09/03/2024
I’ve been back and forth about posting this, but I think it’s important for people to see the downs as well as the ups, to know you are not alone.
A couple weeks ago I flew home for a weekend to see my folks, Cheese flew with me as my psychiatric service dog, as he has done very successfully many times. Our trip there started out beautifully, as you see in this photo, but it quickly fell apart. Cheese perked up and barked as we took off! I worked on managing and getting him settled and he barked again! In other contexts I would just move and take space and then return or not, since this is something in his adolescence that has emerged we’ve been working on it. The bark is shrill, singular, and incredibly startling, will stop with time, but had never occurred in this context before. Cheese is there in part to help mitigate my panic attacks, anxiety, and self-harm, but I found myself in a situation where his behavior was exacerbating it to an extreme. He was restless vocal and couldn’t settle.
Cheese did not settle the entire flight, not after my emergency/landing lickimat, not with our normal co-regulation exercises, not patterns, not his chew, not snuffling in his blanket, not being held…I had to work with him the whole 4 hours through my hyperventilating, dry heaving, and shaking. He may have barked a total of only 4 or 5 times the whole time, but that was with constant diligence on my part despite my panic and preemptive anxiety about Mondays flight home!
I share this as a reminder to myself and others that no matter what level or type of training you are doing with your dog, you are partnering with a sentient being who will have good days and bad days, on days and off days, you are not programming a robot. Old me would have wasted my whole weekend training and prepping for Mondays flight, but both Cheese and I needed to complete the stress cycle and start fresh for our flight on Monday. We hiked, walked, played, and enjoyed the company of family and friends. I upped my meds and though some might see it as a cop out medicated Cheese for the flight home, we both finally got some rest.
