Folks on Friday week 35

Things we never knew we never knew… Umbrellas! Apparantly I have never before opened one in Fenris’ presence! Where we live rain usually comes sideways, so raincoats are the default equipment, but Wednesday night was warm, the rain poured buckets and kittens and dogs, and we were just going out for a quick pee before bedtime.

So I grabbed the umbrella, and opened it.

Fenris jumped back as far as the leash would allow, and was terrified.

I put it on the ground (didn’t have any treats on me, but he does respond well to being able to investigate stuff on his own terms), and he tentatively moved forwards to sniff. He moved away again, seemingly in better spirits, but the moment I picked it up again, his ears and tail and whole body fell back into fear posture. So I grabbed a raincoat instead and put ‘umbrella desensitizing’ on our todo-list…

His resource guarding is improving; it’s almost a no-brainer for me to swap shoes with treats, a bit more hit-and-miss for the rest of the family. His thievery is on the other hand getting more sleek; if a door is even slightly ajar, he will rush in to where he knows shoes often are, grab it, and run back to the couch with his prize.

Triggering worse on tractors these days for some reason. Maybe they seem slow enough to be catchable.

And tomorrow and Sunday there will be visitors. We decided against having them stay overnight – to give everyone needed breaks. Prepping for the worst, and hoping for the best!