Hi Sue,
Just a quick email to say we had a great weekend with Delilah, who is now named Georgia. I don’t think her tail has stopped wagging since we brought her home.
We walked her before we even took her in our house so that she didn’t come inside with lots of energy. Once inside, she explored and paced a bit, and smelled a lot, but settled down within an hour or so.
She got lots of attention from us this weekend with playing in the backyard, numerous walks and two jogs. She pulled a lot on the first walks but is already better and my jog with her this morning was almost pleasant. She happily slept in her dog bed throughout the day yesterday – I think she was tired from all the fresh air she got.
It’s wonderful that she has so much experience with other dogs. She’s been perfect when saying hi to other neighbourhood dogs. My only complaint is the pulling she does to get to them because she just can’t wait to say hi. We’ll work on that.
Inside, she’s a very polite dog and has amazing manners – no begging when we eat, no barking when there is a knock at the door, listening to us when we ask her to sit, sitting quietly at the front door when we put on her collar, etc etc. The kids are being really great at being consistent with her with our house rules – I think they know doing so will make it easier for all of us (Georgia included) in the long run. We still have a ways to go in some areas (staying seems to be a new concept – she just wants to be where ever we are all the time) but we’ll get there. We had two visitors who she was very excited to see and she let them rub her belly within about one minute of meeting them. Not sure how much of a watch dog she’ll end up being, but we’re ok with that.
As a start, it’s been really great. Fitting her in to our regular weekly schedule will probably take a bit of getting used to. She went for a very early morning run with me, then a good walk with Julia 90 minutes later, so hopefully she was able to use up enough energy to get her to 3:30 when the kids will be home.
We’ll send you another update soon and find a time to come and say hi to you in person in the next little while.
You said the first 24 hours would be hard. It’s actually been a pleasure. Because it’s been such a good start, we feel that she was the absolutely right dog for us to choose and bring into our family. Thanks again for your patience with me while I made this decision.
Kind regards,
Catherine
