Terra was in her crate and the bedroom door was closed when the dog's owners arrived, as I wasn't sure if they had brought their dog to the front door or left her in the car. This worked out great because Terra heard them come in but it was a less intense moment. The dog was in the car, so I had the owners bring her supplies in, and when I brought the crate into the bedroom Terra was excited and wanted to come out. She immediately approached the owners, did mildly tentative sniffing, then got some petting but wasn't quite as into it as she has been other times. I bet if they had given her treats she would have felt even more friendly and wanted more petting afterwards, as that's what's happened before. As it was, she just settled down on the floor after a moment, but was nice and relaxed.
She had to spend more time in the crate than usual for the afternoon and early evening, and boy did she give me an earful. When she was having diarrhea, she learned that she could wake me up by whining and/or barking and I would take her out. That was useful then, but now she needs to UNlearn it. She quiets down quickly if I am outside of the house (as when I walked the boarding dog around the orchard), but when I'm home she thinks that the barking will work for her.
I gave her a frozen kong I'd made with Honest Kitchen and a "seal" of peanut butter. She loves the PB but only bothered to get part of the HK out. It's not so interesting since she gets it all the time. I have a few more kongs in the freezer but next time I'll put more unusual things in them - I didn't want to go wild at the beginning since I was still nervous about her tummy. Fortunately all has been well on that front. It seems like the roundworms really were the problem (probably combined with stress), and not the food change by itself.
We played tug and she was pulling hard until some blood appeared on the toy and she switched to just regripping and chewing on it. I hope I find her baby teeth! Cai swallowed all of his except one.
We did mat shaping again, and this time I had Cai in the room lying on his mat. He did perfectly; he didn't get up even once. I also had her follow the target stick around my body, to introduce the concept of following the target to learn another behavior (ie, right finish, or circling around)
She tried to play with Cai while they were outside together. She barked and pawed at him. He usually hates this and corrects strongly, but he seems to have formed an attachment to her and only gave half-hearted corrections, and didn't bother moving away from her when she stopped. A few times he even jumped toward her head with his front paws up, which was a play move. I was quite surprised.
We took a walk around the front of the house with Terra on a long line and deciding where to go (as long as she didn't try to eat goat or cat poop). She saw the goats, chickens, and cats. She was mostly relaxed and curious. She just got spooked when the rooster flew up into a tree, making loud ungainly flapping noises, and when one of the goats lowered her head and took a few steps forward in a clear threat display (which she never follows up on).
She pooped while we were out. So far Terra has pooped on asphalt, gravel, wood chips, and grass. No weird substrate preferences here!
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| Spoiled puppy. |
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| What a goof. |
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| No idea how her ears turned into corkscrews. |
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| Growing! |
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| She loves this rubbery toy. |
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