Yay, my latest transaction got across this finish line this week! What a journey! Overall, I was super happy with how everything rolled out. All parties are satisfied and really, everyone was respectful and professional throughout– I’m so grateful for good people on all sides.

I have to say though, it was pretty hard getting to know my clients. They were super private and tight-lipped. Eventually, I did glean some additional information. To be honest, it’s been somewhat of an emotional roller coaster for me being you know, Chinese-American with immigrant parents, and guiding this family with whom I share similar parallels. Sure, the parent-child relationship is universally a difficult one, but there’s just something about Chinese families that make them unique and obviously, more personal for me. It’s an interesting scenario, bc my experience serves as my advantage and allows me to service this niche well and yet, being in the midst of it all still triggers some stressful memories, you know? Whatever, though. That’s life: it’s complicated.

In the end, the most important thing is that my clients are delighted with the house. And they are. I mean, as happy as they can express. 🙂 I plan to stop by next week with my closing gifts and also my requests for recommendations and referrals. That’s right, I am already targeting my next deal(s). Gotta get ’em in before my 1-year anniversary at this office in June.

What else. Bentley got neutered on Wednesday– yup, the same day as closing. I had spoken with the vet tech weeks in advance about his vet phobia and fear aggression, so we took him in to the clinic wearing his muzzle. He looked like Hannibal Lecter, and as soon as we entered the waiting room, everyone got super tense. We stayed a few minutes longer, while they took him back to make sure they could get the initial sub-cutaneous injection in. They came out a few minutes later and made some comment like, yes, he def has fear aggression and touch sensitivity.

At the end of the day, I went to pick him up, and after asking the front desk some questions, the staff revealed that Bentley escalated big time and got out of his muzzle! No one got injured but it was a close call. OMFG. I’m telling you: this special needs shit is stressful. So now I’ve reached out to a few trainers to get this shit under control. Sure, one solution is to just never have him go to the vet. But that’s neither a practical nor realistic solution. GSDs are super-prone to health problems, so at some point, he’s gotta work through this. I’m trying to see this from a positive perspective: like maybe doggie training can be a new hobby where I can also meet new people, i.e. potential clients? I dunno. The experts say Bentley isn’t a lost cause: after all, he lets me touch him, clip his nails, mess with his mouth, touch his ears…. all of that shows he can trust people. It’ll just take time to build enough trust and to train him to relearn how he responds.