten was keys. You know...keys. To unlock the door. Standing in the hall and realizing that all I have is two dogs, a bunch of cheese and a poopie bag was not a fun experience. I don't even think Macgyver could do much with those materials. I took the doggies over to the park to go potty while I tried to calm down, and then we did a brief spin around the block while I tried to think of what to do. At the end, we headed down to the corner store to see if I could use their phone to call Neil. I could use their phone, the guy said, but unfortunately it only dials local numbers. Of course our phones still have Portland numbers. Bah.
So I head back to our apartment building and decide to wait for someone who lives there to come home and ask them to borrow a phone. I swear I meet people all the time coming in and out of the building. I figured it would be a little 5 minute wait. No, this was the night that EVERYONE stayed in, apparently. We huddled in the little entrance to the apartment, sitting on the front steps. It was cold and foggy and the doggies were shivering and SUPER nervous, I'm sure feeding off my energy which was super nervous. I think I forgot to mention that Neil had an opening last night, at which I was supposed to be and which he wouldn't really be able to leave to come home and unlock the door for me, so I really didn't even have a clue how calling him would help the situation but didn't really know what else to do.
So, we're sitting there and the dogs get more and more nervous and colder and shiveryer and every time a person walks in front of us on the sidewalk, they freak out barking at them and if a dog walks by, it's even worse. I still have cheese bits in my pocket, but am pretty shaken at this point by all of their barking and wondering how I'm going to get back into the apartment and am forgetting to try and calm them down by giving them out and at this point a little cheese bit was not going to be enough to calm the dogs down, I don't think. I have their leashes cinched down so that they will stay close to me - I don't want them getting out onto the sidewalk and biting ankles as people walk by. So they're sitting on my lap and a little cocker spaniel or something walks by and Swarley starts screeching and then he lunges for the dog and yanks the leash out of my hand and just goes for the dog. We were about a second away from him biting the other dog when I grab him. I'm almost in tears at this point because I want to try and do something to alleviate the dogs barking, as it just seems to encourage them to stay in the entryway, but I don't want to leave the entryway because that's my only way to contact Neil. I'm in full-on panic mode.
At this point, we'd probably been sitting in the entryway for a half hour or so, and no resident of my building had come home yet. My nerves are raw, the doggies nerves are raw and we're all shivering. Finally, a few minutes later, a guy and a girl come home who live there. And, of course, they are leading a dog. Perfect. So I pick Swarley and Lola up so that I don't have to try and control their lunging while I'm trying to talk to the people. But this makes the barking much worse, and as I'm trying to explain that I'm locked out and can I borrow a phone, I can barely talk over the racket that the dogs are making. Their dog is, of course, completely calm and collected and delightful. They misunderstand me at first and think that I'm just locked out of the building, and then I finally get across that I'm locked out of EVERYTHING.
They are really nice people, and they mention that if we have a window open, we can just climb down the fire escape and go through the window. YES! The window is open. So we ride up the elevator together to the 5th floor, the dogs barking their asses off the whole time, and head up to the roof. The guy offers to take the dogs back down and wait outside our door while I climb down the fire escape. Awesome. So he starts back down the stairs and I look over the edge of the building from 5 stories up. Did I mention that I have a ridiculous fear of falling? This fire escape ladder is on the outside of the frame and has no cage or protection whatsoever. One wrong step and I'm free-falling from five stories. I panicked and ran after the guy. He very calmly offered to climb down for me and I took the doggies back down the stairs with the girl, who waited with me outside the apartment, which was nice because I was totally shaking at this point. When I looked over the side of that apartment building, all I could see was me falling to my death. So we stood in the hall and waited and the doggies were getting more and more wound up. They were down on the ground at this point and Lola decides that she wants to play, she growls up at the girl and wags her tail. What the heck? Now you want to play?! Luckily with all the barking, and yapping and racket, the girl still commented that they were "so cute". I guess tiny adorableness trumps loud, raucus screeching barking. That's good to know. So we waited in the hall forever and the girl goes to check on the guy and he's trying to enter our neighbors window and having no luck (thank goodness it was locked). She got him straightened out and finally the door to the apartment opened. In my mind I heard the sound of angels singing. I thanked the guy and the girl profusely, led the doggies inside the apartment and burst into tears.
It's just been a stressful time lately with the dogs, as I'm sure you've gathered. Our walks are sometimes very hard and it's not really enjoyable to head out on them knowing that I have to spend the whole time distracting them from the rest of the world. I was probably only locked out of the apartment for an hour, but it was the longest, most stressful hour of my life, with staring death in the face from the top of that building, to the dogs barking and freaking out over everything. And Neil just isn't around much to deal with them, so most of the weight of all this is falling on my shoulders. And it all just kind of came crashing down on me last night. Needless to say, I was in no condition to go to the opening at that point. I put on my jammies and poured myself a STIFF drink.
Sleep seems to have helped a little, and we had a very good walk this morning, but it was a rough one last night. I've made an appointment with a professional trainer who specializes in on-leash agression just to give myself a little help and get some tips on if what I'm doing with the dogs is right. I need to get some of the weight of this off my shoulders and move forward. I hope that this will help.
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