Nobody puts baby in the corner

She puts herself in the corner! She loves small spaces. She loves to squirm her way into Dave's closet and sleep, she loves trying to fit between her crate and the couch, she sleeps in the corner by the back door and the entrance to the garage. I guess she just feels safe in small spaces. Aww sweet thing needs a forever home with someone she can cuddle with and that will shower her with attention. She has certainly lived up to her name.

Sweey's 'Please' Growl

Sweety laying on Dave begging for attention.

For the most part this is a VERY quiet dog. So when she speaks you can't help but turn your head and listen. She will bark when people come to the door, or when Port barks, and when she's excited to go outside, other than that she's soooo quiet.

Then - every once and a while - she has this growl. This - 'your not paying attention to me, I want something' growl. Its not a mean growl and EVERY time she does it, she has this 'my heart is breaking' googly eyed look on her face. She used to do it when we ate (see post on eating habits) and every once and a while she'll do it when we're sitting on the couch or the bed. I try to ignore her for a minute or two after, because I don't want to reward her for doing it, but she's sooo cute. It usually ends in cuddle time....ooops.

Eating Habits

I'm not sure if I've covered this on the blog, but Sweety is the only dog I've ever fostered that is a 'grazer.' Every other dog, when they come home from the pound are ravenous about food. Each time you put down a bowl, they can't get enough and you can genuinely tell they don't know if they'll ever get another meal. So sad.

Sweety must have been 1. Fed 2. Fed Junk

She knows where her food bowl is and will only eat when she's hungry. Sometimes its the entire bowl, sometimes she eats just a few nibbles. I was concerned when we first brought her home and she couldn't have cared less about her kibble. However, when Dave & I made dinner she was all over us. She would stare at our food and try and sit at our feet and sometimes even bark or growl at us because we weren't giving her any. She was pretty overweight when she came to us. I think she's still a little overweight, but she's much better.

Sweety is also better about humans eating. We are still working on it, but she (for the most part) knows that she needs to stay on her bed while we eat. We did it in two parts. 1- We've never fed her human food while we're eating. Any human food goes in her food bowl (piece of turkey with a pill in it or something, maybe a small piece of leftover steak). Consistency is key! 2 - We've started making her lay on her bed the minute we make our plates and ask her to stay. If she gets up we make her go back before we proceed eating. A few more weeks of consistency on step #2 and I think she'll have it down pat.

Five days since Sweety's last accident! Yay Sweety!

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Progress, Progress, Progress...

I would say now that Sweety is house trained, not 100% house broken, but she is trained. She knows that she should hold her blatter and go outside. As long as we follow some simple rules with her, we seem to aviod accidents:

1. She will not pee in her crate, so anytime we leave the house for more than an hour, we put her in the crate.
2. She will not pee overnight as long as we close our bedroom door. Not sure why - maybe it has become a large crate for her, but if the door is open, she will wander down in the middle of the night and pee at the back door. So the door is closed and problem solved!
3. We used to take her out every 2 hours, and now we're up to every 4 hours which is pretty typical of your house trained dog.

Bravo Sweety!

We're 3 days since the last accident. I think she started having accidents after her spay surgery because she got a very sick tummy. She didn't eat normally for 5 days but is back to normal and the accidents have stopped.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is our one month anniversary with Sweety. Yesterday she went into People for Animals clinic in Hillside, NJ for her spay surgery. She came home with her big cone on, bumping into everything. It was almost like watching a pin ball arcade game, I think she ran into everything we own! She was groggy and uncomfortable (with her cone head) but managed to eat something late into the evening. In a few days she'll be back to normal!

No more pups for Sweety

Sweety goes in for her spay surgery today at People for Animals. They are a low cost spay/neuter clinic in Hillside, NJ. It only costs $95 for a female up to 80lbs (even less for smaller dogs). I went this morning to drop her off and there had to have been close to 35 dogs ready to be dropped off. I saw at least 5 cute pitties with their responsible owners!

We decided to leave her name Sweety since it fits her so well and even though Daisy is cute - she...is...Sweety.

Its been almost a month since we've been fostering Sweety and she is learning quick. It's been 3 days since her last accident. She fully knows potty outside is good and potty inside is bad - which is half the battle. As long as we take her out every 3-4 hours and shut our bedroom door at night (if not she'll wander down at night to go pee by the back door which is what happened Fri) she seems to make it just fine. She can also go 8 hours in her crate with no accidents. I'd give her another couple of weeks and she'll be fully potty trained.

A pic of sweety eating a scrumptious blueberry mini-cupcake this past weekend.