My boyfriend and I have had Sammie two whole months now! Can you believe it?! It seems just yesterday we brought that big bundle of love home with us…
So for today, I’ll list some of her improvements:
- Sammie has really gotten comfortable at home with us. I think she’s realized she’s not going anywhere, and neither are we.
- Jumping up isn’t nearly as bad as it was. She still does when she gets super excited about something, but she’s also starting to correct the behavior – jumping up without making contact.
- She and the cats can be a couple feet apart and everyone is calm. She and Mr. Tubs have even gotten nose to nose a couple times! Frou-Frou still doesn’t like her getting much closer, though. Heck, Sammie could get close on accident without paying any attention to her and Frou will growl and freak out. But it’s so much better than it was, considering everyone can be in the same room together calmly.
Some things that haven’t changed:
- We still love our trips to the dog park!
- Kitty candy is, in her opinion, the bees’ knees. Her tastes have expanded to include what comes out their front end, too. So gross.
- She’s still gnawing on her paws, but the overall itchiness has drastically improved (so I guess this could also go under “Improvements”).
- She still doesn’t like having her picture taken. She could sit calmly, tilting her head so sweetly, but as soon as I break out the camera or phone to take a picture, she’s off!
And some new developments:
- Sammie wants desperately to play with the cats. It’s gotten to the point that she’s chasing them again. We have to figure out a way to nip that in the butt.
- We’ve given up on leash training her for right now, instead taking her for walks off-leash around our neighborhood. Her recall skills are awesome, so the only worry now is someone complaining!
I’m sure there are more, but that’s what I’ve come up with right now! I hope you’ve enjoyed following our journey as much as I’ve enjoyed describing it to you. Also, if you have any tips on how to get over these next/remaining hurdles, I’d greatly appreciate it…
Saving Sammie 
LLW is a paaaain! I’ve taught other people’s dogs to walk nicely on-lead, but we spent a year trying to teach Kasper LLW…nope, not happening! 🙂
For the camera, have you tried playing a Look At That type game? You could progress to click / treating every time she moves towards the camera of her own accord (you could scatter kibble around it), every time you touch the camera she gets a click / treat, hold the camera, point it at her etc. It might take a while…we did something similar with Zoey and our guitar (which TERRIFIED her!) and it took us a few weeks to work through but she copes fine now 😀
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That’s a great idea, thanks! I just see so many fantastic pictures of people’s pets that I think, “I wish our girl would hold still enough for me to do that!” But if I haven’t taught her what I expect, how could she possibly know?
As with walking on the leash? I hope we can teach her that eventually, but we just can’t fight it right now lol
Thanks again for the advice and words of encouragement! 😀
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