The emotional toll of reactivity

Get a dog, they said. It'll be fun, they said. Think of all those great, social dog walks, they said.

So why am I stumbling around a field at 4.30 in the morning?

I've had a number of dogs over the years. All have had their distinct personalities, but all were fairly easy going, and liked meeting people and going to places. Owning a dog meant that people would sometimes smile as we walked past them in the street, children would come up and ask if they could fuss them, and our dogs loved all of the attention.

And then along came Finn.

Crash, boom, bang!

One of the things that I find hard about having dogs is the fact that there are so many potentially scary or upsetting situations that our dogs can encounter and we have no easy way of explaining to them that they are safe, as we could with another human.

It's that time of year again in the UK. I come from near a town in the south east of England called Lewes, and Bonfire Night is a HUGE deal around here. Bonfire season starts in my local area on the last weekend in September and goes on until the weekend or so after Bonfire Night itself on 5th November. With bonfires come the real potential issue - fireworks.