In the Woods at Last

I got the dog because I couldn’t get out of bed - the worst reason to get a German Shepherd, but it worked. A week after picking him up from a shelter in California, the only shelter that would adopt to someone living in a studio apartment, I immediately went from paralyzing depression to 6th gear. I called him my aggressive anti-depressant. He quickly started showing reactivity to other dogs, and in Portland, that’s as bad as being reactive to trees - they’re everywhere. He lunged and barked at anything with 4 legs. I felt like I had a monster on a string that could break at any second. My senses changed over night. All of a sudden, every jingle of a leash from 3 blocks away, every shadow coming around a corner, or every time my dog raised his head…I had every escape route calculated in a 10th of a second. I was now waking up at 4 am to leave the apartment to take him to the woods. Every. Single. Morning. He also wouldn’t go down the stairs, so every time the elevator opened, I was praying like a nun…though I’m a full blown atheist, that another dog wouldn’t be waiting for us on the other side. Finally, after 2 and a half months of constant stress, and constant unsolicited advice, and hundreds of dollars trying to find the right dog trainer, I found a house with a yard for rent. But that didn’t solve anything. He still was reactive despite working with him all day, cooking him chicken for treats, and taking him on long hikes and to Sniffspots without a day off. By the time I found a really good animal behaviorist, I was already craving being back on the road and bringing him, too.

I felt like I could relate to this dog - his behaviors, his frustration of being misunderstood, needing to be appreciated for his genetics instead of being trained out of them. And through my effort trying to make him happy, I began to put effort into meeting my own needs, finding an outlet for my own strengths, and making myself happy. And the dog had no chance of being happy, if the person taking care of him was constantly stressed. So I built us an escape mobile, an escape from the environment that neither of us fit in, to take him to the only world I knew I felt at peace. So far, it’s working.

Bracelets next Sunday.

Video from our first week in the wilderness.