Improving on The Fear and The Growths

Mia is much less afraid of things now than she was on Sunday or Monday so things are slowly improving.  Our tactic over the past couple of days has just been to ignore it.  If she whines and slinks around we just pretend its not happening.  If she refuses to walk past the laundry room to get to the car we just take her out the front door.  So far it's been working pretty well and her mood has improved a great deal.

• She was previously afraid of walking past the fridge.  She will usually walk past it now, but it takes her a while sometimes.  She eyes it suspiciously.
• 
  
• She was afraid of walking past the hall closet.  I think we're mostly done with this one, but on occasion she will just avoid it.  
• 
  
• She wouldn't go anywhere near the laundry room for a while, and that one is still with us.  She ran by it twice, but its still on her radar for sure.
• 
  
• To go outside she would slink under the kitchen table in order to get to our deck door, and she actually does still do this.  I think she just likes it now but hopefully it won't stick too much longer.

These little things are disappearing at a much faster rate than we imagined.  The problem is that when you start to Google things you read about the worst possible scenarios of dogs becoming afraid of things either for life or for like months/years and you panic.  I think this is really how it is when you Google anything like this.  You have a sore throat so then you Google it and suddenly you think you might have cancer and you Freak out!  Don't do that.  The best thing for me is to get advice from people who have gone through similar situations.

Mia also has two growths on her feet right now.  The vet didn't really know what they were, but said they could really be anything or nothing.  It cost us $125 for her to diagnose this little problem and give us some meds that may or may not be helpful and put Mia in a lampshade.  Yesterday, a girl at doggie daycare told us that she sees cysts just like these in a lot of labs that they have and they go away with some foot soaks.  I almost called the vet right there to yell at them.  This young girl was able to help us out without costing us an arm and a leg and a 2 hour visit to Mia's most dreaded location - she deserves a mighty pat on the back. We're probably not going to go back to the vet to followup on her feet but we'll just keep an eye on them and continue to give them good soaks at night.  Sure we're first time dog owners so how should we know, but I feel a little taken advantage of there.  The growths are much smaller now than a week ago, so things are looking up all around!