Molly Gets Scared

Relaxing in front of the fire

     Sometimes, Molly gets scared of things. For example, there was a lady returning a bright yellow kayak at Costco, when we were there, and molly seemed convinced it was going to eat her. Her tail was tucked, she was hiding behind me, and she had a ridge of fur along her back. Paul had given me a couple things to do when situations like this occurred. One was to get really excited and celebrate the scary thing. So I did. “Yay! Oh look a kayak! Oh yay I love kayaks, do you love them? I love kayaks! It’s so much fun and so exciting and I love them yay!!” The other thing he told me to do was touch the scary object. Somehow by touching it, everything was ok. Well, for some things that might work. But the kayak was just soooooo scary, that celebrating it and getting close to it and putting one hand on it wasn’t enough. So I hugged it. Yeah. I hugged a big yellow kayak while celebrating that it was a kayak and how much I loved it. I got all sorts of funny looks. But it was actually worth it. Molly came over (she had been cowering on the end of her leash) and sniffed the kayak, licked it once, and then sat right next to it.

     It’s happened with a few other things as well. She REALLY hates the broom. She runs as fast as she can from it. I still haven’t gotten her to be ok with it. I think it is just going to take a little time. I’ve touched it, hugged it, danced with it, sang all sorts of silly little songs about it, got excited about sweeping (yeah, if only I really was that excited about sweeping), but so far, she still just really hates it. More work to do there, but for the most part, the techniques work.

     We recently got our fireplaces re-done, and had gas inserts put in. they put a big tube down the chimney, and the installers dropped a big piece off the roof and onto the deck. I had been sitting at the table working on my statistics online class, and Molly was sitting on a big pillow by the glass door out to the deck. The giant silver shiny snake flew out of the sky and landed on HER deck and that was just NOT ok. Scared the living daylights out of her, and it took a lot of snuggling with the pipe to make everything ok. The fireplace people probably thought I was crazy!

     She also had apparently never seen a fire, or had at least not had much exposure to one before. Once the fireplace was installed, it had to be on for 8 hours. Any time she had to walk to or from the stairs, or anywhere in the living room, her head was low, and her tail tucked, and she sort of scooted, rather then walked. Over two days, she has gotten very comfortable with it, and now loves to lie in front of the fire with me.