(I'll do a real retrospective at the end of the year.)
Showing posts with label Pepper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pepper. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2011
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Pepper Goes Home
...actually, she went home a couple of weeks ago, but I've been neglecting the blog again and so this post is very much belated.
Regardless! Two weeks ago, Pepper found her forever home.
I actually had to make a decision between two qualified adopters who wanted her, which is the first time that's happened (previously, it's been all we could do to find one person who'd take the mutt of the moment), but then Pepper was unusually cute and unusually sweet, and was a miniature version of a very popular breed, and was still a puppy, so I suppose it's no surprise she was in high demand.
Couple A was in their late 20s/early 30s and lived in the city. Both work outside the home. No kids or other pets, but they were hoping to start having kids in the next few years. Couple B was in their 60s and retired to a low-key lifestyle out in New Jersey. Their kids were grown and gone with families of their own.
Both couples would have been perfectly fine homes, but since we had the luxury of choice, I placed Pepper with Couple B. A calm, quiet home with older people who could spend all day with her was the best place for a gentle and somewhat shy dog who disliked being parted from her people. And from the moment we brought her into the house, it was a great match... notwithstanding the fact that Pepper squatted and peed right in the middle of the living room rug within 30 seconds of coming inside. The adopters declared that they loved her anyway, and she seemed to love them too.
Yesterday I heard that Pepper was doing beautifully in her new home and was following her new person around as a constant companion -- which was exactly what they were hoping to have in a dog. Hooray!
Regardless! Two weeks ago, Pepper found her forever home.
I actually had to make a decision between two qualified adopters who wanted her, which is the first time that's happened (previously, it's been all we could do to find one person who'd take the mutt of the moment), but then Pepper was unusually cute and unusually sweet, and was a miniature version of a very popular breed, and was still a puppy, so I suppose it's no surprise she was in high demand.
Couple A was in their late 20s/early 30s and lived in the city. Both work outside the home. No kids or other pets, but they were hoping to start having kids in the next few years. Couple B was in their 60s and retired to a low-key lifestyle out in New Jersey. Their kids were grown and gone with families of their own.
Both couples would have been perfectly fine homes, but since we had the luxury of choice, I placed Pepper with Couple B. A calm, quiet home with older people who could spend all day with her was the best place for a gentle and somewhat shy dog who disliked being parted from her people. And from the moment we brought her into the house, it was a great match... notwithstanding the fact that Pepper squatted and peed right in the middle of the living room rug within 30 seconds of coming inside. The adopters declared that they loved her anyway, and she seemed to love them too.
Yesterday I heard that Pepper was doing beautifully in her new home and was following her new person around as a constant companion -- which was exactly what they were hoping to have in a dog. Hooray!
Monday, September 19, 2011
Misc. Updates 9/19/11
Pepper's health:
- The tapeworms are gone (hallelujah!!). No sign of them since I gave her the deworming pills, and that was five days ago, so I think it's safe to say they've been vanquished. She's stopped eating grass, incidentally. I still can't say for sure that the grass-eating was driven by a desire to scrape out tapeworms, but based on my observations it is a tempting theory.
- On Saturday we took the mutt monsters out to Delaware so they could meet some new people (and so Pongu could run around in the grass). Pepper was supposed to be on exercise restriction, but I took my eye off her for a little too long and next thing I knew she was running around all over-excited with a giant crusty scab on her tummy and reddish blister juice seeping out of her spay incision. Oi.
I spent a good couple of hours feeling like the worst foster in the world and debating whether I should take her to the emergency clinic before her guts fell out (by this point it was about 11:00 pm and there was exactly one sober driver in the house), but it turned out that all the crusty blood made it look a lot grislier than it was. Once that was washed off, the damage wasn't too bad. Two of her stitches popped and one looked strained, but the remainder held up okay and Pepper didn't appear to be in any pain whatsoever (in fact she just wanted to keep playing the whole time, which did not help my sense of impending doom). Not good, but not as disastrous as I'd feared.
