Princess: Day 7

Today marks the 7th day of Princess’s fostering with me. She’s been doing a great job overall, learning the house rules, learning how to be with Glimmer and Violet, and learning basic obedience commands. She still needs a lot of work in the following areas:

• meeting new people [she crowds, invades personal space, sniffs at crotches, jumps]
• walking nicely on the leash [she’s still pulling hard]
• walking nicely with another dog [tries to take attention from other handler by invading space]
• giving space [she tends to crowd]

These are things she was never taught not to do, so patience and repetition is key, as well as teaching her the “place” command with the elevated bed. She actually does very well with this command when there aren’t other people coming in the house; she just has to learn that “place” is also a safety net for her so that she can get her excitement under control. She is starting to learn that greeting with excitement results in her being ignored, but she still has a long way to go before she can consistently practice a calmer state of mind.

Princess is very curious about the world around her and wants to explore everything all at once. As a result, she is pulling very hard on the leash during walks instead of keeping pace with me and waiting for permission to go and sniff at something. This can be dangerous for her and whoever is handling her, because she doesn’t see or think about anything [e.g. oncoming traffic, busy streets, etc]; she just goes for whatever has caught her attention. She must learn to be patient and wait for permission from the handler to investigate.

Generally speaking, Princess has been doing very well in her first week with me. She still has a long way to go, but she’s incredibly smart, she’s always eager to learn, she loves to work, and she definitely wants to please.