Xena came to a carwash with me on Sunday and was great with everyone coming up to her . She won't usually approach a stranger on her own, but doesn't mind people coming to give her a scratch. Unless they have barky little dogs and then she cowers! Its fairly funny watching a bigger, black female with intense eyes cower from a chihuahua.
She'll take gentle petting, is quick to lean into someone, and genuinely looks happy. She's come a long way from the ball of stress that came two and a bit weeks ago. She's also playing a little at daycare with very submissive dogs (including Beckett's #2 girlfriend Piper the Border Collie Mix). ---Beckett's #1 girlfriend is Citta, a purebred, unspayed german sheppard :P
She loves to play with toys (usually in her own little corner, being 'Xena World'). Her transition to happy house pet is pretty much complete! Oh, and Deb pulled me out with her to agility last night for confidence building. She's not usually food motivated at home, but you get the hotdogs or Meshum's leftover steak pieces out and suddenly she's quite keen to do anything. So we did some jumps. Slightly terrified at first, but after a dozen jumps she kind of went 'okay, this is boring, I've done this before, let's do something else?' So we tried the dog-walk a few times -at the pace of a snail-, with hotdogs moving her forward and called it a night.
Although I doubt she'll ever be an agility star, there is something about agility that brings shy dogs out of their comfort zones. Xena really became a more outgoing girl, if even just for the hour and a half. Even if you don't want to compete, I would definitely recommend taking a course (just not with a mostly-blind dog like Beckett:P) as it improves relationship, trust, builds confidence, and brings out focus.
Just be patient -do everything on a leash if need be (what I've done so far with the fosters) and remember that every little step forward is indeed a step forward.
In other exciting news: Xena has a prospective home!!! She's passed cats101 (although will still need to be monitored at all times with any new pet -dog or cat-) to allow time to run its course. My fingers are crossed for you big girl.
Pics of Xena in the backyard, and in her 'chair'.
Toast has also come a really long ways -more than I thought she would in a lot of ways. She's becoming more and more terrier and more and more happy the longer she's in foster care. However, Toast is experiencing a small downside as well. The more outgoing she's becoming, the more clingy she's becoming too and she's developing a bit of seperation anxiety. She's had it since she's gotten here, but over the last few days its been getting worse -to the point where I went to go get groceries for maybe 30 minutes and came back to her barking her head off (whereas before she would usually just whine for 15-20 minutes and settle). So, all things in balance. I can't make Toast super outgoing while at the same time making her unable to deal without having a person around. I mean, there are families that are around most of the time, but there's things called: groceries, the odd supper out, movie night, etc, that she's going to have to learn to deal with, even with the most 'at home' family.
********* This is where my situation somewhat fails. Foster dogs get to hang with me most of the time, since they come to work with me, hang in the yard with me, I bring work home and have to stay home with those dogs, so they get used to having a person around almost all of the time. (If I have work dogs, I don't do dinners out, movies, etc) So, for current and future foster dogs, I'm hoping to come up with a solution where a few hours, at least a couple times a week, they're without me. Whether that be at another caregivers, or finding some volunteers to walk them, or just practicing that they need to be inside on their own while I read a book outside, I will make sure I give them ample opportunity to become 'okay' on their own (or at the most, with another dog or two). This way they have the time on their own, but I'm closeby if I have to shut down any barking, etc.
As the motto in agility goes. "Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results." So I will try to make her more outgoing -or at least the same amount she is now, cause she's at a pretty good level now-, but try to minimize her neediness.
So I've taken the new approach of basically ignoring Toast at almost all times. Tough love, but the more she's shown she doesn't need me to function, the less the seperation anxiety will be -hopefully. Seperation anxiety is a tricky beast to deal with, but I hope we can stop it at the whining stage as that's a liveable stage that most dogs have. 15-20 minutes is normal for dogs to be antsy at. The dogs upstairs have a 10 minute mini-fit when they're people go away and then are quiet the rest of the time.
Its difficult with a rental situation where we have people living above us, to work on it as much as possible, but we'll do all thats possible for the situation. The hardest part with Toast is that she's completely crate-trained while anyone is indoors (even if she's in a different room). She'll zonk out there for a midday nap and we've taken to have her sleep and eat in there so she doesn't steal Beckett's food! Baby steps. Either way, its minimal at this stage, and is secondary to her being happy 99% of the time. I'm pretty sure she'd like a family that was around most of the time though, or at least had another couple of dogs to hang around with while they were out. The whining might not go away, but I'm determined (and damn near sure) that it won't go beyond that point again.
Funnily enough, she's fine in the car on her own. Go figure -but its getting too hot in the midday to bring her in the car!
Regardless of the little flaws, Toast is also nearing the tail end of foster-boot camp. She's a good housepet, isn't so shy anymore. She freaks for all of 10 seconds, then realizing nothing is after her is right up in people's faces trying to lick them to death. How we get the initial ten seconds out, I've yet to discover, but I'll take ten seconds of stupid terrier for all the good things afterwards. Now its just time for her to find a family that's willing to keep up her confidence building.
Profile
On the hunt for the ball
And a small video of Toast learning to play fetch. Unfortunately blogger is being ridiculous and not letting me load it, so please follow the link :)
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150217379103671&saved
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