The incision continued to seep blister fluid until the next morning and then it was fine. I cleaned it and put some antiseptic ointment on it and made really truly COMPLETELY sure that Pepper was on exercise restrictions for the rest of the weekend, and... it looks like no permanent damage was done (fingers crossed!!). So that was terrifying and I will never ever give a post-surgery mutt any chance to jump around again, but I think we're gonna be okay.
Pepper's training at the one-week mark:
- I'm ready to consider Pepper officially "housebroken." She holds it inside and goes reliably outside. I haven't asked her to signal when she needs to go, but as long as her adopters maintain a regular schedule of walks, I think she'll be fine.
- Likewise, I'm ready to call her "leash trained." Pepper's not about to win any obedience awards for gorgeous heelwork, but she doesn't pull, she mostly paces herself to keep plenty of slack on the leash, and she is easily redirected away from greeting other dogs or investigating smelly trash. That's good enough for most people. If her adopters are willing to carry around a few treats and reward her for keeping pace at their side while walking, she can easily improve beyond that.
- She is 90% good on Sit (will do it with a verbal command and no hand gesture, sometimes lags a few seconds before responding, can focus through a low-to-medium level of distractions). I'll continue to work on speed and reliability but she pretty much has this one down.
- Goals for this week: Down, Stay, maybe a trick or basic targeting depending on how much progress we make with other stuff.
Pongu's health and training:
- Swollen, reddish toe on left front foot. I don't think a vet visit is warranted yet but I'll keep an eye on it to make sure the swelling goes down and doesn't get worse. He isn't limping at all.
- Prozac still having no discernible effect, good or bad.
- Goals for this week: backwards heel (walk backwards at my side), target touching an object at a distance. (I should have taught that one a while ago but Pongu is so neophobic and leery of new objects that I gave up on all the object-related training exercises for many months. We're getting to the point where he needs to be able to target objects to do more advanced moves, though, so it's time to take another shot.)
- The tapeworms are gone (hallelujah!!). No sign of them since I gave her the deworming pills, and that was five days ago, so I think it's safe to say they've been vanquished. She's stopped eating grass, incidentally. I still can't say for sure that the grass-eating was driven by a desire to scrape out tapeworms, but based on my observations it is a tempting theory.
- On Saturday we took the mutt monsters out to Delaware so they could meet some new people (and so Pongu could run around in the grass). Pepper was supposed to be on exercise restriction, but I took my eye off her for a little too long and next thing I knew she was running around all over-excited with a giant crusty scab on her tummy and reddish blister juice seeping out of her spay incision. Oi.
I spent a good couple of hours feeling like the worst foster in the world and debating whether I should take her to the emergency clinic before her guts fell out (by this point it was about 11:00 pm and there was exactly one sober driver in the house), but it turned out that all the crusty blood made it look a lot grislier than it was. Once that was washed off, the damage wasn't too bad. Two of her stitches popped and one looked strained, but the remainder held up okay and Pepper didn't appear to be in any pain whatsoever (in fact she just wanted to keep playing the whole time, which did not help my sense of impending doom). Not good, but not as disastrous as I'd feared.
The incision continued to seep blister fluid until the next morning and then it was fine. I cleaned it and put some antiseptic ointment on it and made really truly COMPLETELY sure that Pepper was on exercise restrictions for the rest of the weekend, and... it looks like no permanent damage was done (fingers crossed!!). So that was terrifying and I will never ever give a post-surgery mutt any chance to jump around again, but I think we're gonna be okay.
Pepper's training at the one-week mark:
- I'm ready to consider Pepper officially "housebroken." She holds it inside and goes reliably outside. I haven't asked her to signal when she needs to go, but as long as her adopters maintain a regular schedule of walks, I think she'll be fine.
