Just breathe, Emma

The very brave journey of a small, scared dog learning the world (probably) won't eat her.

[emma-the-brave]

I decided to make a list earlier to break down "go in carrier, ride in car, go to vet" into as small of steps as I could think of, for Emma's training plan. There's a LOT of steps! This will likely be our big project for the year. I want to have her as comfortable as possible so we can move forward on a stable setting & not traumatize her.

("Drive to mcds" is going to McDonald's for goodies like chicken nuggets and ice cream! And each step is likely to be high value treats first, then again with regular treats, depending on how it all goes.)

The end gets a bit more vague, as that's likely a long ways off. I'll break it down a bit more when we get further along. I know there will be a whole mess to figure out getting an actual exam on her that isn't just visual. Even if she's anesthetized for it, they still have to be able to do the actual anesthesia somehow. But I'm hoping maybe to get a better idea of how when we get months down the line towards that, and see where she's at overall, and see if the vet has ideas.

For now, we're on step one for the past couple days & it's going well! She's stopped running to her safe spot in a mild panic when I go near the crate, and just watches. Alert, but not overly upset. She approached it twice tonight, not quite up to it to sniff, but definitely checking it out! I think this was a much better step to start at than skipping straight to trying to encourage interaction.

[fbwzoo]

Emma's nails are getting so long 😭 and bc it's still hard to do anything directly with her bc she gets scared and shakes, I decided on an idea to try.

Trying to get her to interact with a small area would be very difficult. That rules out doing scratch boards or tubes for right now. So instead, I just ordered a couple 4x4 plywood sheets, and some wide sanding belts that, cut to lie flat, should be 4x4 as well.

I'm going to make an 8x4 area of sandpaper boards so we can play treat toss around & on them. Hopefully that will get her more used to walking on them, the texture, etc. The sandpaper is 150 grit for now, and if this goes well, I'll get coarser grit to switch to later so it'll be more effective.

[emma-the-brave]

Haven't been doing much with Emma or dogs this week after burning myself out a bit rescuing neglected small creatures at the beginning of the week.

But I have been noticing lately that she's been getting very confident at navigating and perching on the back of the couch! Excellent chihuahua behavior unlocked. She's also just getting more confident with moving around and on top of the humans on the couch. We've got to watch her bc sometimes this newfound boldness means she tries to nab your food if you're not paying attention. 😂

And on the food note, she's been doing very good at not showing guarding behaviors with our food over the past few weeks! We haven't done anything very specific with that, mostly just not sharing food while eating, enforcing being in her corner bed or on a different couch area while we have food, and not leaving food sitting around. I think her continuing to settle and grow confidence a little is helping as well.

[emma-the-brave]

Started my new approach for the crate with Emma today - just hanging out by it and rewarding the dogs in general for coming over around it & me, and interacting with it. No encouragement or attention paid to Emma I'm particular.

As expected, she stayed on the couch, but she did watch closely for a few minutes. After i grabbed the treat pouch, Addy came straight over and we spent a few minutes getting treats for looking in the crate and sticking her head in it.

I was happy with the as a first session & figured Emma will watch this process for at least the first few times, but after I got up & moved back to the couch, she actually did go sniff around the crate a little!! Very pleased that she's already showing any interest at all.

[emma-the-brave]

Emma's version of fetch with twigs. 😂 My friend called it reverse fetch.

[fbwzoo]

I knew I'd been thinking about her for almost a year before we got her! 🥰 And now this sweet baby is all ours & doing so very good with us!!! And the chi twins love each other (& their big sister) & are exactly as cute when they mirror each other as I imagined!! 💙💜

[fbwzoo]

One of Emma's training team came to do a check in & see in person how she's doing on Monday. Emma did fantastic & really showed her progress off! But it was still hard work having a non-family person around, so she was a bit clingy yesterday.

When I laid down before dinner, she started out in my lap, then suddenly scrambled up to snuggle in behind my shoulders & head. She stayed like that through my wiggling around to get comfy, the two hours I napped, and still didn't want to leave after I woke up. It took extra encouragement from me and Arte before she would get up to go for her dinner.

After she was released from the bedroom, she zoomed straight back to me, and we spent the next couple hours like this. Much squish snuggling needed for reassurance. 💜

Also bonus double chiwoo side eye:

[fbwzoo]

I'm so grateful for both of the rescues involved with Emma. We had help from foster mom & the assistant director from the main rescue with getting Emma's meds refilled for another month & getting the full vet records so that our vet has what they need to take over the scripts now. And her training team was prepared to help us use one of the trainer's scales at our house if our vet could work with that, so we don't have to rush her into a visit.

