Six Months With Hannah

We've had this dog for half a year and it's really hard to remember what it was like in our house before we had her.  She's truly a delight.

Zelda the Cat has been sick and Hannah has shown how truly compassionate she is by trying to take care of her kitty. Zelda doesn't necessarily appreciate this care, but the two have settled into a truce of some sort that allows me to take all kinds of adorable pictures of the two of them coexisting. Zelda seems to have turned a corner in the last week and is now back to her full meowing, kitty zoomies, cuddly self. I am forever grateful that we have our ZZTop back in fighting shape.

They both love the mudroom with its sunny spots.

They can both get on board that it's time to remind the humans about dinnertime.

Things Hannah definitely knows how to do:
1) Sit
2) Stay
3) Down
4) Loose leash walk
5) Twirl (clockwise and counterclockwise)
6) Spin on an overturned bucket (clockwise and counterclockwise)
7) Stand (on command from a sit or down)
8) Mitt (lifts paws that we touch as we say the command word)



Things Hannah is working on very hard:
1) Go to bed (she'll go to her bed if we're in the room with her, but not if we're in a different room)
2) Leave it (she does it most of the time...she's not 100% yet, though)
3) Back up (we can do it against a wall, but not out in the open)
4) Come (she's really good with me, even outside or at the dog park, but not with Dr. BB)
5) Go to "place" (the overturned bucket - just like with "bed," she'll go there if we're in the same room as the bucket, but not if she's in a different room than the bucket)

I think I'm going to sign her up for a continuing basic obedience class that starts in January, so hopefully we'll start learning new skills.  (I purposefully said "we'll" learn new skills because these classes are definitely more about training the people than the dogs.) The class is on Tuesdays, which is also the day she goes to doggy daycare, so I don't know if that's going to work well, but I'm going to try.

In the meantime, here are some highlights of the dog's last month.

She doesn't care about the Christmas tree. She just ignores it. That's the best possible outcome, as far as I'm concerned.

She wanted me to stop "working" and start petting her.

In the last week, Dr. BB has had to come pick us up twice. The first time was from the groomer's office. The groomer is about half a mile away and we have always walked there. This time, though, Hannah refused to sit on the table to get dried, so she was a wet dog. It was quite cold, so we called Dr. BB to come get us.  The dog was wet all afternoon.

The second time Hannah and I were two blocks from our house during our evening walk when she began limping and licking her foot. Dr. BB came to get us (in a car! two blocks!). When we got home, she jumped out of the car, ran inside with no visible limp, and proffered her paw for examination (she knows the command "mitt," after all) like it was no big deal. You guys, the dog outsmarted me. She played me. She got a car ride, lots of attention, and extra treats for a fake injury.

We've been going to the dog park two or three times a week. We had one bad experience when a dog Hannah had just been playing with BIT A MAN'S LEG right in front of us, but I was able to call Hannah to my side, clip her leash on, and get her out of the mess before she was traumatized at all. (It was a big deal. The sheriff sent a squad car. They took all our names. It. Was Not. Good.)

We spent the holidays in Iowa. It was a bit of a mixed bag. On the good side, Hannah was GREAT on the car ride and GREAT with all kids. On Monday afternoon when we arrived, she let the kids throw the ball and she was chasing it and allowing them to tear the ball out of her mouth (I almost had a heart attack!), but she was patient and sweet with them. Even the family with the most erratic behaving children enjoyed giving her pets and she was an absolute angel with everyone we met. I could see one of my sister-in-law's wavering on her "no dog" stance because Hannah was so sweet and well-behaved. On Christmas Day we took her for a walk to the park because it was absolutely beautiful (sunny and in the high 50s - unheard of for late December). A little boy saw Hannah and yelled "PUPPY TIME" and when we asked him if he wanted to pet her, he came right up to her and hugged her. My heart nearly melted to the ground.

But there were some definite negatives. When we asked Dr. BB's father if we could bring Hannah, he said yes. But then he told us when we got there that we could set up her kennel in the garage and leave her there. Uhhh...no?  So.  We stayed with Dr. BB's brother and his family and she was pretty good. She peed on their carpet* and whined all night long, neither behaviors that she has EVER done at home.  But she generally was a good girl with their dog and their son (10 year old boy who is super good with her, too).

But we ended up leaving early because I didn't want her to be left alone at someone else's house again if she was crying and upset in her kennel. It seems like a good way to develop separation anxiety AND create fear of her kennel.  I also didn't want her to be stuck in a kennel in someone's garage. I was kind of mad at my father-in-law for saying we could bring her and then assuming that meant we'd be cool with her being AWAY from us. If I'd known we couldn't actually bring her in the house, we would have just boarded her.  ANYWAY, we know now.  Also, they're probably not going to see me very often in Iowa.

But, she's a true delight.  Six months feels like a very short and very long time with the dog, but she's so much fun and I love having her around.

*My charitable thoughts on this are:
1) We didn't give her enough opportunities to empty her bladder.
2) She's never seen carpet before (we don't have any in our house, although we have rugs) and she thought the deep pile was like grass.
3) She was nervous and as soon as she felt safe, she emptied her bladder.

My uncharitable thoughts are:
1) How embarrassing.
2) How mortifying.
3) Have we broken our dog?