- Likewise, I'm ready to call her "leash trained." Pepper's not about to win any obedience awards for gorgeous heelwork, but she doesn't pull, she mostly paces herself to keep plenty of slack on the leash, and she is easily redirected away from greeting other dogs or investigating smelly trash. That's good enough for most people. If her adopters are willing to carry around a few treats and reward her for keeping pace at their side while walking, she can easily improve beyond that.
- She is 90% good on Sit (will do it with a verbal command and no hand gesture, sometimes lags a few seconds before responding, can focus through a low-to-medium level of distractions). I'll continue to work on speed and reliability but she pretty much has this one down.
- Goals for this week: Down, Stay, maybe a trick or basic targeting depending on how much progress we make with other stuff.
Pongu's health and training:
- Swollen, reddish toe on left front foot. I don't think a vet visit is warranted yet but I'll keep an eye on it to make sure the swelling goes down and doesn't get worse. He isn't limping at all.
- Prozac still having no discernible effect, good or bad.
- Goals for this week: backwards heel (walk backwards at my side), target touching an object at a distance. (I should have taught that one a while ago but Pongu is so neophobic and leery of new objects that I gave up on all the object-related training exercises for many months. We're getting to the point where he needs to be able to target objects to do more advanced moves, though, so it's time to take another shot.)
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Misc. Updates 9/15/11
Today's news from Mutt Town:
-- Health news: Pepper got spayed yesterday. Came through the surgery like a champ, was a little groggy and slow-moving when she got home that evening (to the point where two tipsy ladies having dinner outside demanded to know why I was mistreating my dog when we walked past, because clearly she was malnourished/abused to be tottering along so slowly... aaah, busybodies, always much improved by alcohol) but appears to be totally recovered energy-wise today. Having to keep her in the crate a lot to prevent her from bouncing around too much and straining her stitches.
I gave her the deworming pills this morning so hopefully we have seen the last of those gross terrible no-good tapeworms.
One thing I've noticed is that Pepper likes to eat immature grass seed heads. I wonder if they help scrape out the worms; I've definitely noticed more tapeworm segments in her poop when there's a lot of grass in the poop. It could be coincidental, though. Will be interested to see if she stops trying to eat grass as much once the worms have gone away.
-- Training progress: Pepper is no longer afraid of stairs and will take them up or down at a trot. She is still a little apprehensive about glass doors but doesn't collapse in front of them anymore; instead she's just careful to make sure that she's not walking facefirst into glass. Can't blame her for that!
Housebreaking is going very smoothly. She no longer insists on going to the Big Weedy Lot but is content to go potty anywhere she can find a reasonably sized patch of grass that other dogs are using. We aren't giving Pepper many opportunities to make mistakes in the house (go crate gooo!!), and so she hasn't made any since Day One.
Pepper now walks politely on leash 90% of the time. She prefers the right side, which I don't mind since I don't insist that the foster dogs heel, and sometimes swerves back and forth to investigate or avoid things that draw her attention. But for less than a week of not-very-intensive work, she's doing phenomenally. No pulling (except occasionally when she wants to greet another dog), very little lagging, with a little more practice she'll be a star.
I haven't done much work with commands yet but I suspect that Pepper will be a very quick study. She's already grasped that "Sit is the correct response when you don't know what to do" and could Down with a lure after one short session. My early impression is that she might just be the smartest foster dog I've ever had -- I'll know better once we can do more intense training sessions. I've been holding off on that for the first few days because she has enough to do just getting settled in, plus I've been uncertain of her potty reliability. But I think we're getting to the point where she can start some proper training.
-- Pongu's Prozac journal: no observable change after one week. Anxiety levels appear to be the same. He did try to chase after a stray cat a couple of nights ago, which was unusually brave of him (normally he's terrified of ANYTHING encountered after dark) and let me finally do a Premack principle exercise (instant off-leash recall --> hooray! we go chase the cat together!), but otherwise his general anxiety and terror of the unfamiliar seem undimmed.
I might try dosing him with a Xanax before obedience class this evening. Debbie Jacobs of Fearful Dogs has written about her use of Xanax to help her fearful dog Sunny through his obedience classes, and it seems like a thing worth trying. On the other hand, I wonder if I shouldn't try it at home first to gauge his reaction. Eh. Decisions, decisions.
