Counter surfing and a churning brain

Lila is a pretty agile little girl. She likes to jump onto a crate I have in my kitchen and use it to jump onto the kitchen counter. Then this skilled little devil likes to open the cabinets and empty them. She is a generous friend though - she likes to share with others!

So on Sunday night she dumped all of the joint supplements for dogs I had in the cabinet on the floor. The other girls thought it was a free for all. They totally over-did it and spent the rest of the night vomiting, drinking water, and peeing. You can imagine what kind of night I had :-)

Note to self: tether 100% of the time and remember to close BOTH doors of the crate at night so she won't sneak out.

And just when I start to think bad thoughts about her, I realize that she is getting better. I was sitting on the couch watching TV last night with the girls and she walked within a foot of me and debated joining us. She circled around the couch over and over again - I could hear her tiny wheels turning. In the end, she decided not to join us but the fact that she even thought about it makes me think that we're making progress!

The Tale of the Tail

Well, it's been about a month and I do believe I finally saw a tail up and a slight wag. Now we're getting somewhere!

Lila's Rough Weekend

While you may think that a dog's life is easy, you really don't know Lila! On Saturday, I took her to my favorite doggie day care to get her spay sutures out, get her micro-chipped, and test her out in the playroom with other dogs to see how she'd do.

She was a great sport with the micro-chip and with the suture removal. Day care for an hour really stressed her out. She interacted with a few small dogs for just a couple of minutes and then crated herself. It was clear that we'd have to try this again another day. By the time she came out of day care, she was so exhausted that she allowed me to hold her and she almost closed her eyes.

Poor little thing... one day she'll realize just how much fun day care can be!

A New Day, A New Approach!

I've decided to change my whole approach with Lila. Now, when I am home, I tether her to me and make her come with me all over the house. When we pass by a crate she tries to go in and hide but she forgets that we are connected by a leash! The more I thought about it, the more I realized that by allowing her to avoid me, she was also avoiding learning that interactions with humans are good and right now it may feel stressful to her but in the long run, she will probably progress faster. After all, as a great family dog, it is her job to hang out with her people! So she follows me with quite a bit of resistance and at night, goes in a crate next to my bed. Again, forced to be with people so she can learn that it's not so bad!

Oh, and I'll be taking her with me wherever I can. She has to work out her fear issues. She'll just be in a harness, a no-slip collar and will have two leashes!

Two and a half week report

I would love to take more pictures of this adorable girl but she takes one look at me and scurries off. I can't tell you how many times I have tried to catch her before I leave for work so that I can put her in her crate. She runs behind things so I can't catch her :-) And then I'm late!

On the positive side, she interacts somewhat with my other dogs. My girls are big cuddlers and while she doesn't cuddle with them, she will romp for a few minutes. Although if she notices me watching her, she scurries off! At night, she sleeps downstairs in the living room on my couch. I use the term "sleep" loosely because around 3:00 - 4:00 am she will howl for no reason. I have also heard her "redecorating" in my kitchen and once caught her sitting in the kitchen sink after having knocked the few bowls that were in the sink out onto the floor. To be honest, she had help from the coonhound who wouldn't miss a crumb to save her life!

Another bit of progress is on the crate-training front. She goes into her crate for dinner and she will go in when she sees the other girls go into their crates when it's time for me to go to work. It has taken time but I am no longer chasing her around the house trying to catch her.

Other than at meal time and in the morning when she goes into her crate, I ignore her completely. I have noticed that she will come upstairs to see what we are doing and she watches me with my other dogs but I don't pet her and I don't try to call her over to me. Ignoring her has helped - she now stays a bit longer when she does her "check-ins" and she is coming closer to me - she's still a few feet away but it still counts :-)

A Few Notes from Foster Mom

Well... Let me start by saying that I have fostered over 20 dogs of varying degrees of shyness. Lila will clearly be a project - I foresee more gray hairs in my future!!

Lila is extremely shy. She scurries about trying to avoid me :-) I've been ignoring her and not touching her. It's now been almost 3 weeks of ignoring her and I still can't touch her!

So I will be posting her accomplishments here as they occur. Some will be small but any progress is good...