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Warning:  If you didn’t read yesterday’s blog, this one may make no sense to you.  I was feeling very stressed yesterday with the dog trainer coming and interrupting my writing schedule.  It was frustrating at first, but by the time we go back to the house with Pip, I was strangely more relaxed than when we began.  My ankle held up better than the last time I tried to walk the dog, which has been awhile.  Pip is getting a little house bound from lack of exercise, but between Jon’s knee surgery and my ankle, he’s sort of out of luck.  But I’m hoping that some of the things I’m learning from the trainer will help me be able to walk and socialize him without risking further injury to my ankle.  Once upon a time we could take him out anywhere and he was fine.  We took him, routinely, to the Renaissance Faires and he loved it.  But he’s one of those dogs that needs on-going socialization or he gets afraid of new stimuli.  One of the ways dogs react to fear is to act fierce.  I’m afraid, so I’ll scare the bad thing away.  I bought a book that is all about training your boxer.  I’m hoping that will give me some insight.  Jon seems to understand Pip’s body language much better than I do, so he will see the first signs of fear, or dominance, and he just doesn’t have the problem I do with the big, puppy.  It’s like I’m boxer blind.  I speak fluent pug, and several other breeds, but boxer seems to continue to elude me.  Jon is more multi-lingual in dog, as he is in human languages.  He always picks it up faster than I do when we travel outside the country. 

But though, I continue to be puzzled by the puppy, and yes, I’m aware, it’s my blind spot, being out doors did us both good.  There was also something very endearing to the fact that Pip kept trying to heel for me, not for the trainer.  He wanted to sit by my side, not her’s.  He kept looking at me, as if, "Surely there’s some mistake.  I’m your dog."  Something about his persistent attention to me rather than the trainer that had been taking him for hour walks for several days, made me realize that maybe I’m harder on myself than my dog is, and that he loves me even though I don’t think I live up to the level he needs.  Maybe my graceful, athletic dog wouldn’t leave me for a jogger, after all. 

On the two pounds and eight ounces I gained over Thanksgiving:  Some people suggested it was water weight gain.  Not according to the scale.  My father-in-law uses very little salt in his cooking.  So, water weight would be a lovely thought, but it’s going to be exercise and getting back on the healthy food wagon.  Which I’ve done. 

One of the things that had lowered my mood was starch.  I hadn’t eaten white bread, potatoes, or much of anything high in starch in months.  One of the thing that starches can do is raise your serotonin levels.  Most people get happier when this happens, which is why so many people crave bread and such.  It makes them feel better.  Me, raise my serotonin level and it depresses me.  Yes, I know, weird.  My doctor jokes, that this is not my home planet.  As the starch worked it’s way out of my system, I began to feel better.  So, for me, white bread and potatoes are out.  If it will keep my mood from taking the dive it did a day ago, then I can live without them.  It was actually my Priestess who pointed out the diet connection.  She’s a very smart person to talk to when the emotions are running rough.  What you thought that because she’s a Wiccan Priestess she’d give me "magical" advice?  She’s taught me to look first at the physical, then the spiritual, because if your body isn’t working right then it’s harder to walk the path.