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| I love his ears :) |
We finally settled on a new name - Dexter. It took us a while to decide on one, but we like it, it suits him! His official name is still Bear, but that just doesn't suit him, so we call him Dexter. It's a smart, slightly nerdy name, which describes him pretty well!
We lost our old lady dog, Ollie, a couple of weeks ago to a brain tumour. There was a lot of stress in the house during her last days, she was very confused and scared, and it affected all of us, including Brody and Dexter. Brody was very withdrawn and sad, and Dexter became more destructive than usual. He is very sensitive to stress, and this is how he deals with it. Thankfully we had a freezer full of raw bones and stuffed kongs to help give him an outlet. Things are getting back to normal now though, we all still miss Ollie, but our house no longer feels like it's full of sadness.
Dexter has made some excellent progress since I last wrote, I am very proud of him! We had a birthday party/game night for Ellis at the end of August - and despite the fact that there were 12 people in the house that he didn't know, playing board games and laughing, many who were in various degrees of intoxication, he handled it really well! A couple of times he left the room and went someplace quiet, but otherwise he spent almost the whole night hanging out watching the action, taking tidbits of food from people, and generally being sociable! I was so happy, because I was worried that it was going to be a tough night for him to deal with. We have had many people come to visit in the last couple of months, and he has shown a huge improvement in how he interacts with them. He doesn't bark nearly as much at new people now, he will come up and sniff them, and he takes treats from them right away. It definitely helps that we have wonderful friends who are willing to help out :)
Dexter has also had several other dog visitors, and his dog skills have definitely improved as well! We babysat our former foster dog, Penny, for a full day, and they hit it off perfectly! They are both young, high energy dogs, who love to run, and boy did they have fun! They ran laps around the yard, shared toys, and played in the pool. And at the end of the day, Dexter was TIRED. Really, really tired. It was wonderful :) He has also met my sister's two small terriers a few times now, and they get along very well too, despite her Boston's reactivity when meeting new dogs. Dexter used to get quite anxious and stressed when new dogs would come over, but he has learned that it's fun to have doggy visitors, and he is much happier to welcome new dogs now.
We also have happy news on the housetraining front. He hasn't had an accident in WEEKS! I am very very happy about this, as I'm sure you can imagine. Part of this is due to management - frequent breaks and confining him to our bedroom at night - but he's also starting to learn to ask when he wants to go out. He still doesn't always ask, but he's getting there. I'm just happy to have clean carpets!
We still can't touch him, but he has made so much progress in so many ways, we're really happy that he's learning to relax and enjoy life more. He will very happily take food from anyone, and when I reach for him, he doesn't back away any more, he comes up and sniffs my fingers. He will lay on the couch beside me, and he will stand beside me when I open the door to let him out, rather than hanging back and then darting past me. He follows me everywhere and will often come and touch me with his nose, which I think is a big step! I have been spending a lot of time at dogma, learning from the trainers and asking them questions, and I have been getting some excellent ideas on how to occupy him, channel his energy, and work toward touching him eventually. It's a journey :)
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| Have I mentioned that he loves Brody? |
