Day Five: Slow as You Go ...

It stormed all day so we spent most of it inside.

Ellie doesn't seem to mind the rain as much as Kane; if I can get him outside, she'll follow him without a problem. In fact, she liked to linger outside despite the bad weather, whereas Kane ran out, peed as quick as he could, and came running back. I was a little nervous about her reaction to the thunder, but she didn't mind that, either.

Clicker training is going ... okay. She's smart enough to understand it, I know that. When I look in her eyes there's a level of awareness in them that Kane didn't have until he was 7 months old, at least. She's watching and absorbing everything; I can see the gears turning in her head. But I think she needs to mature a tiny bit more and finish settling in before I can really work with her on it. I'm still doing multiple, short sessions every day, but right now she has the attention span of a gnat. :-) She's still good with the hand signal and will sit for it every time, but the verbal signal is at 50/50. Not really surprising when you think about it.

Kane and Ellie are doing great with each other. Kane has taken on the mantle of Older Brother and is giving Ellie corrections when she needs it. Earlier today, she was especially hyper (maybe because she actually almost slept all the way through the night!) and was ignoring my efforts to keep her butt on the ground and stop jumping against the expen. Kane quickly and efficiently took matters into his own hands (paws?) after one time too many of her making a racket next to where he was trying to sleep: he gave her a short, sharp corrective bark in her face. I'll tell you what, her butt hit the floor and she didn't try jumping again. He gave her warning signs before then, too; he turned his head to look at her, his ears went back, and he stiffened. As she gets older, she'll be better able to recognize those more subtle signals.

Tomorrow is her first vet appt with Dr. M. I'm expecting that to go smoothly; she'll be getting her second set of shots. Thank god, because parvo and canine flu is really bad in my area this year.

Day Four: What a Bust ...

My plans for today were simple. I was going to get gas at Wood's, then head in to East Lansing and do some people watching with Ellie along Grand River. She would meet 4395345 million college students who would coo and cuddle with her, she would see scooters and golf carts and bikers and rollerbladers and people dressed in hats and with backpacks and all kinds of stuff and that would be another check mark on her socialization to-do list.

It didn't quite work out that way.

I got gas, Ellie met two new attendants at Woods, and then off we went to East Lansing.

Day Three: Out and About

Today was Ellie's first day on the town. :-)

I left Kane at home because I didn't want to deal with him on a leash and Ellie in my arms. He still has a tendency to pull to other dogs and I was planning to make the rounds at all the local pet stores (where I am referred to as "the owner of Kane—you know Kane, that pit bull I told you about who is so friendly and polite?").

Our first stop was at Wood's Marathon. This is an old-style, full service gas station and garage, where the attendants (all gruff old men or young hunky dudes) come out and clean your windows for you while you pump your gas. They're very dog-friendly, allowing dogs on leash inside the small room where they have the register and the pop coolers, and they have a big old container full of milkbones they hand out freely and slightly excessively. :-)

Kane is very popular there, even with the owner who was bitten by a pit bull when he was a kid and has slowly graduated from giving me the treats to give to Kane, to giving Kane the treats out of his own hand. There's a younger guy, maybe a few years older than me, who apparently had pits while he lived in Texas and absolutely adores Kane; he's constantly offering me money to buy Kane off my hands, joking around, knowing I'll never sell Kane for any amount of money in the world. I have to watch him when he has the container of milbones because when I haven't he's given Kane almost half the container! Luckily, Kane has a fast metabolism and has maintained his svelte figure. ;-)

As you can imagine, the sight of a fluffy girly puppy had all the big tough men melting to pieces around Ellie.