They've just been extremely helpful & supportive, and care so much about her too. I know it's partly bc she's a special case + they had her for a long time, but still. They're so busy all the time that it would be easy for them to just drop off and leave us on our own, but they're so excited about how she's been doing. It's been giving me & Jack both a lot of feels with how many people love this lil scared dog & want her to be safe & happy. 💜💙

[fbwzoo]

I just love my little scaredy dog so much 😭 She's getting so playful the past few days?? She's started playing with Spring in the living room in the evening recently, even with all 4 humans there.

Today outside, she was chasing and hiding pine cones I tossed for her, and chewed on a stick for a minute. I've tossed balls for her before and she'll chase them sometimes, but no interest in doing anything with them after. But apparently pine cones are super awesome and must be hoarded. 😂

And tonight, she did a full bouncy spin?? When I came back out of the animal room?? 💜 It was so cute. And then more playing with the other dogs, she inspected a couple small toys I tossed to her, and even grabbed a chew I tossed next to her, pulled it closer & chewed on it a couple times while sitting on the couch next to Joel.

She didn't fully settle down to chew on it, but that's still just such a big new step to show interest even while sitting next to scariest human!

She also was sitting next to me earlier, and very intently watching me. I offered a hand and got some excited licks. I tried rubbing her ear & she fully leaned into it for a count of 3. Pulled back, got more very avid licks, and tried another ear rub. Same lean in for the count of 3, then we were done! It's not too hard to avoid petting her most of the time, but it is hard to remember to keep it short & sweet when it happens so it stays a good thing.

[emma-the-brave]

Emma has been working so hard with Joel, and vice versa! We've been having him practice tossing treats to her when he does his stand in the room & talk & gesture thing, bc she gets nervous about it. He's done that a couple times & we'll continue to work on it.

We had one more repair guy in to install a new furnace, but mostly kept the dogs calm aside from one incident, I kept them in the bedroom while the guy was around to avoid an uproar. So that seems to have helped, bc she's not had a major setback again with Joel entering rooms over the weekend.

That's still a work in progress and likely will be for a while, but she's doing SO good!! Joel just came home from getting Arte from work. Emma gave one small gruff as they were walking up, but NO barks at all as they came in, and she didn't even sit up from laying position! Very good girl! She got a couple chips for it.

Also, excited bc her trainer is coming for an in home visit/session tomorrow night to see how we're doing. Looking forward to telling them about her progress & seeing how she does with the visitor!

[emma-the-brave]

Tail wags, zoomies, and diggies! First time getting the diggies on video.

[emma-the-brave]

We had one, yes, what about second visit?

So, Jack and I were immediately in love with the small, very scared dog. Yes we love her we don't care if we never touch her she's wonderful and we will take the best care of her please let us treat her like a tiny princess.

We waited all of 3 days before asking when we could next coordinate a visit. 😂 The visit was set for December 3rd! In the meantime, with nothing but tiny dog on the brain, and with Black Friday sales lingering, I started buying supplies for her.

So. Many. Treats. And some chews as well! I was making lists of what else we would need to get - pens, a crate, carrier, blankets, a bed.... I ordered the carrier before the second visit, because we took it with us for that visit, to give to foster mom. We took a new blanket for her as well, and one of our couch blankets with our smell on it.

So Saturday the 3rd, Jack and I headed to the meeting, with stuff to send home with foster mom, blankets to cover our legs as they said she preferred, and just Spring with us this time.

As before, a fair amount of heavy stress panting for the first 15 minutes or so. But she did come closer to us while foster mom was showing us a video!

Those were my feet under the blanket!!! So close!!!

Foster and trainer were both excited that we'd brought our own blankets and were already covered up when Emma came in. We listened! We had brought some new treats too, but they turned out to not be that interesting to either chi, so foster mom was the favorite with her good treats. But they still did good around each other!

We were excited to already see some improvement, likely due to fewer people and less scary ones. She spent less time hiding behind foster mom & spent more time watching us as we talked about her behavior, likes, etc. Foster mom laid down and Emma sat between her legs, and was calmed down enough to stop panting!

Watching us 👀👀👀

And then!!!! Much excitement!!!!! She laid down!!!! We all just went quiet for a moment and did big OMG eyes at each other. Jack and I were so excited!

As we wrapped the session up & Emma went back in her carrier, Jack & I were babbling about "omg she laid down!!" and foster mom & trainer told us they were very happy we obviously recognized this as a Big Step. Compared to previous visits where people were asking when they could pet and hold her..... yeah. Not hard to beat that. 🤦

So apparently between having listened & brought lap blankets, clearly having reasonable expectations of behavior & recognizing small differences in behavior, we passed approval with flying colors! They told us that they were considering her already adopted, & they were happy for us to take her whenever we were ready. We were a bit startled 😂 but also EXCITED.