-- Health news: Pepper got spayed yesterday. Came through the surgery like a champ, was a little groggy and slow-moving when she got home that evening (to the point where two tipsy ladies having dinner outside demanded to know why I was mistreating my dog when we walked past, because clearly she was malnourished/abused to be tottering along so slowly... aaah, busybodies, always much improved by alcohol) but appears to be totally recovered energy-wise today. Having to keep her in the crate a lot to prevent her from bouncing around too much and straining her stitches.
I gave her the deworming pills this morning so hopefully we have seen the last of those gross terrible no-good tapeworms.
One thing I've noticed is that Pepper likes to eat immature grass seed heads. I wonder if they help scrape out the worms; I've definitely noticed more tapeworm segments in her poop when there's a lot of grass in the poop. It could be coincidental, though. Will be interested to see if she stops trying to eat grass as much once the worms have gone away.
-- Training progress: Pepper is no longer afraid of stairs and will take them up or down at a trot. She is still a little apprehensive about glass doors but doesn't collapse in front of them anymore; instead she's just careful to make sure that she's not walking facefirst into glass. Can't blame her for that!
Housebreaking is going very smoothly. She no longer insists on going to the Big Weedy Lot but is content to go potty anywhere she can find a reasonably sized patch of grass that other dogs are using. We aren't giving Pepper many opportunities to make mistakes in the house (go crate gooo!!), and so she hasn't made any since Day One.
Pepper now walks politely on leash 90% of the time. She prefers the right side, which I don't mind since I don't insist that the foster dogs heel, and sometimes swerves back and forth to investigate or avoid things that draw her attention. But for less than a week of not-very-intensive work, she's doing phenomenally. No pulling (except occasionally when she wants to greet another dog), very little lagging, with a little more practice she'll be a star.
I haven't done much work with commands yet but I suspect that Pepper will be a very quick study. She's already grasped that "Sit is the correct response when you don't know what to do" and could Down with a lure after one short session. My early impression is that she might just be the smartest foster dog I've ever had -- I'll know better once we can do more intense training sessions. I've been holding off on that for the first few days because she has enough to do just getting settled in, plus I've been uncertain of her potty reliability. But I think we're getting to the point where she can start some proper training.
-- Pongu's Prozac journal: no observable change after one week. Anxiety levels appear to be the same. He did try to chase after a stray cat a couple of nights ago, which was unusually brave of him (normally he's terrified of ANYTHING encountered after dark) and let me finally do a Premack principle exercise (instant off-leash recall --> hooray! we go chase the cat together!), but otherwise his general anxiety and terror of the unfamiliar seem undimmed.
I might try dosing him with a Xanax before obedience class this evening. Debbie Jacobs of Fearful Dogs has written about her use of Xanax to help her fearful dog Sunny through his obedience classes, and it seems like a thing worth trying. On the other hand, I wonder if I shouldn't try it at home first to gauge his reaction. Eh. Decisions, decisions.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
The Honeymoon Period
I'm starting to see some signs that Pepper's easing out of her honeymoon period after four days with us, which prompts this post.
When a dog arrives in a new environment -- especially if that dog is coming out of a chaotic, stressful place, as is the case for most shelter mutts -- it's likely to show inhibited behavior for a while. Basically, until the dog can figure out the manners and mores of this strange new land, it'll be a little more cautious and polite than usual, just as you or I would probably try to be extra-courteous when staying as the houseguest of someone we don't know well.
Once the dog gets more comfortable, it relaxes, and its real personality starts to shine through. Exactly when this happens varies from dog to dog. Shy or skittish dogs and those who have had a lot of instability in their backgrounds tend to take longer, but my experience has been that most of the foster dogs we get start relaxing within a few days and are completely comfortable in about two to three weeks. This is when you might start seeing some naughty behavior -- suddenly that previously-polite dog is raiding the garbage can, stealing your shoes, and making all kinds of trouble. Alas, the honeymoon is over.
