Weather and Dog Anxiety

After a dry summer produced a drought and water use restrictions, we were glad to get some rain. Some of it was produced by a tropical storm, and now Hurricane Helene is causing flooding in Florida. We don't know how much rain we will get from it as it comes north.

Fortunately for our Sunday event at Seven Bends State Park, rain did not come that day, although it was cloudy. I helped with setting up tables and checking in ticket holders, but did not stay for the concert because I needed to get back to Charlie. He has separation anxiety and I don’t have a dog sitter on weekends. He is now okay for an hour to 90 minutes, but my volunteer shift was for two hours so I came right back home. I could see that he had been running in circles panting and drooling, poor thing. 

We’ve been doing separation training very slowly because he has other anxieties as well. We started with me being in the other room or just going out the door and coming back in, and then staying away a little longer. Worrying about his anxiety gives me anxiety too, but I try not to show it.

State Park staff did a great job putting up autumn decorations in front of the stage. Beats on the Bend is a fundraiser to support park activities.

Since I’ve been talking about Charlie, here’s a picture of him, very alert as usual.

And here is a selfie of me that I took today after voting. Virginia has early voting now and I took advantage of it so that I don’t have to stand in line on election day.