Roxie

It never ceases to amaze me how much he loves chaos.

We have not yet been able to get a collar or leash on her, but we are beginning to save up to that by introducing her to the possibility. She goes through these moody periods, we call them, when she is sometimes flighty and sometimes not. So regardless of moodiness or not, we pet her with the leash in our hands so that she can see it won’t harm her. I even have her tugging on the leash in a form of tug game.

She has learned both the words “sit” and “lay down” as well as the hand-sign for both. She is able to catch her treats, and she is much better about not chewing on things she shouldn’t. Roxie is a silly thing who likes taking toys to a single corner in the yard. She hoards them, but doesn’t play with them. Oh, and she loves making the squeaker toys squeak. She obsesses over it. It is absolutely hilarious.

She and Katie (my cat) are getting along famously, and her and Eli are absolutely inseparable. Unfortunately, Roxie likes tugging and nibbling on our new dining rug, so while we’re at work we leave Eli in the house and put Roxie outside to play with or ignore the toys she has gathered. This makes her SO EXCITED when we come home and let Eli outside to play with her.

Roxie will trot up to one of us several times throughout the day looking for some lovins, but she hasn’t quite figured out how to play with us humans yet. Sometimes when I try and play with her outside she gets to barking and her tail is wagging…but then her hackles raise and even though her tail is still goin, I’m not certain if she really is enjoying herself or what! So we just try and be outgoing with Eli and allow Roxie the opportunity to join in or not.

She is still as adorable as ever, and we enjoy having her around. She’s a groaner when she’s napping, which is so cute!

I need to get to work, so that is all for now.  I apologize for the delay, but there has not been much new to report.  I’ll try to do a better job of updating this.

It did feel as if we had stalled for a little bit as far as making progress, but I can say right now that good progress has been made over the past week.  Roxie and I had a couple of play sessions where I was able to “grab her beak” and grab at her feet.  Also, she now greets me at the door along with Eli when I come home from work.  She let’s me pet her while I’m standing up and no longer have to sit or kneel to do so.

Roxie has also learned that she doesn’t have to wolf down her treats anymore because Eli or some other critter isn’t going to try to take it.  It’s kind of funny watching Roxie and Eli eat though.  They each have their own bowl, but in the middle of eating they stop and switch bowls.  I guess dogs also believe the grass is greener on the other side.

We have not been able to get a collar on Roxie yet, but to be honest we haven’t tried very hard.  It’s also been a while since Roxie relieved herself inside the house…which is very nice.  She has become more bold and earlier this evening walked up to my sister-in-law, who was sitting on the floor, to get some petting.

Lastly, I’ve discovered that Roxie is interested in eyes.  She’ll put her face in ours to sniff us and then try to lick our eyes.  We naturally keep our eyes shut when she does this.  It’s kind of weird and kind of funny.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/angelimint/sets/72157623197819451/

She and Eli are still playing well together and she’s fun to watch.  We noticed that when Eli has something that she wants she’ll lay in front of him and bark.  He mostly ignores her, but once in a while he gets annoyed enough to walk away.  Another incident occured the other night when I was sleeping on the couch because Nona was sick.  Roxie and Eli were in the living room with me.  During the night I rolled over on the couch and it startled Roxie who wasn’t used to me being on the couch.  She started barking at me (good little watch dog) and moving toward me and away from me.  She wasn’t lunging to bite, but was trying to intimidate me since I was a threat.  Eli then got up and hit her in the face with his snout and sat between her and myself.  Roxie then calmed down and a few minutes later laid down and went back to sleep.

Last night I was actually able to play with Roxie.  It wasn’t rough play, but I was able to do a little tug of war with her while sitting on the floor.  I tugged on her ears and grabbed her snout (I call this game “Got your beak”) and grabbed at her front paws.  She also managed to get a very small and very dead frog into the house to play with.  I used this as a play opportunity as well.  She let me take it away from her and then she would pounce on it again even though it was right next to my leg.  She would drop it on the carpet and I would flick it back toward me and she would lunge after it again.  This went on for about 15 minutes and Eli was kind enough not to interfere with the play time.

Roxie is still skittish overall and needs to be in a certain mood to be approachable.  She’s getting better about it though and I still think we’ll be able to get a collar on her at the end of this week.

Roxie has done a good job of learning sit, but lay down has been a rougher go.  She is still skittish of humans approaching her directly, but has gotten better about not scampering away when we walk past her.  She watches us when we walk toward her and typically allows us to walk past without her retreating.  It takes her a little while to remember how friendly we are in the mornings and when we first get home from work.  All in all, things are going well.  We should have a collar on her at the end of this week based on how things are going so far.  She is a bit dirty right now, but until she gets adjusted to us, we aren’t going to be able to give her a bath.

