I hope you all with new dogs keep posting -- progress, photos, problems, antics, personalities as they start coming through.
With the nasty stuff going on around us, these adoptions are a bright spot. We'd love to follow along with "Day in the Life of ... "
I don't want to steal Mia's thunder, but here's a quick update.
Gypsy was definitely Phil's pick, although I liked her, she wasn't automatically my soul mate dog, until she was home about a day. Now she's my dog, through and through. In fact, she's snuggled up next to me on the love seat as I type this.
On eating habits:
After we got her own dog food (from advice from Andy, Kevin and Bob in the Dog Nutrition thread) she started eating regularly and her digestive system settled down.
On walks:
We live one block away from a great trail system to walk or hike.
We started taking her on a routine walk on leash. We practiced stopping at corners and waiting to cross the street. On the third day we got to the trail head and let her off leash to see how she'd do. She got super excited about having more freedom to explore but stayed pretty close and came when we called. I tried a whistle but that didn't work. Calling her name does. Even when she encounters other dogs on the walk, she comes when we call. Still put her back on leash when we got back to the neighborhood.
Yesterday we let her start through the neighborhood off leash and she did pretty well but we had to reinforce stopping at the curb before crossing the street. (she forgets
)
On other dogs:
While on walks, she greets other dogs very friendly, sniffs and wags her tail, then comes when we call her to keep following.
We've had the Minks bring their dogs over a few times. She started out snarly, like she wanted to protect her new home, but she figured it out and is playing pretty well with them, with the exception of protecting her "one" toy.
We're working on that.
Tennis balls: She didn't play with the tennis ball at all, but Mink's dogs love to chase the ball, so we've been playing with them. For the first time last night, she paid attention to the ball and got protective of it with Tule, but we reinforced sharing. Its everyone's ball.
She mastered coming in the dog door pretty quickly, but for some reason we can't get her to go out the dog door without us coaxing her. She'll learn.
She is a really good dog, and a wonderful addition to our home. Really, the only thing we need to work with her on is continuing to socialize with other dogs on her turf.
