THE UPS AND DOWNS

Having a puppy is definitely a case of up and downs, successes and failures, steps forwards and steps backwards

Terra's housebreaking progress is a day to day thing. She is big enough now to master the back steps so she can go out into the yard, which she absolutely loves. One day she will be almost perfect, alerting at the back door so we can let her out, the next day she will have five accidental piddles in the house, the next day only one or two. The alerts are not yet steady; sometimes she seems to forget and just goes, other times she will whine at the door .. but you need be speedy, she waits until she is near bursting and there is no dallying in letting her out.

Leash training is coming along. Collette walks her to and from the park everyday and although not perfect of course, Terra is doing very well all things considered.

There is also a lot of progress being made in terms of the relationships between my two border collies. Outside, as you will see in the included video, Miss Hayley is much more accepting of the puppy and she is just beginning to actively engage her in play. It has been a few years since Hayley has wanted to wrestle with another dog, she is more the "let me herd them" kind of gal. But I can see that this will soon happen with Terra.

Another postitive sign is illustrated by the photo below. While Hayley is more adamant about keeping Terra "in her place" in the house, when they can lay quietly together, I take that as real progress.

The video shows Terra playing in her park and the two girls playing here in the yard, but it shows a couple of Terra adventures as well: The first is a brief sortie into the bathtub. When Miss Hayley was a pup, she would jump into the tub and stretch out inside it, but this was in the middle of summer, before central air. Terra is just being Terra, exploring her world

Then we have a puppy classic, an event we have seen with every dog we've owned: The old puppy in the mirror. Terra discovered this elusive, bratty puppy (Hey! She's copying me!) last night, in the mirror in our guest room. Very typical behaviour, curiosity, vocalising, and wandering into the other room to find out just where that puppy is ...

OK, so it's not original, but I dare you not to find it cute ...

Who's The Puppy In The Mirror? from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

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 ...