Lights Out

I legitimately made an attempt to work on yesterday's goals. I got out my dusty bait bag. I chopped up the Nature Balance roll stuff and mixed it with some small kibble. I got out the necessary tools for each animal.

I sat on the couch to eat dinner before I began training.

Before I know it, there was a BANG! and the power goes out. Pure blackness. There was not a single thing to be seen. The streetlights had gone out, the neighborhood was down for the count. My phone was dead, so we used Red's phone light to get a dozen candles lit. We gated the dogs in the foyer, just to keep any crazy animal on candle stuff from happening, then we stepped outside to see how far it went.

The neighborhood was eerily silent, and adding to the creepy effect was the fact that the moon was full, huge and spotlight white. We could see our neighbors in their homes shining flashlights around, so I knew Red couldn't blame it on my hairdryer again.

Finally the utility trucks showed up. So did the cops. A blown transformer maybe?

So anyways, we didn't have any power. And judging by the number of trucks that arrived to crowd around the pole, we wouldn't have power for a while. Red and I pulled out the cribbage board and played by candlelight. Eventually, it was time to get ready for bed. We brushed our teeth and fed the dogs by candlelight. It was kind of relaxing actually. We crawled into bed and as we blew the last candle out, the power came back! 

Thinking back on it now, I actually could have used this incident as a training opportunity. Kirby was oddly alarmed by the sudden outage and was very 'Aussie Alert' until we went to bed. He began barking as soon as the power went out. Going from a fully lit house with the TV on to complete silence and dark did not make him happy. Anytime a car drove by or anything he went on full Aussie Alert Bark, groaning and pacing. But I was too preoccupied finding candles and looking out the window at the utility trucks.

It did bring up another thing to add to Kirby's training list though. He has some anxiety stuff that we need to tackle. We stayed pretty calm last night, to the point where it was kind of humerous. So I dont think our actions were making him tense.

**LIGHTBULB MOMENT**

Okay, and in writing that last paragraph, it occurs to me that Kirby has some light reactive stuff in the past. He always has, and it was pretty intense right when I adopted him, but with the help of Tania from House of Misfit Dogs we had pretty much knocked it out almost completely. Kirby doesn't like fire. Candles. Okay, I see where we went wrong. There is my lightbulb moment for the day. I woundn't know that Kirby doesn't like fire except for the fact that when I use the clickey lighter thing anywhere near him to light candles, he barks at me and gets that insane look in his eyes. It's odd that he in no way associates that with the treat clicker??  Interesting....

Gotta love a lightbulb moment.