Day 18 (09/28/17): weight, awesome visit to Miki's, visit by Kiem & Leo

I stopped by the vet clinic to weigh Terra. She was 47.5 lbs, which meant that she was finally gaining weight! She loved on a few vet techs. She really likes it there, as it's been almost 100% positive experiences so far.

We drove down to Berkeley to visit my long time friend Miki. I didn't take any pictures as it was constant activity, but Terra did SO GOOD! She was willing to walk around and explore the entire space on her own. Miki had her nine month old son, 2 huge long-haired cats, and 3 dogs meandering around. Terra did great with the kiddo. She really wanted to lick his face (with a loose wagging tail), but we had to keep interrupting because he didn't like it. At one point Miki put him into his play pen and left the room, and he got upset and cried. Terra tried to put her face through the bars to lick him again, wagging her tail happily the whole time. So cute. She didn't react at all negatively when he was in Miki's arms and cried or laughed. (He was sick, so there was more crying happening than usual.) She learned that she could forage for pieces of banana by his high chair. She tried to eat banana out of his hand - gotta work hard on anti-mugging training since she'll constantly by at people's hand level soon enough.

With the kitties, she was calm and also licked their heads, though more tentatively. She met a dog walker who came by for one of the 3, and immediately liked her since she did all the right things. (Got down low, didn't reach for Terra, talked softly to her, etc.)

Terra was least comfortable with the other dogs. She was fine sharing space with the two that just ignored her after the initial greeting, and would ignore them in turn. But one dog wouldn't stop sniffing her privates. She gave multiple polite cut-off signals: pinning ears, tucking tail, sitting down, looking away, walking away. The other dog still wouldn't leave her alone, so we had to put him away.

She peed after we'd been there for an hour, right as in the back of my mind I was thinking that I should take her outside, but I was in the middle of a conversation...

Miki gave us the beautiful Paco Collar that had belonged to her Great Pyrenese, as her husband does not want to have any more giant breeds. The pattern on the collar happens to be the exact one that I would have purchased if I were pick a Paco for her - a rainbow Hoshi. Thank you, Miki. <3

Click to see a bigger version pop up!

In the evening, Kiem dropped by. Terra was eating in the kitchen when I opened the door. Initially she spooked and retreated from the person at the door, but when Kiem called to her and reached out with a treat through the baby gate, Terra cautiously approached. She ate a few treats, and her tail came out and her body relaxed. When Kiem entered and sat down, she was now comfortable.

After a while we brought in Leo. As usual, Terra initially fled, but soon was back and ignored him after butt sniffs.