4/25/09 This afternoon I picked up Miss Daisy from Melissa at Border Collie Rescue of Minnesota. She is a 4 month old Border Collie mix. Mostly white with Black patches and a mostly Black face. She is shy and quiet right now, but I have confidence that I will get her to come out of her shell shortly.4/26/09 Daisy has been super quiet, not making a peep since she got here. Slept in her kennel all night with no problems (not that I expected them), no accidents (yet) but she hasn't pooped. I've taken her out MANY times and she's gone potty, but that's it.
Our neighbor girl Mary came over twice yesterday to see our new foster. The second time she came over she brought her Mom and little brother. James has NEVER pet any of the dogs, not even Cache, and last night he was petting Daisy and said he wanted to take her home. He's 4 and super shy so that was pretty cool to see.
Daisy did great with the kids and even went on a walk with Joke. He said he had to drag her about 50% of the time which I personally thought was pretty good for her on the first time out.
Last night I took Daisy out of the kennel and snuggled with her on the couch. She curled up half under the blanket and WATCHED TV for 2 hours!!! before I put her to bed and crashed myself. This morning she wagged her tail at me when I opened the kennel door, I had to reach in and pull her out still, but after going outside I fed her outside the kennel and she ate with me in the room next to her. She has even started to come to me when I call her!
We snuggled for a little while on the couch again this morning. I would have to say that is when she is at her happiest right now. She gets totally relaxed, lays her head on my leg, LOVES it under the blanket, and even gave me a few kisses this morning already.
All in all I'd say she's doing pretty good for being here less then 24 hours.
5/3/09 Daisy's been here for a week now and I'm glad to say that she is making progress on being a REAL Puppy! Don't get too excited yet, she's got a long way to go, but she's at least starting to come out of her shell =) In the last few days she has been walking out the back door and into the yard to go potty on her own, I have been using the flexi-leash so she doesn't kill me on the steps while I'm shutting the door behind us. She still takes at least 10 to 15 minutes to go #2, it's worse during the day when the kids, dogs, "normal activity" is going on around us. She hears something and gets spooked, wants to go in the house ASAP! I've been working on getting her to realize that being next to me is also a "safe zone" instead of running full tilt to the door.
At night she is much more relaxed in the yard, she'll walk around, sniff, come to me with tail wagging, follow Cache around, do her business, come back to me...and when I start walking toward the house, she doesn't bolt to the door anymore. Last night when we came in the house, she didn't even bolt to her kennel, she stayed next to me by the couch, even after taking off the leash =)
Her favorite place to be is in her kennel (safety zone 1), with most puppies you have to fight to keep them in, or to put them in a kennel, but with Daisy it's just the opposite. If I want her to stay out of the kennel I have to keep the door closed, to get her out, I have to reach in and drag her out. This is getting better of course, yesterday she showed interest in coming out when I got up in the morning, I still eventually had to drag her out, but this morning she came out, jumped back in, came out again and I managed to get her, and Shower her with PRAISE!!!!! Then "lets go outside". Yesterday she did so good going out that this morning I put her on the chain instead of walking out with her. Not knowing if I was going to have to go out anyway of course, but she went potty and come right back to the door =)
Since I'm on this subject, I'd like to add that we have only had 2 accidents in the house. Both were under the supervision of Mike D. (aka Joke). He had brought her outside later at night and decided to take her down stairs, well, he didn't let her stay out long enough and she didn't go #2. He took her to the basement and after a few minutes she went...an hour later (after drinking a bunch of water) she started to whine, which he admits he ignored thinking she was just being whiny, and she pee'd. Oh well, I guess he'll learn to be more patient and to listen when she tells him she has to go =) LOL
I plan on giving her a few more days before taking a short walk in the neighborhood. I'm going to take her after dark so there are less destractions and we can work on walking with me instead of fighting the leash and having to be dragged. Normally I would do everything during the day with distractions, and try to build more play drive, but since she is so timid and unsure of everything I'm pretty much just working on building confidence with her. So far this seems to be working.
I'm going to have one of the guys take a short video of her in the back yard with me during the day. As soon as I have it I will post it here to share. She's a pretty girl, moves just like a Border Collie! She's built kind of like a deer, compact body with LONG legs!!
I have confidence that she's going to come around and eventually make someone a really great dog, it's just going to take longer and take someone that is willing to work her through her insecurities.5/12/09 Over the last week and half Daisy has been slowly coming out of her shell for ME (not the guys) more and more. We had an Adoption Day at Petco in Minnetonka again this last Saturday. She was shy, and quiet, and laid between two chairs next to my purse pretty much the entire time. When people came to pet her she just laid there, perfectly still showing no reaction to them or anyone. On the plus side however, she did NOT try to leave the area, or try to escape anyone, so YES this is progress.
Daisy rides great in the car. She jumps right in and lays down on the dog bed in the back seat, occasionally she would sit up and rest her head on the arm rest and sneak me a kiss while we were driving home. Again showing that she is getting more relaxed then she was previously.
Over the last 5 days she has greeted me in the morning by coming right out of the kennel to me, gives me kisses, wags her tail, and walks right out to the back yard to do her morning business. No more dragging her out of the kennel, or carrying her outside, she also doesn't bolt to the door anymore, instead she comes and sits on my feet =)
The last 2 mornings she has eaten her breakfast next to Cache in the kitchen and not in her kennel. I actually got pictures of them eating next to each other this morning, I was smart and set the camera on the counter last night just in case it happened again =) and it did!Last night when I went to bed I brought her with me and let her snuggle for a little while. Just Daisy, Cache and myself. At first she was just snuggling, then she started kissing, then playing with the tennis ball Cache had, then climbing all over me...she LOVED it when I would make whimpering puppy sounds LOL, we hung out for over an hour just letting her be a "normal" squirmy kissy silly puppy. It was great! I took her outside and she did her business right away (in record time!) and then I put her in her kennel (which is in our bedroom now since she was obviously lonely in the kitchen at night) and we all went to sleep...until 4am this morning.
She apparently couldn't wait another hour and half for my alarm to go off to go potty. So out we went, (again, record time) back in the kennel, nope, she wasn't havin' any of that kennel business. She was pretty much demanding to be let out and to be let up on the bed with us =) I figured this out when I went to give her some water and she leaped onto the bed and snuggled down into my pillow half under the blanket and tried to look super ultra cute! which of course you all know worked...silly girl.
We've been taking walks at night before bed, she is doing better and better every night. She walks/jogs like a drunkin' sailor, but hey, she's got forward motion and isn't shutting down. Not even when a car goes by, or another dog walks by, this girl is on a mission. She's still really nervous about "strangers" coming up to her, but we're working on that. She's good one day, bad the next, then good again...I don't expect her to have an immediate turn around, so for now it's 2 steps forward and one step back, progress none the less.
Here is a short video of Miss Daisy in the back yard. I didn't have the guys around so I apologize on the quality. There were kids playing at the park and a few houses down they were having a bar-b-que so she was very nervous about being outside. I still wanted to show you what she is like outside at times.
For those of you in Minnesota, we will be having another Adoption Day at Petco in Minnetonka on Sunday, June 14th, tenitively from 11am to 2pm. Please mark it on your calendar if you would like to see Daisy (and our other available dogs) in person, or you can always contact Melissa at http://www.bcrofmn.org/ to come out and meet her anytime.
