Now comes the scary part

Now we know the medication is working for Roo (thank god), our behaviourist wants us to slowly start doing more with Roo.

This is amazing and we are so relieved to have finally arrived at this point but the reality of having to do it is terrifying. Pretty much since Roo was tiny, we have had to avoid things. From crossing the road when we see people to hiding around the corner. Getting up at 5am to get to the park or beach when no one else is around. Not having people over or leaving Roo at home. Choosing to only go to big open spaces so we can see what is coming. This is the only way of life we know with Roo.

Our track record is see someone on a walk, react. If she is offlead, it's chase them off. It is going to be very challenging for us to break this mental cycle and the feeling of anxiousness when we do see people or dogs. Honestly, it's like your heart drops the moment you see them and panic begins. We know Roo probably picks up on this. Anyone who owns a reactive dog will know the feeling and if you don't, you are very lucky.

But going forward we need to do things slowly and at Roo's pace, trusting her and letting her show us where she is at.

Until we encounter these things, we won't know what reactions and issues Roo is left with.

So far we haven't really encountered any people or dogs whilst leaving our house at 6:15am to go to the pitch black park. Roo has seen one person who was putting her dogs in her car as we were getting Roo out. She was probably three car parking spaces away from us. We waited until she had her two dogs in the car (we have seen these dogs before when we used to bring Roo to the park earlier in the year, they are friendly but persistent).. We got her out of the car on the long line, she had more lead length than a standard lead but not enough that she could reach the woman. Roo jumped out of the car, looked at the woman, gave her a wide birth and went off to sniff some grass and carrying on her way. We were over the moon, the woman said hello to us, we did the same and Roo did not react.

Hopefully we can get a few more of these under our belt to allow us to feel a bit more confident.

Our main concern is going to be other dog owners who don't have control over their dogs. It's scary having a anxious dog and some people letting their dogs just run over to every dog. It is completely out of our control. We have sadly encountered this a lot in the past as have many dog owners.