Don't Forget The Positive Stuff .....

It's strange how our brains negative bias can overshadow and make us forget the positive things. Amidst the doom and gloom there have been good things. A week or so ago, I had the opportunity to rescue a litter of kittens. My mechanic/neighbour down the road was moving a pick up truck to take to scrap and discovered a litter of kittens behind the front seat. Mamma cat ran away scared . She had come back by the time I got there and even though I was as quiet as possible (hoping not to scare her), the minute she became aware of my presence she shot out from behind the seat, ran across the dashboard, and bolted out the window at the speed of light. The kittens were about 4wks old. Mamma had taken good care of them. They were well fed and chubby. They couldn't be left there though because the truck was going to scrap that day. I packed the kittens in a box and brought them home. I felt sad for Mamma Cat coming back and finding her babies gone. I would have rescued her too had she not run away. If she were on my own property I'd be putting out food and trying to gain her trust. But she has her life in her familiar area. And her babies are safe. I called a friend who works at the Oakville/Milton Humane Society and they took the kittens into their care.

Last week I had the opportunity to deliver a baby gift to a friend expecting a baby in a few weeks. We had a socially distanced porch visit. It was so nice to sit outside and have an in person chat. And thanks to that visit, my client dog (in my care) who was looking to be re-homed, found his potential forever home with a friend of my friends. Teddy went to his new home day before yesterday.

And of course it's important not to forget the dog food donations that come my way from time to time. It's such a huge help.

And the duck with the injured leg seems to be recovering well. Yesterday he was actually putting weight on his leg. Limping but walking .

While my momentum was thwarted by the goat attack 3wks ago , I did manage to declutter a large portion of my kitchen. The old, like probably 50yr old if you consider my parents bought it second hand, which was serving as nothing more than a surface to gather clutter, was starting to sag in the middle. I've been looking at it for months thinking I should probably get rid of it. This past week I finally did it. And just in time too! When I attempted to move the table it broke in half! So, clutter went in the dumpster and so did the table. Now my kitchen is a big open space. And that does feel good.

Re-Opening The Economy Angst

The government has started phase one of re-opening the economy. Dog training is on the list of businesses allowed to re-open .... with strict protocols in place. Someone asked me if I was happy about this and my response was, “not really”. My hall is I think too small to maintain social distancing for group classes. The school where I work is much larger and the owners are looking at the government protocols and deciding if it's possible to re-open at this time. Today we are having a Zoom meeting (trainers and owners) to discuss the logistics of re-opening. I'm hoping I have Zoom capability on my country internet. I downloaded Zoom this morning sooo .... we'll see how it goes …

I'm feeling a lot of anxiety around the prospect of re-opening training facilities. Part of it is money. Getting back to work at this job, which represents only a portion of my income, could make me ineligible for the CERB. The CERB is $2000 per month which is barely enough to pay bills and buy food and put gas in the car . It allows recipients to earn “up to” $1000 per month and still be eligible to receive the benefit. CERB stands for the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit. My pay at the dog school is based on a percentage basis. We [instructors] earn a percentage of what our classes bring in. So it's dependent on how many people are in our classes. And our pay covers 6wks ... not one month. If I deposit a cheque for more than $1000 (even if it's $1001) I lose the CERB. And if $2000/month isn't enough to live on, how do I survive on less than that? And how do we show that our pay is for six weeks and not four? The pay could technically be for under the $1000 for a one month period and the balance part of the next month ...... the government will only see the amount deposited. Also our classes don't always run every six weeks like clockwork. Sometimes there's a couple of weeks break in-between. This worked out okay when I had boarding dogs making up the other half of my income, but until people are travelling again, there are no boarding dogs.

But it's not just the money side causing my anxiety. It's the close contact with other people which I know sounds strange given that I go into the grocery store and Walmart. But that's not the same as interacting with people for hours at a time. People will be touching door knobs, stair railings, chairs, and bathroom. How do we keep on top of sanitizing everything between each person. We don't have a plexi glass shield to separate us from our students. We won't be able to help students with their dogs because we won't be able to pass leashes back and forth (handing dog off). I suppose we can have everyone wear masks. So much to think about.

UPDATE: okay so I was able to connect to Zoom and see everyone but they couldn't see me .... I'm thinking my laptop doesn't have a built in webcam. The owners are not jumping into full time classes right away .... whew! They are looking at four phases starting with hall rentals limited to 2 people at a time. And we discussed possibility of offering live Zoom classes broadcasting from the facility. Phase two would allow us to offer private lessons and possibly small workshops limited to 4 or 5 people. Each phase would take approximately 3 to 4 weeks to implement so we are still a few months away from group classes. Phase three would introduce small group classes and only 2 classes at a time with separate entrance/exits. And phase four would hopefully be back to normal with precautions in place.

Dreams

I've been having weird dreams lately and my mother has been in them. I wrote about one a few days ago. And now I've had another one. In this dream there was a sort of tent type room/shed attached to the house and three ladies were dropping off a black lab for boarding, and fussing about leaving him. (I know these ladies from flyball but in real life they didn't have labs) While they are fussing with the dog, I step into the next room which in the dream is my kitchen; and in the kitchen, literally just inside the door, is my mother in a hospital bed and hooked up to all sorts of IV's and monitors. And I get up on the bed and lie down beside her. This is not a memory because nothing like that ever happened in real life. I don't know what dreams mean & I don't know why my mother is showing up in dreams all of a sudden.

Another Murder Dream

It's been a little while since I've had one of these. I woke up from this dream this morning. I was in a car in stopped traffic and I notice a police car with lights flashing behind me. I pull over to get out of the way and a cop jumps out of the police cruiser and runs past me, gun drawn, and says, “stay down!”. So I duck down below window level to hide. There is much commotion and suddenly my car window is smashed and someone grabs me and starts pulling me out of the car. He has his arm around my neck and a gun to my head. Where are the cops?? He's saying, “stay back!”, presumably to law enforcement but where are they? I don't see anyone. I keep screaming for help but no one comes. And then someone walks by and says to the attacker, “hey ______ is that you?” And then I woke up.

I don't know what these dreams mean or why I have these murder dreams . Could they be PTSD from when I was stalked all those years ago?