catching up with change

pete chews shoes. he chews shoes and glasses. and magazines and boxes. and pretty much anything but furniture (thank goodness for that small miracle).

i love pete.  i also love my shoes.  so pete has spent the past two weeks with a dog trainer in concord.

on friday i went to pick up pete and we had our first lesson with the trainer together.  pete tested me.  oh boy did he test me.  as lindsay said, "he knows the rules.  he knows that i enforce the rules.  he also knows that you've never known the rules before.  you have to show him that you know the rules now too."  it only took a few tries before he realized that the change he experienced for those two weeks weren't just temporary, until he realized that i knew the rules too.  i had to learn the trigger words lindsay used with him and just when and how to say those words to get the reaction pete had been taught. 

pete is a different dog, people.  truly.  i cannot say enough good things about swiftdogz and our trainer, lindsay.  pete is still full of energy and probably the happiest dog on the planet, but he now listens in ways he never did before.  we learned "base" training, which is actually quite similar to super nanny's "naughty step", only it's not just for being naughty.  pete has a base, or a space that is his and only his.  i physically place him on his base and say "pete, base" and he stays.  he doesn't leave his base until i invite him off of it.  it's genius!  it works really well when he's super energized and needs to calm down or when he gets under foot as i'm trying to cook in the kitchen.  i can't believe how much he has changed.  how much we have changed...

my friend katy just returned from a trip to germany.  we met today at a park in salisbury to get our pups together (pete and ellie are best of friends) and catch up on our lives.  katy was a different person than the girl who left for germany just a short week ago.  she's still the same old sweet friend, but she's experienced life in a new way that has effected her in ways that cannot be undone.  the changes my be subtle, but they're there.  the trip was for class, but it was also about discovering herself in the freedom of anonymity.  her observations in people are slightly different and our conversation topics are a big more colorful.  just like with pete, i'm having to learn slightly new ways of interacting with her.

katy's was the first return to america of many friends of mine who are gallivanting across the world right now.  each one of them will have been changed.  some in big ways, and some in small subtle, almost forgettable ways.  but traveling isn't the only experience that changes us.  sometimes it's as simple as a moment.  one quick moment during your typically mundane life when something clicks in your soul and you have been changed.  and when you change, you have to give the people around you time to catch up.

i think that's why things like marriage counseling and al-anon exist.  because when someone changes, the significant people in their lives have to catch up with that change too.  sure, a person can go to counseling or attend aa meetings alone, but what good will that do if their family and friends don't support it or maybe don't even recognize the change at all?  sometimes you need that time together to work through that change, learning the triggers and the reactions so that you can communicate better with this newer version of someone you care about.