Monday, January 29, 2007

A car ride and an adoption day event.

I was at the shelter on Saturday morning for an Eagle Scout project and when I was finishing up, Linda was getting her stuff ready to go to do her adoption day at Tomlinson's. I figured it couldn't hurt to see how Sandy does in a car, so I went home and took her for a run and while she was cooling down, I showered. I put the Gentle Leader collar back on her and took her out and tried to get her to jump up into the back of the SUV, but no go. She cowered at the end of the leash and I had to lift her up and put her in there. She seemed fine once I closed the hatch and looked at me over the seats while I drove. She seemed to enjoy looking out the back window of the vehicle while we were traveling. We didn't have any car sickness, which is very nice.

We showed up over at Tomlinson's and I walked Sandy over to where Linda and her volunteer were sitting with Aragon and Gizmo and Linda didn't recognize me at first. I pulled up the spare chair and said hello. Sandy was still wearing her Premier collar, and she was behaving very nicely. We chatted a few minutes and Sandy and Aragon sniffed at each other with no one getting upset. I walked Sandy into the store and she didn't seem too concerned. She didn't try to pull me along and run around the store, but she also didn't shy away from going through the doorway which has been a habit of hers (except the front/back door at home). We looked around a little bit and went back outside to hang out. I put a leash on her regular collar and let the dogs visit while I did. Things seemed to go fairly smoothly and Sandy pretty much sat there or tried to get the other dogs to play. She was nice to a few people that walked by and let them pet her. She did bark a little at a family carrying a small Papillon mix. I am not sure if she was barking at the dog or the little boy. I took her over the grass and since she was on a leash with her regular collar, she tried to pull her way to the places she wanted to go. She didn't seem to need a bathroom break, so I took her back over to visit. We stayed for about an hour and then it was time to put her walking collar/leash back on. She wasn't too interested in getting back into the Gentle Leader since she already had a leash on, but I put it on her and walked her over to the car and had to scoop her up to put her in. The ride home was uneventful.

My insights from all this:
1) Sandy does fine travelling in a car, though I don't know specifically about a car since I had her in the back section of the SUV behind the rear seats.
2) Sandy doesn't want to get into the car.
3) Sandy is fine at an adoption day at a smaller/less busy venue, especially outdoors where she is least afraid of being "trapped".

Friday, January 26, 2007

Two weeks and some incremental progress

Nothing huge to report, just a few things ruminating around in my mind so I thought I would knock them out. Walks seem to be going okay. Sandy loves to go for a walk. She starts to do her happy dance whenever she sees me put on shoes or a jacket. She doesn't come right over to get the Premier collar around her snout, but it is going quicker each time. She realizes that she has to have it on to get to go out and she calms down to put it on. I have switched to a shorter leash and that in combination with the Premier collar has the pulling down to a minimum. I was hoping that Sandy would just end up by my side but that isn't how things work and I know it. I have taken her for a run the past 2 evenings/nights for a mile plus and she loves it, but with her leading me slightly, she is a hazard. I did have better luck with my run with her yesterday at steering her a bit more with the leash and give her a few gentle tugs so that she fell in step beside me for most of the second half of the run. I would like to take her out to a trail (there is a nice one at Brushy Creek Park, kind of like Town Lake) and see how we do. This weekend I need to put some concerted effort at consistently getting her to heel when walking and making her stay by my side where I want her instead of leading out in front at just the distance she can go without pulling too hard.

Sandy seems to be coming over to Ben more. It is a slight improvement, but not the success we want to see. She is coming over for a pet when I am not sitting beside him, but she is just as likely to run away at the last second. I took Sandy for a run yesterday and we ran a loop over to Brett's house and I tried to get Sandy to come up to Susan, but she didn't want to approach the front door. I don't think it was Susan per se, just the doorway but I didn't get Susan to come out into the yard to test that more. Ben and I walked home the 1/2 mile and Ben took the leash, but Sandy pretty much tried to just keep pace with me and wasn't interested in Ben being in control.

On the toy front, Sandy seems to play by tossing stuff around. Nothing has been hurt by this, but I thought it odd earlier in the week when I came home after work and found a rawhide knot on the couch. I looked to see if the couch had any hair on it as a sign that Sandy had decided to get up there, but didn't see any. This morning, I found a section of a chew thing that I gave her yesterday when I left for work on the shelf in the entertainment center. From what I have seen her doing with stones in the yard and what April told me about how she played with her blue toy outside at the shelter, I can only surmise that she was carrying these things around and tossed them up and they landed somewhere she couldn't/wouldn't get them.

One last thing, Sandy had muddy feet again last night. I need to go check in the yard to see if she was digging at anything. I picked her up and carried her to the bathtub (for the second time this week) in the guest bath and she started to try to get away when I rounded the corner in the back hall (she doesn't head down that way on her own). She definitely doesn't like the tub. I find that strange since she gets into the pond in the backyard to pick up stones to play with (I put about 7 back yesterday) and she doesn't dislike water. My thinking on this is that I know she is scared of being in an enclosed room and she really doesn't seems to hate the fact that she can't get a good grip on the porcelain surface. I need to put a rubber bath mat down the next time I have to wash here feet in the tub.

