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Jessie’s just arrived a few hours ago and has already shown herself to be a smart and hilarious little girl with a beautiful trusting temperament. She doesn’t show any interest in our cat and is trying so hard to make friends with our dog Jack who is a little aloof tonight. Poor Jessie.
Here’s a picture of her gorgeous little face and her amazing floppy ears. FB_IMG_1425942565792.jpgAfter the excitement of meeting her foster family and furry brothers last night, Jesse is exhausted and a little confused today… This is her favourite place and pastime for now. She’s a very smart doggie who’s clearly trying to work out what’s happening, you can see her watching and thinking… We cannot wait what puppy mischief she’ll get up to once she finds her feet.
Jessie2.jpgPoor Jessie’s had a nervous day today… As I mentioned before, she’s constantly trying to work out her surroundings and the humans around her, and she just couldn’t understand what was happening to her. Then finally, during a nice long walk in the fields this afternoon, she took her cues from our Jack (run run run run run run run!) and came out of her shell, running and jumping and smiling! She’s been less worried since, and I’m confident she’ll be the same happy and funny little pup she was last night before the worry hit in no time! Here she is crashed out on my husband’s chair… He just never gets to sit in it as it’s always occupied by one of the furry folks!
Jessie and Joe.jpgJessie 3.jpgOh haha, we’re definitely feeling better tonight! She’s assembled herself quite a selection of Jack’s toys (and an antler that is by all accounts delicious). Makes me so happy to see!
IMG_20150310_223552.jpgToday is already a great day for Jessie – whom we’ve renamed POPPY as we kept calling her "puppy"
Here are our achievements for the day, and it’s only 9am!
1. No accident during the night or in the morning as we were getting ready to go for a toilet. Yeay!
2. She did her toilet outside after a short enough time – this is another thing we have to learn, going to the toilet when out on walks.
3. She ate her food out of the bowl after watching Jack eat his, another big yeay! (Before she was only eating when hand fed, or when food was thrown on the ground…)Right now she’s playing with all the toys in rotation and working away at the antler – it shall be annihalted soon! Another achievement in itself.
We just love this little girl.
She’s smart, funny and very very well behaved even being at the very beginning of her training. Since she arrived on Monday, she has learned to sit, lie down and go to her bed. Her recall in the house is also already pretty good and she’s learned to leave things when she hears "ah-ah" (we’ll associate the word "leave" soon). She’s very responsive to training as she loves her cuddles and rewards and will be a beautiful pet for any family, even with young children, given that training is continued. At this point, like any puppy, she can get a little excited and jump up, but she’s still quite gentle even when she does. She’ll soon learn that that is not an appropriate way to greet people or show them affection. We’re in love.
What is a peanut butter kong?
If the expression in Jessie’s stance is anything to go by, I think I’d love it too.
It’s a kong toy stuffed with peanut butter, it’s a bit of a challenge for the dogs to get it all out..
Today we took a trip to the Phoenix Park, and great fun was had by all. Our car is so small that there’s no room for a crate in the boot, so she had to make do with being all over my husband in the back seat – we knew she doesn’t love the car and would be unsure what’s going on, so he sat in the back with her. She was too excited to follow Jack’s lead this time, who just curls up in the footwell and goes to sleep the very moment the car starts. We’ll continue to work on this and get her used to sitting quietly (and relaxed) with her car harness on, although she’s so smart she’s not easily tricked by just getting tasty treats when she’s not too happy about a situation. The treats do work wonders when she’s getting distracted on walks though (she’s a sniffer dog, and Jack is definitely a runner, so we all have to adjust our paces
), or when training in the house and outside. This morning we reinforced sit and down, and learned up and stand. We also learned to wait to have our paws wiped after walks. We noticed that all our foster dogs so far thought this was the strangest thing, and she was no exception. All in all we’re all very pleased with ourselves. Jack loves Poppy’s training sessions because he gets extra treats for doing tricks he knows in his sleep, and Poppy is gaining confidence and learning to communicate better – we’ve already seen the odd automatic sit when she’s looking for attention or goodies, which is amazingly fast learning for a pup. Umm, speaking of treats, we may have created a little peanut butter addict… I only put a little bit in a kong to keep her busy after the morning walk – I reeaaally needed my coffee this morning – and she’s incredibly adept at getting ALL the peanut butter out very quickly. There were sad begging eyes when I opened the jar again to make a peanut butter sandwich for myself.
In the afternoon it was finally park time! Her recall is really good in the house but with so many smells and distractions in the park we didn’t dare let her off the lead, so she was on the long lead running circles around Jack and stealing his stick, which she then proceeded to chew to shreds. Later we could see the excitement (but overall disbelief) in her when Jack jumped in the pond when there was perfectly good running to be had without getting soaking wet. Jack seems to be a great motivator for her, so the swimming may still happen when the weather warms up.
Her housetraining is coming on great as she’s a really clean dog and doesn’t want to go in the house. She’s getting better every day and we’ve officially reached 24 hours without an accident! Well done, little Poppy!
We also discovered that she loves children. Most recently she’s stopping to look at people or mothers with prams, so she may have been a family pet. We recently met some wee’uns on our walk and she was rolling around for them.. She seems to think they’re a lot more interesting than boring old me anyway!
She’s an absolute darling and we’re so glad to see her happy, confident and bouncy after the rough time she’s had in the pound. She deserves the best home where she’s loved and truly a part of the family, hanging out with the human, canine (and even feline!) gang on the couch, or enjoying walks with a doggie best friend.
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Here’s a picture of her gorgeous little face and her amazing floppy ears. 
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