The new addition

Those who know me know that I wasn’t going to get another dog for at least a couple of years. Jed has finally settled into a somewhat civilised creature (most of the time), and I was enjoying the dogs being a bit older.

And then this came along…

About 6 months old (ish) from Many Tears. I was in Swansea on Thursday at the end of May, and then popped up to MT afterwards and Natalie showed me round. We got this cute little puppy out, and played with her in one of the exercise areas, and she ran around with a tennis ball, and didn’t want to be caught.

I thought about her all the way home, all night, and the next day. We picked her up on Saturday. I don’t know why I wanted her, there was just something about her that I fell in love with. She gets on well with all the dogs, she has excellent dog greeting skills and loves playing. She also loves people although at the moment she is quite submissive when she first greets you. Jed actually likes her (an achievement in itself). In fact she and Jed are best buddies. Scandal plays with her too and is very tolerant of her, even letting her take toys out her mouth. My biggest thing was I wanted Scandal to get on with her, Scandal is very much my princess (and she knows it). Scandal now thinks her name is ‘Puppy’ as everytime I say it she flies back as she knows she can get a treat.

So, the puppy is a blank canvas, found wandering the streets of Ireland, and taken to the pound. We know nothing of her history, but some of her behaviours give us some clues as to what she has done as a puppy... i.e. been feral. When we first got her she doesn’t really acknowledge my existence for 99% of the time… and no matter what silly voices I use made a difference. Meanwhile I had the other 5 dogs glued to me all wanting a treat lol. She has definitely got a stubborn streak which she uses when she doesn’t want to do something… e.g. be put on a lead, go in her crate, come back (even when on her flexi lead… if she doesn’t want to come back she just flops down in the grass and refuses to move). I have been hand feeding all her meals, and asking her to do easy things in order to earn them (mainly come back when called). She is a very happy little dog, and is coming out of her shell more each day. Actually in the first week she had doubled in confidence and is getting more crazy each day. She is also very bright and from the little bits of training I have done with her she now offers ‘sit’, and is getting there with left, right, hand touch, jump into her bed, into the cage (she HATED the cage when we got her), paws on wobble cushion (unfortunately I have managed to pair this with ‘bite the wobble cushion’). She (like most puppies) had no manners when it comes to going through gates – all our other dogs wait fairly politely to go through it, but Puppy throws herself at it screaming. She also tries to prop herself up using Scandal’s face in order to try and get closer to me at feeding time… luckily Scandal is being very tolerant :-)

She loves toys, particularly balls. At Thames she took great delight in selecting the tennis ball from a trade stand and tried to run off with it. When she first found Scandal’s gym ball under the table there was much barking to try and make it move. She also thinks the wobble cushion is a great toy and proudly picks it up and carries it round with her, which I am trying to discourage (mainly because as soon as Scandal sees it she wants to stand on it). She was a bit scared of cars but just backed off a couple of steps then came forward again, and now she can carry on tugging or waiting for a treat rather than backing off. Loud bangs and thunder don't seem to phase her in the slightest, which is a big relief as Scandal doesn't care either, and I like it that they are both cool with it :-)

So that sums up our first month with her. A couple of weeks after we got her I had her pet passported so she could come to Denmark with us for Dania Cup. I will do a separate post on Dania soon :-)