Two Months with Hannah

My girl Hannah has been with use for two months.  She's been on an elimination diet for most of the last month and that has settled her stomach, although she's still pretty itchy and scratchy.  She's lost some weight and we're trying to figure out exactly how much food she should eat every day.  But beyond these health woes, she is such a good girl.

She spends most of her day laying in front of a window in our living room. She gets up regularly to look out that window to watch the bird feeder we have out that window. The feeder is filled with nyger seed and there are almost always anywhere from two to a couple of dozen goldfinches hanging around the feeder. We also get doves pecking the ground under the feeder and an occasional other finch (rose, house).  There's also chipmunks, rabbits, and squirrels. She just watches and wags her tail.

She loves to go to car rides. When we're going somewhere, I open the backdoor and she runs right over to the garage and waits impatiently for me to open the tailgate so she can jump right in to the car. It's the only time she's unleashed and she knows it means that she's going on an adventure. I try to do an adventure with her at least once every three days, even if that adventure is just going to the groomer to get a bath and nail trim. 

Speaking of the groomer, she's been going regularly. She still hates the bath, but she just sits there and shivers and looks at you as if you have betrayed her mightily.  She really hates being dried and will just lean her whole body on me and shakes and shakes as the groomer blows her fur.  She doesn't fight going to the groomer, though, and seems to know that we're doing it for her own good.

She's a different dog to walk at night. During the day, she's a confident girl, tail up and wagging, showing interest in unusual events and sights, but generally able to settle when she sees that I'm cool. But at night, she's on HIGH ALERT.  Every noise makes her jump.  She'll growl (!) if a person surprises her by appearing on the sidewalk near her. She pulls on her leash like a crazy dog. So I think she just doesn't trust me yet to protect her when it's dark out.  I've reduced the number of times we go out after dark and will slowly build that back up.

We took her to a doggy daycare place for the first time. She loves to play with other dogs and I want her to get used to being away from Dr. BB and I sometimes. I am not going to lie to you - I almost cried when I left her there because she just stood at the fence and looked at me like I was never coming to get her. Oh, baby girl, I will never leave you.

We're also doing Canine Good Citizenship classes.  We did our first class last Monday.  I don't know if Hannah will be able to pass the test after the class, but she did a GREAT job on the first day. She can sit with a hand gesture and verbal cue, can go down with a gesture (we're working on a verbal cue), and can definitely watch me while we do loose leash walking for up to about ten steps.  She can be distracted most of the time with my excitement and treats*. She allowed a couple of children to pet her and everyone could touch her feet and ears.  So far, so good.

I'm a bit nervous about the requirements of the CGC test for her to be away from me. Hannah is a Velcro dog. She doesn't have separation anxiety, which is to say she goes into her kennel at night without a problem and doesn't compulsively whine when I'm gone at work and she's with Dr. BB, but because Dr. BB can't help with Hannah much (and hasn't for the last month), she's basically my dog and my responsibility and she wants to be with me.  She'll listen to Dr. BB when he gives her a command, but she looks to me for approval.  So there's a component of the test in which the dog has to stay in sit or down at a distance of 20 feet or so and I...I guess we really need to work on that because I've only ever been able to get her to stay about three steps away. There's also a component in which you basically hand your dog over to a stranger for three minutes and you leave the room and the dog has to be chill. I don't think Hannah will ever be chill. I also don't know how to work on this because it's not like I'm literally going to hand Hannah off to a stranger!

Anyway, it's only week one and we have months to go, so there will be more progress reports on her classes in future months.


And that's it for now. There's a general rule of thumb of 3s when you rescue a dog. Big changes happen at 3 days, 3 week, and 3 months. I'm interested to see how different a dog she is in another month. Presumably we'll have her food under control (fingers crossed!) and her weight will be stable. But will she be able to hold a stay command for farther than twelve inches?  Stay tuned!

*Our class is in the evening, so her "treats" are really just pieces of kibble.  She has to earn her dinner.