Hermes

This is Hermes.

Hermes is a White Shepherd. 

He is a year and a half old. 

And he has severe anxiety. 

Hermes while hiking.

About six months ago I started sending Hermes to private day training once a week. After a week or two his, fabulous!, trainers H and K said he should join an agility class to work on his confidence. That's what we have been doing every Friday night, since April. 

We decided to send Hermes to day training because he (and Lily) has severe separation anxiety and had destroyed 3 crates, a couple of lamps, some couch cushions, and whatever else he destroyed that I can't remember anymore. And to be perfectly honest his separation anxiety is only slightly better now, almost 6 months later. 

We actually had to stop trying to crate train Hermes last October. The day he was neutered I picked him up from the vet and was told to "stop letting him eat rocks" (seriously that's what they said) because he was already damaging his upper canines. It wasn't from eating rocks. It was from destroying crates. So, crate training went out the window. Mostly. We went out and bought heavy duty plastic crates to replace the many metal crates that were ripped apart. The new crate as some damage. You can see some spots where he has tried to chew his way out. He has also bent the metal door and if he tries hard enough he can pull the door off. 

For the most part Hermes is not left in his crate at home. On the rare occasion that no one can be home with them they are crated and have a monitor on them to make sure nothing bad happens. While at training Hermes is crated. There he is pretty well behaved, thanks to K! He still will make a lot of noise and thrash about when I drop him off or pick him up. During agility he does very well in his crate while waiting for his turn. 

Hermes and I at agility class.

After all of the training and learning we, Hermes and I, have done its nice to know we are improving. We have had a few set backs but all and all I am very happy with the progress we have made in a very short amount of time. 

Who am I?

Who am I? You might ask. I am me. I am a unique combination of anxious, confident, intelligent in the field of useless information, completely self conscience, protective, irrational, and most importantly I am comfortable being me.  

Anxiety is my friend. It has been for as long as I can remember. I don't like to meet new people. I don't like to leave the house. I don't like surprised. Those are just a few things that make anxious and nervous. There are many, many other things. Daily things. Ideas that creep up on me out of the blue. But guess what, I get up every day. I live my life. I make myself do things. Okay, maybe not every day but 5 out of 7. I may no want to do many of these things but I do because I have a family that needs me. And I need them. They help me keep going even without realising it. 

My family is spread over two houses. The house I live in contains my fiance, my mother-in-law, our three cats, two dogs, three fish, and two axolotls. The other house, where I lived until I moved here, my Mum's house, contains my mum, brother, sister, nephew, dog, and cat. Both places are my home. Both places are where I am comfortable because there are people I trust. And every single person in both houses has anxiety, maybe not the nephew he is still a toddler. 

Anxiety is a bitch. Anxiety is not fun. Anxiety and depression and people with different personalities sucks. Bad days are a living hell. If I am having a bad day it truly effects whoever is near me. I have never been good at verbally expressing my feelings. I would much rather shut myself away and be alone. Not everyone likes that. Actually some people actually hate it. But I have a hard time changing that. 

I am hoping this blog will help me deal with some of my anxiety. Mostly my anxiety about the dogs. 

Lily and Hermes are 1.5 years old. They are litter mates, have litter mate syndrome, separation anxiety with each other and with me. Since April both Lily and Hermes have done some sort of dog class. Hermes and started agility to help build his confidence away from Lily. Lily and Matt took an obedience class to work on working with each other. Both dogs have had private training at least once a week since April. Lily and I started Nose work so she can have a fun class like Hermes. Lily has also been coming to Hermes agility class as well. In the past five months both dogs and myself have worked very hard and come a long way in our training. 

We have all worked hard and yet some days it doesn't feel like we have done anything at all. In time it will get better... I hope.