Medically, she’s doing okay.  She’s got round worm, giardia and something else which I forget, but the roundworm has been treated and she’s currently taking meds for giardia.  As for the other, the vet said the dog will take care of it on her own.  We will need to bring another stool sample to the vet around the first of march as a follow up.  We’ve spent $300 on Roxie so far and when she gets a little older we’ll get her spayed.  She’s a pretty dog, looks kind of like a dingo and we really like her spots.

That’s all for now and feel free to leave any comments or questions.  Thanks for reading.

Anyway, the first couple of weeks there were giant strides, but things are getting a little more routine now and I’m thinking I might start doing this on a weekly basis.  What do you all think?  Maybe twice a week?  My goal is to provide an ongoing progress report and perhaps sharing information with others who rescued pups that might help them.  Let me know what you all would like.  Thanks.

She allowed me to give her ‘daily scrubbins’ along the back and neck, and you should see how she scrunches up her face in delight when I scrub her head and behind her ears. I still need to lay on the floor before attempting to pet her, but I am easing into touching her while crouched – although not attempting to pet – until she lays down, which she usually does when she is comfortable with a situation.

Once she lays down, I use that as a sign that she is comfortable/at ease enough for me to start petting her legs and work my way to the rest of her. It has become a tradition.

Michael got back from the vet with $200 worth of medication for the poor baby! She has giardia, just like her sister, and fleas. So we began feeding her the medication received, which wasn’t as difficult as one would have thought thanks to the invention of “pill pockets”, which were sent along with her [bitter] giardia pills. Eli was SO JEALOUS and would not believe me that he should be happy that he doesn’t have to take those particular pills. So I gave him two treats to counteract the jealousy.

He didn’t even notice that it wasn’t the same thing.

As Michael and I were heading to bed we had a difficult time getting Roxie to follow to the bedroom. In fact, Katie didn’t like the way Roxie was staring at her and decided to reaffirm her status in the chain of command by silently chasing Roxie down the hall and to the kitchen. There was no flying fur, no hissing and no yipping. It was simply a necessary reminder, to Katie’s way of thinking. A few minutes after that, Michael was finally able to get Roxie to follow him and Eli into the bedroom, and by the way Roxie’s tail was wagging, I could tell she wanted to play! So, Michael took that opportunity to play with Eli and try and incorporate her into the action. It didn’t take long for Roxie to have enough, so Michael took the opportunity to give Roxie some good-night scrubbins, which she absolutely loved!

Then it was lights out and a nice and long night’s sleep!

Roxie was insistent on playing with the cat today (Katie) and she finally had enough of Roxie and just lit into her.  Roxie cowered in the corner crying and it was completely hysterical.  It reminded me of what happened with Eli when he was a pup.  She chased Eli through the house and made him pee himself when he was a pup.  Roxie was paralyzed with fear in the corner when she was finished with her.  Of course, later in the day she wanted another go at the cat and Katie chased her out of the room and down the hall as well.  Roxie is beginning to figure this out, but is still very curious.  Her curiosity has worked to her advantage because it actually emboldens her.

Speaking of embolden, Nona was able to get hands on Roxie this morning as well.  She pet Roxies legs, chest, back and head for several minutes.  This was the first time Nona was able to do so.  As long as you get low to the ground and make yourself small, Roxie doesn’t mind so much.  Of course, when she’s done being petted she gets up and walks away…almost cat-like.  Jenny was able to pet her this evening as well when we had guests over.  Roxie did fairly well with the guests.  She sniffed their hands and interacted a bit, but didn’t let them pet her.  We’re satisfied that she wasn’t afraid and let her curiosity get satisfied.  We are working diligently on building her trust.  Katie, isn’t very concerned about the trust thing.

I know I said there would be pictures this weekend, but evidently I’m a dirty liar.  I’m not a photography kind of a guy so I blame my wife (hi wife).  It seems that when we’re petting Roxie the camera is elsewhere.  I’m beginning to think it’s one of her diabolical plans.  Anyway, that’s all for now.  In summary, it was a good day with all three household members being able to fully pet Roxie.  We’ll see what happens the rest of this week and we might actually be able to put a collar on her.  Some time down the road we’ll even get her leash trained, but just one step at a time for now.  We’ll just focus on the petting and the trust building with a little sitting and laying down thrown in for good measure.

Thanks for following along and as always if you have any questions or comments please let me know and I’ll reply as soon as I can.

So, all things considered I thought today was a great breakthrough.  Maybe next week we can get a leash on her.  As for her training, she is beginning to sit on command, but lay down is still a struggle.  Given the situation I’m amazed she obeys the sit command.  We’ll keep plugging away and see what we can do about creating a well socialized, loving and loyal dog.

By the way, anyone out there have a large wooden dog house they don’t want, need or use?  I don’t have a truck at the moment, but can get to one if necessary.  Thanks and have fun.