A hopeful week

We've had far fewer reactions at home - our best week yet at 29 in total.

Everything improved across the board - reactions were less intense and shorter, and he slept more on average. When he has reacted, he has resettled quickly.

We saw the neighbour in the car park (which normally causes an intense reaction) and George only let out one bark.

Neighbours have been walking past outside our front door without him batting an eyelid.

A delivery driver knocked on the door and he didn't react at all. A Christmas miracle!

He has been happy and excited on walks and resting well at home.

He did bark and lunge when a man and child came down the stairs to the beach (we had had the little beach to ourselves).

But we created some distance and played some focus games and he then completely ignored them. We were even able to walk back past them without him reacting.

We saw an off-leash dog in the distance and instead of immediately barking and lunging, he looked at me. I'm super proud of this one! He waited calmly until it was out of sight.

We were then able to walk past a woman without him reacting.

We finished the week with a walk with his friend in a new park. He looked confident and curious which is unusual in a new place.

I'm trying to remind myself that learning is not linear and we will likely see some regressions but it does feel more hopeful this week. There have been times when it felt completely hopeless.

Of course he's had his moments. There were a couple of big reactions in the car on the way to daycare. And quite an extreme frustration reaction trying to chase a seagull.

But he's handled situations which I would have thought were impossible not that long ago. I'm very proud!