But while it lasts, the honeymoon period is particularly relevant to foster care for two reasons:
(1) It operates as a "reset button" that allows you to impose new house rules and manage potential unwanted behaviors from the beginning, even before they manifest. Maybe the dog pooped in the closet and stole shoes at its old house, maybe it didn't. Doesn't matter. You can teach it from Day One that in this household, poop goes outside and chewing is restricted to dog toys (of which you should have a plentiful and interesting supply). For a few days, at least, you have a clean slate to make it clear what your rules and expectations are. Here's where canine limitations on generalizing actually work in your favor: shoes in your house are not the same as shoes in the old house, so it's not hard for the dog to learn to treat them differently.
As long as you're clear from Day One, the dog should be able to relax gradually into a structured, supportive environment where its normal doggy behaviors can be channeled into acceptable outlets -- and this is a great saver of time and trouble. Ounce of prevention/pound of cure, and all that. The honeymoon period gives you a chance to slip that prevention in there right at the start.
(NB: The "reset button" effect only applies to minor mischief and bad habits. Serious behavioral issues, like severe separation anxiety and crate soiling [where the dog isn't just clueless about potty training, but is actually accustomed to living in its own filth, as some hoarder cases and puppy mill survivors are], are NOT reset and may actually get worse as a result of a change in households. You can expect your dog to not bark at the UPS guy for the first couple of days; you can't expect him to brush off the effects of poor breeding or puppyhood undersocialization.)
(2) If you're only fostering the dog for a short period, you may not have enough time to get an accurate sense of what the dog's actual personality is like. This is especially true if the dog is stressed or shut down and thus displaying an energy/noise level higher or lower than its normal state of being. In some cases, mistaking the dog's honeymoon-phase personality for its real personality (or being ignorant of bad habits that only manifested themselves later) has led rescue groups to make inaccurate assessments and thus bad matches between dogs and adopters. This risk is one of the reasons that I strongly prefer to keep my foster dogs for at least a few weeks before placing them: I want to be sure that I have enough information to give prospective adopters.
My experience has been that our dogs don't drastically change their personalities past the honeymoon period, and don't even really display any major new vices, but to some extent this is probably influenced by good luck (we haven't yet had any real tough cases come through the foster program -- fingers crossed it stays that way!) and pre-emptive management. I try to use the honeymoon period to set them up for success, and so far it's worked pretty well. Not perfectly, by any stretch, but it's definitely been a help.
It'll be interesting to see what Pepper blossoms into.
When a dog arrives in a new environment -- especially if that dog is coming out of a chaotic, stressful place, as is the case for most shelter mutts -- it's likely to show inhibited behavior for a while. Basically, until the dog can figure out the manners and mores of this strange new land, it'll be a little more cautious and polite than usual, just as you or I would probably try to be extra-courteous when staying as the houseguest of someone we don't know well.
Once the dog gets more comfortable, it relaxes, and its real personality starts to shine through. Exactly when this happens varies from dog to dog. Shy or skittish dogs and those who have had a lot of instability in their backgrounds tend to take longer, but my experience has been that most of the foster dogs we get start relaxing within a few days and are completely comfortable in about two to three weeks. This is when you might start seeing some naughty behavior -- suddenly that previously-polite dog is raiding the garbage can, stealing your shoes, and making all kinds of trouble. Alas, the honeymoon is over.
But while it lasts, the honeymoon period is particularly relevant to foster care for two reasons:
(1) It operates as a "reset button" that allows you to impose new house rules and manage potential unwanted behaviors from the beginning, even before they manifest. Maybe the dog pooped in the closet and stole shoes at its old house, maybe it didn't. Doesn't matter. You can teach it from Day One that in this household, poop goes outside and chewing is restricted to dog toys (of which you should have a plentiful and interesting supply). For a few days, at least, you have a clean slate to make it clear what your rules and expectations are. Here's where canine limitations on generalizing actually work in your favor: shoes in your house are not the same as shoes in the old house, so it's not hard for the dog to learn to treat them differently.
