Thursday, December 15, 2011

Here's the scoop on Simi.

Just wanting to let you all know how Simi's been doing, how life's going with her, and how things are in general about Simi.

Her ears are, of course, still doing some very wonky things, but she's completely adorable, no matter what. She was going through a spell when she first came home with soft stool, and that was hard to deal with for me. There's a lot of stress around this puppy. I'm so worried about keeping her healthy and perfect that the smallest thing stresses me out. She's doing fine now, though, after some more adjustment time and a trip to the vet (where they said nothing was wrong!).

In terms of training, we haven't done much. She's got her sit pretty much solid, no matter the situation and she offers it all the time. We've mostly just been doing lots of playing and tugging and being happy. She has, however, gone out and about a fair bit. Last weekend we were out Friday, Saturday and Sunday and she did great each day!

Friday was a trip to the vet for her next set of shots and her nails to be trimmed. At that point, I hadn't really had her on leash much besides in the house, fooling around, and so she was a little iffy about that, but with some help from "her girl" (Brooke, the little girl I watch every night who comes to see her once a week) she was good to go and pranced into the vets office, greeted everyone, then came back and sat at my feet and watched with interest at the happenings.

Saturday I decided I wanted to take her to town to get some new textures, locations, smells and sights. We went to Boot's new home (seen above with her) to let them visit with him before he goes home and we had our first real session of walking loosely on a leash beside me. We were happily wondering along, leash loose, clicking and treating after no time at all. She was offering sits and eye contact like crazy! She loves to work for me.

We went to PetSmart after that, where she was allowed to meet lots of new people, but I kept dogs away from her, just to be safe. She was mauled with attention, to say the least. She accepted all the cooing and aweing, though, with ease and was offering me eye contact every chance she could. At one point she'd been picked up and put on someone's lap, and even with them snuggling her, she was still watching me.

On Sunday we went to the Costco parking lot. That was an experience. Not too many people stopped to pat her, but lots of cars going by, people walking by, shopping carts, etc.. She was loose lead walking along side me, no problems. Our only issue we ran into, really, was that there were cigarette butts all over the ground and she kept thinking they were really great treats. Urgh. I wish people would think of things like that before flinging them everywhere, but I digress. She was really good. I was quite proud, to be honest. You'd think I'd been training her a lot more often than I actually am.

On both Saturday and Sunday she had her picture taken with Santa. On Saturday with Boots and the picture was CRAP. So we went in for a re-shoot Sunday and got a much better shot, all by herself, so I've got a good memory of her first Christmas.

Over all, we're using everything we do as a learning opportunity without making it a structured training situation. I don't want to burn her out without too much learning, but at the same time, I want her to learn, so I'm trying to keep it a happy medium. Everyday we plan and she learns more and more about how to play, be confident and happy. Really, what I want is a dog who can control themselves in any situation I need to put them in and who can be confident in new areas. Simi doesn't seem to have a problem with any of this yet.

1 comment:

  1. Simi is adorable! Also, I nominated your blog for the Liebster Award. :) Details are in my most recent post!

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