three puppy tuesday
So, we really did it. We brought her home.
She came home on Sunday. Graham and Molly met her briefly a few weeks ago, but we decided that it would be best to have a longer "getting to know you" period before we brought her into the house, so we spent a great deal of the afternoon in the backyard.
Her personality is different than our other two - she's very sweet, but has tons of energy and just kind of explodes with joy. She's only lived here two days and she will stand at the bottom of the patio steps and coo at me if I don't come into the backyard with them. You can't not love her.
Graham is thrilled to pieces to have someone else to play with, especially since Molly's been lethargic the past few weeks as she has gone through treatment. He'll bring Sofie a toy, she'll steal it from him and then growl and bark at him if he tries to take it back. Lots of tails wagging. Molly is taking a little more time to warm up to her, but I think that's in part to how she is feeling on her medicine. I'm hoping that she will become more playful as we wean her off of it.
Sofie's got a little bit of the "raised by wolves" that Molly had in her when she came home - mostly because she's spent most of her life around dogs, not people. So we're already working on teaching her how to live in a house - like not climbing up on the dining room chair (and then table) to get the extra-delicious-smelling sandwich that someone just left there. We learned very quickly that "housebroken" just meant that she is used to going to the bathroom outside, probably because she mainly lived outside. And since she isn't used to living in a house, she doesn't really know the difference between things like "carpet" and "grass." But I think the learning curve for her will be steep - just like our other two, she obviously wants to listen and please us. Sometimes the crazy comes out and overtakes that, but it's an adjustment for her too, and she's trying.
For some reason, I'm much calmer about it this time around. Maybe it's because she's not a puppy so we don't have to let her out every 2 hours on the button or her bladder will explode. Maybe it's because we've been through the bringing-a-dog-home thing twice, and I know that it will be stressful for about 2-3 weeks and then it will be fine. Or maybe it's just because I know how much it's worth it.
She came home on Sunday. Graham and Molly met her briefly a few weeks ago, but we decided that it would be best to have a longer "getting to know you" period before we brought her into the house, so we spent a great deal of the afternoon in the backyard.
Her personality is different than our other two - she's very sweet, but has tons of energy and just kind of explodes with joy. She's only lived here two days and she will stand at the bottom of the patio steps and coo at me if I don't come into the backyard with them. You can't not love her.
Graham is thrilled to pieces to have someone else to play with, especially since Molly's been lethargic the past few weeks as she has gone through treatment. He'll bring Sofie a toy, she'll steal it from him and then growl and bark at him if he tries to take it back. Lots of tails wagging. Molly is taking a little more time to warm up to her, but I think that's in part to how she is feeling on her medicine. I'm hoping that she will become more playful as we wean her off of it.
Sofie's got a little bit of the "raised by wolves" that Molly had in her when she came home - mostly because she's spent most of her life around dogs, not people. So we're already working on teaching her how to live in a house - like not climbing up on the dining room chair (and then table) to get the extra-delicious-smelling sandwich that someone just left there. We learned very quickly that "housebroken" just meant that she is used to going to the bathroom outside, probably because she mainly lived outside. And since she isn't used to living in a house, she doesn't really know the difference between things like "carpet" and "grass." But I think the learning curve for her will be steep - just like our other two, she obviously wants to listen and please us. Sometimes the crazy comes out and overtakes that, but it's an adjustment for her too, and she's trying.
For some reason, I'm much calmer about it this time around. Maybe it's because she's not a puppy so we don't have to let her out every 2 hours on the button or her bladder will explode. Maybe it's because we've been through the bringing-a-dog-home thing twice, and I know that it will be stressful for about 2-3 weeks and then it will be fine. Or maybe it's just because I know how much it's worth it.