I was getting ready for work and all the dogs were in the bedroom with me. Pint, my 4 lb Papillon, decided he was going to get off the bed which meant he had to walk by Sniper to get to the stairs. I am sure Pint has done this 100 times and didn't think twice about navigating past Sniper. Just as Pint was going past Sniper's head Sniper snapped at Pint and made him yelp. Lucky for me I happened to be standing there when it happened so I knew exactly what went on. In my house, the Papillons are not to be touched or trampled, so that was unacceptable behaviour. I hollered out a "HEY!' and walked over to the bed to pick Sniper up and put him away in his crate, also probably something I had done many times in his 18 month life. When I went to pick him up Sniper suddenly turned into a snapping crocodile and I got bit quite badly. He took off running from the bedroom and went to the kitchen. Well the trainer in me thought there is no way he is getting away with that and I went to get him and put him away. We played a short game of cat and mouse as he dodged the punishment of going in the crate. When he finally stopped in his corner of the couch I could see a look in his eyes that was pure panic and I took a huge step back and figured I now needed to approach this completely different.
When I took a quiet step towards him and reached out to pet him he let out this crazy scream and started air snapping at me. The whole situation reminded me of a scene in Rainman where Dustin Hoffman was having a meltdown over the smoke detector going off. Its the best way I can explain what I was seeing. I had to help him but didn't really want to lose a finger and I was already bleeding pretty badly. I was also worried about the other three dogs getting hurt in the fray of Sniper's meltdown. So there Sniper and I stood in a bit of a wild west showdown. I, trying to figure out how to stop his panic and he trying to defend himself from the world with his back in a corner. In my problem solving efforts, I looked up and saw a blanket on the back of the couch right behind Sniper. I reached over him which induced more screeaming from him and flipped the blanket over top of him. Once he was covered I picked him up and held him tight. He was the tightest ball of dog you could ever imagine. When I squeezed him he let out a groan and started to relax and at that point I knew we were going to be ok. I took Sniper covered in a blanket, grabbed a bag of treats and went back to the bedroom, just me and Sniper, and closed the door. I gently put him down on the bed, he didn't move or even try to fight me. I took the blanket off of him and sat down beside him with the bag of treats. He was a little unsure but you could see he was exhausted from the adrenaline high he was just on. We sat together for about ten miutes and I feed him treats as he let me pet him. As Sniper came back down to earth, he sniffed at my bloody hand and licked as if to say, "I'm sorry". I gave him a pat on the head and said "it's ok buddy, we both learned something today". I got up and continued on with my morning routine and Sniper put himself away in his crate until we left the house.
Now what was I going to do from here? Who had the answers to help me?
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