As long as you're clear from Day One, the dog should be able to relax gradually into a structured, supportive environment where its normal doggy behaviors can be channeled into acceptable outlets -- and this is a great saver of time and trouble. Ounce of prevention/pound of cure, and all that. The honeymoon period gives you a chance to slip that prevention in there right at the start.
(NB: The "reset button" effect only applies to minor mischief and bad habits. Serious behavioral issues, like severe separation anxiety and crate soiling [where the dog isn't just clueless about potty training, but is actually accustomed to living in its own filth, as some hoarder cases and puppy mill survivors are], are NOT reset and may actually get worse as a result of a change in households. You can expect your dog to not bark at the UPS guy for the first couple of days; you can't expect him to brush off the effects of poor breeding or puppyhood undersocialization.)
(2) If you're only fostering the dog for a short period, you may not have enough time to get an accurate sense of what the dog's actual personality is like. This is especially true if the dog is stressed or shut down and thus displaying an energy/noise level higher or lower than its normal state of being. In some cases, mistaking the dog's honeymoon-phase personality for its real personality (or being ignorant of bad habits that only manifested themselves later) has led rescue groups to make inaccurate assessments and thus bad matches between dogs and adopters. This risk is one of the reasons that I strongly prefer to keep my foster dogs for at least a few weeks before placing them: I want to be sure that I have enough information to give prospective adopters.
My experience has been that our dogs don't drastically change their personalities past the honeymoon period, and don't even really display any major new vices, but to some extent this is probably influenced by good luck (we haven't yet had any real tough cases come through the foster program -- fingers crossed it stays that way!) and pre-emptive management. I try to use the honeymoon period to set them up for success, and so far it's worked pretty well. Not perfectly, by any stretch, but it's definitely been a help.
It'll be interesting to see what Pepper blossoms into.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Misc. Updates 9/12/11
Miscellaneous updates from the colony of mutt monsters:
-- Pongu's Prozac regimen continues with no apparent effect (not that I'm expecting anything so early). I thought he had a dry nose on Day 2 and some diarrhea on Day 3, but it's impossible to tell whether these issues are related to the Prozac, and in any event they both went away on their own within a day.
-- Pepper has tapeworms. She pooped on the deck again this morning, and as I was scooping it up, I made the awesome discovery of four or five sticky whitish proglottids glommed to the poop, just wiggling merrily away. GROSS.
The tapeworms are slated for destruction on Wednesday morning, when Pepper already had a vet visit scheduled for her spay surgery. I can't wait. In the meantime I have a wormy dog for two days and will accordingly be extra super vigilant in the house training because I cannot stand the idea of those icky ewie barfball worm segments wriggling around in my house.
I'm glad they're not contagious (in the absence of poop-eating fleas or mouse carcasses, anyhow) or I would have to burn my own house down as a precautionary measure. I am kind of tempted to do that anyway.
Tapeworms are the worst. The WORST.
But they will be dead soon, and that is a consoling thought. In the meantime, dogs at play:
-- Pongu's Prozac regimen continues with no apparent effect (not that I'm expecting anything so early). I thought he had a dry nose on Day 2 and some diarrhea on Day 3, but it's impossible to tell whether these issues are related to the Prozac, and in any event they both went away on their own within a day.
-- Pepper has tapeworms. She pooped on the deck again this morning, and as I was scooping it up, I made the awesome discovery of four or five sticky whitish proglottids glommed to the poop, just wiggling merrily away. GROSS.
The tapeworms are slated for destruction on Wednesday morning, when Pepper already had a vet visit scheduled for her spay surgery. I can't wait. In the meantime I have a wormy dog for two days and will accordingly be extra super vigilant in the house training because I cannot stand the idea of those icky ewie barfball worm segments wriggling around in my house.
