Baby Steps

Yay for Hope! She seems to be slowly coming out of her shell.

On Sunday afternoon she was romping around in the back yard and went potty!! Yay for her! I never thought one could be so happy about dog poop!

She's still pretty skittish...doesn't take much for her to "duck and cover"...tail between her legs running for whatever den she can find. She loves the crate...spends quite a bit of time in there and has also found my walk-in closet/cave. She somehow manages to lay all the way under the bottom rack of hanging clothes and doesn't seem to mind the half-carpeted/half-cement floor. I actually have to coax her out of the closet and into the living room when we are home so she is around us and P & K. Of course, getting her out there is easy...keeping her out there requires constant petting and love and affection! I don't mind so much...but P & K are rather suspicious of why SHE'S getting all the attention. I'm trying to love on them just as much...but they seem pretty mad at me right now.

Hope is eating well...she gets breakfast, lunch and dinner with a few treats in between. She usually doesn't finish all her breakfast so she gets whatever is left at lunch time. Then she gets a new bowl of dry puppy food, wet puppy food, cheese and a little bit of hot water to mix it all together...she LOOOOVES it! It's so nice to see her eat...I can't wait to fatten her up and be able to pet her without feeling her ribs and hips and spine!! Poor, poor baby!

She's getting a little more playful...bouncing around when we first come home.

We are also working on the leash...she goes between "heeling" and wanting to explore...she practically tries to crawl up your leg and then sees something "over there" and trips you to get there! So we will continue to work on good leash behavior (like my dogs are actually well-behaved on the leash) and all the sit, stay, come, etc. commands.

So far, so good though! Makes me happy for Hope!!!

More to come!