Thursday, March 19, 2009

THERE'S NOTHING LIKE A BIG SISTER

There's nothing like a big sister, or maybe it's a substitute mom, at least in Terra's eyes. Miss Hayley, in the house, is still holding strong on establishing her position with the puppy, she generally ignores Terra and is quick to use a sharp bark or a feigned nip to tell her to back off.

Outside is a little different. In the park, Terra is showing a strong affinity for chasing the ball, which makes Hayley very happy. Hayley's idea of paradise is Dad kicks ball, dog/sheep chases ball, Hayley chases dog/sheep. So Hayley sort of forgets the dominance issues and actually engages the puppy.

No matter how much Hayley ignores Terra however, the puppy absolutely loves her. And definitely emulates the older dog. Terra is still having issues with sound sensitivty. To the point that she is beginning to regress her housebreaking progress. She was doing a nice job of indicating a need to pee/poo by going into the hall and staring at the front door. We would let her out and she would "do her business" The problem is, the street and the sounds coming from it. Terra is scared of sound, pretty much any sound. She is ok with cars driving by but doors, voices, horns, bangs, anything .. will scare her. I've seen her begin to poo, hear a sound, stop the action and run back up the door. We don't let her back in, in those occasions, we've kept her outside until she does something.

But the last couple of days, Terra has stopped indicating and we are finding more poo in the house, something we haven't been seeing for a couple of days. The only thing that convinces Terra to stay outside when it's noisy is by bringing Hayley out with her. And of course, if the big girl is there, the little girl wants to be there. But then Terra gets so distracted by Hayley, she doesn't do her business either.

So it is great to have a big sis, but it is bad to be anywhere there is noise. We are going to work at getting her into the backyard but those stairs are extremely steep and it is difficult for the puppy to get down there. Still, if the big dog goes ...

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