I'm glad they're not contagious (in the absence of poop-eating fleas or mouse carcasses, anyhow) or I would have to burn my own house down as a precautionary measure. I am kind of tempted to do that anyway.
Tapeworms are the worst. The WORST.
But they will be dead soon, and that is a consoling thought. In the meantime, dogs at play:
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Pepper Arrives
Pepper arrived on Saturday morning.
She's an eight-month-old black Lab mix, still very much a puppy, who weighs about 30 pounds and will probably weigh around 35 when she's full grown and filled out (she's a little skinny right now). Despite her small size, Pepper is very much a Lab -- she has the slightly wavy and oily coat (but softer and less greasy than a pure Lab's), a miniature version of the rudderlike tail, the extremely friendly temperament (she seems to be one of those dogs who loves everyone on sight and has never known a stranger), and the natural inclination to carry things around in her mouth.
I named her "Pepper" because of the unique black flecks on her white chest, but really I should've named her Cuddles or Snugglebum or something sappy like that, because that is the kind of dog she is. Super sweet, gentle, and people-oriented. She needs a calm, supportive home that'll give her plenty of affection and help her build her confidence. No force-based training for this girl -- she's so soft that even addressing her with a mildly exasperated voice makes her cringe.
Pepper comes from a high-kill shelter in rural Georgia -- in fact, we pulled her so soon after Gremlin (despite my usual resolve to take a breather between foster mutts) because the shelter was scheduled to put down all the dogs that didn't have a commitment before Hurricane Irene struck, even though the hurricane wasn't projected to go anywhere near that area -- and it is evident that she had little or no training in her past life. She's not housebroken (AT ALL: the mess count for the last 24 hours includes three poops, one pee puddle on my rug, and one vomit in the hallway), has no idea how to walk on a leash, and was terrified of stairs when she first came to us. (The fear of stairs, at least, has rapidly receded; she goes up and down a little hesitantly, but she goes. Living in a third-floor walkup will do that for you.)
My plan is to work with Pepper to get her potty trained, accustomed to leash walking, and otherwise used to living indoors with people, so that when she goes on to her forever home she won't be starting from absolutely zero. We'll practice good house manners and, to the extent possible in the time that I have her, basic obedience commands. I don't know how much progress we can make in a month or so, but hopefully it'll get her off to a good start in becoming someone's dream dog.
Pongu's already counting down the days.
She's an eight-month-old black Lab mix, still very much a puppy, who weighs about 30 pounds and will probably weigh around 35 when she's full grown and filled out (she's a little skinny right now). Despite her small size, Pepper is very much a Lab -- she has the slightly wavy and oily coat (but softer and less greasy than a pure Lab's), a miniature version of the rudderlike tail, the extremely friendly temperament (she seems to be one of those dogs who loves everyone on sight and has never known a stranger), and the natural inclination to carry things around in her mouth.
I named her "Pepper" because of the unique black flecks on her white chest, but really I should've named her Cuddles or Snugglebum or something sappy like that, because that is the kind of dog she is. Super sweet, gentle, and people-oriented. She needs a calm, supportive home that'll give her plenty of affection and help her build her confidence. No force-based training for this girl -- she's so soft that even addressing her with a mildly exasperated voice makes her cringe.
Pepper comes from a high-kill shelter in rural Georgia -- in fact, we pulled her so soon after Gremlin (despite my usual resolve to take a breather between foster mutts) because the shelter was scheduled to put down all the dogs that didn't have a commitment before Hurricane Irene struck, even though the hurricane wasn't projected to go anywhere near that area -- and it is evident that she had little or no training in her past life. She's not housebroken (AT ALL: the mess count for the last 24 hours includes three poops, one pee puddle on my rug, and one vomit in the hallway), has no idea how to walk on a leash, and was terrified of stairs when she first came to us. (The fear of stairs, at least, has rapidly receded; she goes up and down a little hesitantly, but she goes. Living in a third-floor walkup will do that for you.)
Pongu's already counting down the days.
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