Change

I am trying a new thing with the dog. Once or twice I've had some sort of last minute issue and haven't been able to get home at lunch and lo and behold, I rush home afte work and found  he didn't lose his mind or his bladder.

This gave me an idea. What would happen if I just didn't come home for lunch just because I didn't want to come home for lunch?  And then I did it! I just didn't come home for lunch, I ran errands I could have run later in the evening but I ran them at lunch instead. I didn't have to do anything, and I still didn't go home. I could have, I could have ran the errands and then popped home but instead, I ran the errands, picked up some lunch and went back to campus and ate my lunch.

I spent the rest of the day worring about what was going on at home and if I was being selfish by not going home because I didn't want to go home. Was I being fair to the dog? Was this mean? Would he be really hurt? Did he notice?

I went home after work and the dog was fine, no puddles, no destroyed furniture, no damaged wood work. And this was not the first time I came home after skipping lunch and found no damage. This makes me feel like, if a couple of days a week that I could bring my lunch to work and maybe just eat my lunch and read a book and take a walk and just not go home.

Dogs don't have clocks and they don't have the concept of time that we do. Time is time and it passes without them checking their watch. They are woken up when you wake them up, its irrelevant to them if this happens at noon or this happens at five. Also, for dogs with SA, it might be better for their anxiety if their person doesn't come home and get them all  freaked out and then abandon them again. They get upset when you leave, calm down eventually, and then you come home and make them so happy and then you abandon them again. It doesn't improve their mood. So. Maybe its time for me to stop going home every day and start dialing it back. We will both hopefully survive the change.

Its not something I would do every day because I like getting away from work and seeing the pets and watching some TV and relaxing, however, I don't like feeling like I have to come home every day. Its been over three years since I had the luxury of choice.