The slow unraveling of miserable.

Hello old friend. I just revisited "A private blog and a heavy heart"written over four years ago and as I lifted each word from the screen, I felt my heart slowly being strummed. How clear it was then that I was miserable and unhappy, trapped in an unwanted life. Wow things have changed. Maybe that was the start of it all, the slow unravelling of miserable. Sometimes you have to find yourself at the bottom of it all before you can even start to swim.

Things that have happened since 2014:
- We lost Anna
- I let go of Adam
- I implored ways of breaking life: cheating, coworker sex, drunkenness
- Becoming the darkest version of myself, which was really quite easy as I was already there
- Learning to work with my hands
- finding my creativity
- finding love that I want, even if it doesn't want me
- finding love on my terms
- finding myself
- finding my brightness
- being okay with balance

I've been asking the world to be kind to me lately. To take me away from the darkness. To let me love again. And I've been trying to be kinder to the world. I'll give what I receive and I've finally found that all I want is to love and to be loved in return.

Dog Training Frustrations

We've had Jack for a little over 6 months now. Which may not seem long in human years, but in dog years it's like a lifetime.

We adopted Jack from the local OBX SPCA back in February right before one of the big snows. We went to meet him and he was unarguable wild. He was sleeping in the front room under a table and when we woke him he charged at the gated door towards Adam. Border Collies are made to be working dogs and are said to hate it when they get caught sleeping on the job. We took him for a walk outside the shelter, I had Lola on leash and Adam switched off walking him with the shelter volunteer. She was a young girl who didn't have much control over him. He would jump up and "hug" her. She would hug him back and say 'he's such a sweet dog. I wish I could have dogs at my place. I have a feret." If he wasn't hugging he was bouncing off you then running to the end of the leash and repeating or chewing to be free. He definitely did not know how to walk on the leash. Knowing that border collies have high energy requirements and that Jack would be needing lots of walks, it was the first thing we wanted to correct about him.

His charts said he had aggression towards men and over food. We took him home for the weekend and fostered him. During that time we saw very little of these problems. He was able to play with Lola, eat next to her and within a week we stopped him from chewing on the leash and jumping on us during walks.

We decided to adopt him.

His papers said his owner moved and couldn't take dogs with her. We still to this day don't understand that.

Since having him we've noticed a few more problems. He's barks at other dogs, bicycles and people while walking. While on a walk one day a stranger approached him, we asked him to back up and that Jack was in training, but he didn't listen. The guy got nipped in the knee. Last week when we took him camping and he bit one of our friends in the butt after displaying signs we should have seen, but didn't. We know the signs now for future encounters, but we also don't trust him.

Jack is also very headstrong and often doesn't listen. I've started using treats and feeding him when he has good behavior, but now he's dependent on the treats.

I made a list of Jack's Commands, things he knows, things we need to work on and things to train him on. The top contenders are: Sit and Stay, Down and Stay, Back, Wait, Heal, Come, Leave It, No Speak, No Jumping, Let's go (aka follow me/turn around/change direction), and go to bed (to get him in his crate). It looks like a long list, but most of these things he knows, but doesn't always perform.

It's been a long 6 months already and we can't have Jack continue like this anymore. So here we go, a strict training routine 15 mins a day at least. Wish me luck and less frustrations!

The pictures above are from the first few days we had him: A family dog snug, and his first snow. In which we hadn't discovered that he didn't listen off leash and would bite people. He seems like such a different dog then.