We gave foster mom the carrier and blankets (adding to our points 😂) and said we'd let them know as soon as we talked to the family!!

We were getting scared puppy!!!!! They liked us!!!! Yaaaaaaaay

[emma-the-brave]

Potty training

She's AMAZING!!!

Left her out with a potty pad placed in the previous accidents spot in the living room yesterday, 2/6/23, while getting baby rats.

Out for 7 hours - NO accidents, didn't even use pee pad.

2/7/23, Jack left her out for the work day for the first time - out for 8.5 hours, no accidents!!! Much excitement when I came home and discovered 3 dogs greeting me and no problems. Much excitement on her part to be able to immediately tackle my legs.

[emma-the-brave]

We attempted a rather disastrous nail trim last week, which mostly just scared the crap out of her and upset all of us. We tried to do it the way foster mom did, which was grab and just get it done as fast as possible. She shut down and just froze when they did it.

For us, she tried to bite Jack instead, until I gave him a blanket to use. Then she froze completely & peed on the blanket while I trimmed as quickly as I could.

We let her go and then gave her two full hot dogs while sitting on the couch and not looking at her until she calmed down some. Then went outside to run and sniff a bit to shake some stress off.

.... yeah, not doing it that way again. I'll pay to have her knocked out at the vet and done a few times a year if needed, but not gonna force trim her like that again. It sucked. So much. For everyone but especially her.

Thankfully, she didn't really regress much from it and still cuddles me and Jack, lets me pet her, etc. Very grateful for that, at least.

[emma-the-brave]

Making a few posts to record Emma progress.

Social skills & resource guarding

Has had to deal with lots of repair people over the past 2 weeks, very stressful. She increased her resource guarding barking & alarm barking at Joel when he gets home.

To help keep that from getting worse while there's still repair visits, we're having Joel carry dried hot dog for his treats, and he's doing the positive routine things when possible - feeding & letting out/in.

Hopefully when we can shut the house down again for a few weeks post-repairs, this will help improve his standing in her mental hierarchy of the household humans.

[emma-the-brave]

Emma's been killing her potty training lately, she peed on living room pad & went back to bed on Tuesday when Jack wasn't feeling good, and she got access to the bed (with a cover) yesterday & today during the day with no accidents on the bed!

On the flip side, she's been getting a bit more food-hound, and also showing more guarding behavior. Specifically, she's been increasing her barking at Joel when he gets home, plus if she in bedroom and he's moving around the house. So we've been working out plans to help keep that from getting worse. There's a few things impacting the behavior & plan.

Background causes - I realized today, we've had like 4 different strangers at the house in 2 weeks between friend, repair guys, and fix it family member doing some stuff around the house for us. That's a LOT and certainly more than we expected for the first several months. No wonder she's on edge. She's been doing so good, we got complacent. So once we're done getting stuff fixed in the next few days, back to lockdown for 2-3 weeks to let her unwind. Then we can start again with having our quiet friend come over.

Complications - some of the things she doesn't like about Joel, are just Joel things and can only change so much. He's active, he moves a lot, he's tallest in the house, and he's got a deeper voice. There's a limit to what he's able to do right away on changing his routines without tanking his mental health, so there's some compromise there.

Planned changes from us - Joel now has a treat pouch in his work bag so he can give treats easier and faster when he comes in. He's letting me know when he leaves work and an ETA, give or take 5 minutes, so that I can be ready to manage Emma better - either giving her treats or taking her outside while he's coming in. We told him he should work on giving her treats more often in general around the house, so she starts expecting positive things from him too.

Additional changes after talking to her training team - going to dry some hot dogs for Joel to have in his treat bag so that he gets the high value treats. The rest of us can do regular ones, but Joel will have the good shit. Joel & Arte are also going to do a bit more of the positive dog things when possible, such as letting out & in, and giving food. They included Arte so that she doesn't just swap them in her mental hierarchy.

And a good one that hadn't even occurred to me, I can also just. Get up & move around when Joel's getting home & if she starts barking. She can't guard me if I'm not staying still, and she'll be more focused on following me & seeing what I'm doing instead of getting upset about Joel coming in.

It's opposite from what we'd been doing while she was settling in, which was giving her a safe person that stayed put while she processed everyone else moving around. But duh, it's 7 weeks later, she's past that point & now we have a different behavior & situation, thus different approach.

Looking forward to seeing how the changes work!

[emma-the-brave]

I swear I'm gonna finish the Emma Background posts, but in the meantime

She ate in the living room again last night, and pushed the door open herself again, with some encouragement.

She asked to go outside twice yesterday!

And she got to stay out this morning while Jack ran errands, 3 hours with no issues!!

Also last night, she tried to scarf her uncle's fried rice approximately 2 seconds after he set the bowl down 🤦 Let the boundary testing begin?