Monday, January 22, 2007

People dynamics and other behaviors

The point of this blog is really for behavioral observation and not a daily/weekly chronicle. I have noticed a couple of things on the socialization front.
  1. Sandy has really taken to me. When I come in from being gone (for the day or on an errand), she does this excited dance. It definitely reminds me that Monica said she is kind of a spaz. She is very excited and spins around in circles and kind of hangs her head a bit sideways with her tongue hanging out and wagging her tail. If I sit down on the floor, she will come up and lick me and seek petting and circle around. She likes to mouth my hand a little but no biting. If I don't sit or bend down, she jumps up on me in her excitement. I need to stop this behavior.
  2. Ben had a buddy of his over and Sandy shied away from him also. She was fine with Lori the several times she has been over and will follow Lori around the house or come to her. She was fine with Susan when she came over to pickup Brett one day after school. She let my neighbor Deborah pet her on one of our daily walks. So far, she is not so hot with males and fine with females.
  3. Sandy is starting to get more comfortable with Ben. Today she has come over to him a few times to let him pet her when I was not right next to him. She still ran away on several occasions that he wanted to pet her, but she was better. She even let him put her Premier collar on her twice today for me to take her for walks.
On the pulling at the leash front, I have started using a Premier collar with her on walks based on advice I got at the shelter on Saturday and it does wonders. I tried a Halti and a Premier and I seemed to be able to fit the Premier better. She doesn't love having the loop around her mouth, but she does put it on and it does make controlling her so much easier. I have started doing a bit of having her heel when we walk and I need to do it a lot more. I also tried a little jogging with her, but she tends to bump into me and I need to work on getting her into the right position. With the new collar, I think we can make good progress.

Overall, I am pleased with the improvement that she is making with Ben and the improvement in control with the new collar. I need to schedule some time to start getting more people around her to bump up the socialization level.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Sandy's first week

The stories of the first week were weather and Ben. Weather and schedule worked out such that I only left Sandy home alone on her 2nd day here during the first week. Her first day at home, I had a dentist appointment and the cleaning lady was coming in the afternoon and so I chose to work from home. Sandy got a little more bold and came out of the front hall. Friday I went to work and left lots of toys and chew things and treats and hoped all day that Sandy would keep herself occupied with her stuff and not mine. The weekend brought 5 days of dynamic weather.

The weekend was stormy and wet. Sandy seemed unalarmed by the rain and thunder and wonderfully seemed to be fine with going out into the rain to do her business in the backyard and when the rain was light, she was fine out playing in the rain. Sandy discovered the small pond/fountain in the backyard and started dipping her feet in at the edge and pulling out river rocks to throw around and play with. Coming in from the rain presented a challenge since she was warming to me but was still a bit standoffish, but after a few times, she understood that she needed to come in and stop on the towel and have herself dried off. The rain was followed by the arctic weather that hit Austin on Monday. The morning TV was covering it as "Ice Storm 07". All you could get on TV was the news that the weather was turning freezing and that rain on the ground was turning to ice. Well, it did. We had 3 days of business/road closures. I worked from home and Ben was home as school was closed. Again, Sandy proved her hardiness by continual going out in the back to chase squirrels and birds. She was content to lay in the icy grass and watch for the squirrel to return or to throw her pond rocks around.

With all the extra time home, Sandy became less fearful and started walking around the house some. It wasn't until Saturday morning that she would even dare to enter the back hall of the house and still she doesn't go anyware but my room. Ben tried to help with socializing Sandy. She is very timid and won't come to him and actually flees from him at times. I told Ben to give Sandy a treat (a meat scrap) and pet her when she came to him to take it from him and praise her and repeat 4-5 times a day for multiple days and then start only giving treats every other time she came to him (sometimes just give praise). Well, Sandy wouldn't come to him. If he tossed her a little piece of meat and then held out the rest, she would come and accept a pet. This didn't sit well with Ben and he only persisted 2 days.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Sandy - the first foster - coming home




On Wed (1/10), Ben and I brought home Sandy. Monica had told me she was kind of a spaz and needed socialization and to learn not to pull on the leash. I had walked Sandy at the shelter the previous Sunday and she seemed to be fine with me and she did pull on the leash. Taking her into the office was another story. There, her shy side showed through. This should have been a tipoff.

Ben and I went after school to pickup Sandy. April gave us some food, her metal food bowl (with a warning that she would chew up the plastic ones), a large dog bed and a leash. We took her out to the car to load her in the crate and after a bit of nervous peeing when I bent down to pick her up to put her in the crate, she was loaded and off we went. The plan was to take her through the backyard and into the house. By doing this, she could see the backyard where she needed to go out and then go into the house, but after a few aborted attempts, she came in the front door. And that is where she stayed most of the first evening (the front entry hall).