For months and months, I’ve been making Scout sit down and wait for my permission before she’s allowed to go outside. 

I don’t even remember why I’ve been doing this. I vaguely remember reading on The Daily Coyote that she makes Charlie follow behind her through the door, because The Alpha always goes first.  Making him follow her is one of (the many, many) ways that she maintains her dominance in the relationship.  And you all KNOW that I’m always looking for ways to assert my dominance in relationships. 

The minor kerbobble in the line-of-thinking is that it’s not often that I go outside WITH Scout.  Mostly we just send her to the back yard to do her business, then call her back in when we assume that it’s been a suitable amount of time.  I decided that I could assert that same dominance by forcing her to sit and wait while I opened the door, not allowing her go pass through the door until she had my permission to do so.  So for 3 months now, she’s had to sit and wait. This Sitting and Waiting is especially difficult for her in the mornings, when I make her sit in the kitchen and PAINSTAKINGLY watch me get her food bowl, morsel out her breakfast, set it on the ground, and then TEASE her before I will finally give her permission to pass through the magical door frame to the lovely land of the backyard where she eats.  

Every time we walk to the door together, she gets all up in my business, stepping on my feet and darting for the door until I say, “No,” and move her back a few feet, where I tell her to sit and stay.  Then she’ll do what she’s told, a.k.a. sit there doing nothing, until I give her the go ahead.  

But today, just now, she blew my socks off.  I walked to the door in the same dazed, sad stupor that I’ve been in all week, and I just opened the door.  I didn’t tell her to sit or stay, I didn’t try to fight it today.  I just wanted to let her outside because I’m a terrible owner who has been basically neglecting her dog in the midst of all this sadness that I’m dealing with.  I opened the back door with one hand, pushing open the glass storm door with the other, my body forming a strange arc that would allow me to open both doors wide at the same time, leaving enough room for the dog to pass under me like a bridge.  I waited there for 5 seconds, staring at the ground, waiting for the blur of the dog underneath me.  Nothing.  I looked up towards the kitchen to see Scout sitting there, head tilted to the side, patiently waiting for me to tell her that it was okay for her to go outside.  Waiting for my command. 

Taking the little victories when they come.