As I mentioned in the previous post, yesterday was our first day with Molly. Now time for a rambling post on our experiences with her in our first day:
We started by meeting her foster mom at PetCo to do a drop off, and Molly immediately was ready to jump in our car and go. She was a quite good girl on the whole drive, pretty inquisitive, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Getting home, she was freaked out about coming up the stairs, but nothing that a treat and warm praise couldn’t solve. She loves exploring the house, but so far, definitely prefers to be in the same room as one of us (I think she’s partial to me, but that could just be the fact that I am awake more hours of the day!)
So far, she doesn’t seem too interested in toys, but she loves to eat her food! She wasn’t in the mood to go to the bathroom yesterday, which Kelly (the old foster mom) informs us is normal for a dog switching homes, but so far today she’s done both the #1 and #2 outside (she was already house-trained), so problem solved! We even figured out her sign for bathroom – hang out by the front door, slight wimper. (she’s not a barker by any stretch)
While she doesn’t seem to be a huge toy fan, as of yet, but man, she devoured her bone this morning (actually a Flossie, but same basic idea). It was actually really cute – she walked up to the bedroom (Joelle was still sleeping), quietly grabbed it, brought it downstairs to our living room (where I was), and just started chomping down. I was enthralled to watch!
Speaking of sleeping, she made it through the night on her bed (she’s used to sleeping in a crate, so having a bed-area is a great new find for her!) She was unsure of what to do in our room at first, but then quickly settled down and laid on her mattress and slept until about 6:30 this morning – only waking up when I walked out the door.
We were told she was a scaredy-cat, but so far that doesn’t apply to other dogs- the two dogs she’s met walking she walks up to sniffs around – they seem to get along with any sign of aggression – one in particular I am very happy they get along; as they are a couple doors downs dog, we will see them quite a bit… She is definitely scared of everything else though – birds, squirrels, loud noises, rooms, etc… If not scared, just not understanding what these things are.
One thing we’ll need to work on, though, is she’s very scared of entering new buildings – we tried walking her into the Pet Store to get her a name tag, and she wanted nothing to do with it. I think that’s just a socialization issue though – she hasn’t had a lot of experience on loud busy streets like Queen Anne; in our neighborhood, noises are everywhere, so over time, that will get much, much better!
