Don't you think the Joker laughs at you?

[lizblackdog]

Two things made me happy yesterday - first there was Torchwood. It wasn't perfect - despite RTD's assertion that "sex and violence can be so sixth-form if you don't do it correctly" in this slightly spoilery Times interview, I think that's exactly what he did - although since I have a fairly sixth-form sense of humour myself, I can't really complain. But I enjoyed it enormously and it's early days, I think it's more likely to get better than worse.

The next thing was finding I had £20 more left than I thought I had. This is a pretty big deal, since it means I can afford this fortnight's pet food and coffee and cat litter, and I'd been puzzling over how I was going to manage all three. There's even enough for a bit more grocery shopping.

Then I did something stupid and lost control of the Squisher. I've been thinking it over since it happened and I think I have a good handle on what I did wrong and shouldn't do again. What keeps biting my bum, though, is that without a safe fenced enclosure to work him in (or a personal tractor-beam) all I can do is reduce the chances of things going wrong - or never let him off the leash again. I'm unwilling to do that.

My first mistake was taking them to the park too late in the day. This came out of being tired and getting into a happy dozy state watching Torchwood and then ER. It was almost 7pm when we went out - it wasn't dark but it was long shadows and reduced light, and what I'd failed to think about was that it was prime time for every single free-range cat in the neighbourhood to start patrolling. There are lots and lots and lots of those.

We got to the park and I let Spike off first and played ball with him with Squish on the leash. Usually Squish watches Spike and yaps impatiently for his turn. I felt him freeze and alert onto something and I saw a cat disappear into the bushes by the path, and Squish started pulling me towards it and screeching with hunting drive. (Spike glanced over to see what the fuss was about, but since the cat wasn't visible he decided it was just Squish imagining things).

I should have packed it in and gone home right then. That was my second stupid mistake. I actually thought about it, Gods help me. But there's this whole ritual of picking up my rucksack with the footballs in, going to that particular park, all the things that make a clear statement to the dogs that We Are Going To Have Offleash Fun Now. I wanted to reinforce the ritual, I didn't want to take Squish home disappointed. Curse me for a sentimental anthropomorphising idiot, please.

I decided that if I took Squish round the bushes on-leash so he could see clearly that the cat was no longer there (it had leapt the fence into someone's back garden at the first yap), he might forget it and be able to focus on me and the ball when his turn came. So I did that, and when I decided it could be his turn, he did look enthused when the ball appeared. Not, however, enthused enough. He chased the ball, picked it up, and halfway to bringing it back he spotted something out of the corner of his eye (another cat? a leaf in the wind?) dropped the ball and streaked back to the bushes where the cat had been.

The thing with Squish is that (unlike Spike) once his attention breaks, he doesn't get it back in a hurry. Once he's taken off after something that way, I don't even exist in his world until he runs down. So there I am in dog owner hell, my dog racing round the park like a lunatic, completely ignoring me. This particular park is the most enclosed outdoor space I can find, almost completely ringed round by other people's back fences, but there are places he can get out and he knows it. The park exits open into the bottoms of quiet residential dead-end roads - he'd have to go further than he's likely to in an un-tempting direction to reach anywhere with traffic, but there's nothing at this point physically stopping him from doing that. That is fucking terrifying.

The incident wasn't without its good points. Squish hasn't broken this way in a long time now, and, most importantly, he recovered from it much faster than he has done on previous occasions. He popped out of the park once and popped back in almost at once. If this had happened a year or even six months ago, he wouldn't have come back until he was near-dropping with exhaustion and pretty well incapable of running any more, and he'd have tried to evade me even then. That didn't happen. I can't tell exactly how long he ran - it always feels like a year or so while it's happening - but I don't think it was much more than five minutes and he came back looking for me, pleased to see me and only mildly puffed. There was a lot more running left in him and he chose freely not to use it. That's some real serious progress there, and he got a whole handful of meatball for it.

I still feel like an idiot though. And I don't think I'll be going to the park today.

Thanks to cottonmanifesto and crzmslmaven for listening to me and reminding me about Lesson Six. I have been working these steps on and off since I first read this. I have been lazy and complacent lately and it's been more off than on, and we are working it with renewed energy. I do get an instant response to "Meatball" at any time when he's not actively chasing a ball or in hunting mode, and I'm sure that's why he came out of hunting mode so much sooner than he used to. We still have a lot of work to do though.