~A Bitter Swallow~

We got a new puppy on Friday! We adopted her from the Humane Society.

We had gone into PetSmart to get some things for the mouse. Whenever we go in there, we seem to immediately head to the left, which is not only where the fish are kept, but where the little room the Humane Society uses to show off their pets they have for adoption is. As we walked past it, I saw what looked like a German Shepherd. It was me who stopped and went in first to see her.

She is a German Shepherd / Akita mix. She is roughly between 7 and 10 months old. We don't think her previous owners showed her much attention, or gave her much love. She seems starved for both, but is so incredibly timid. She knows what a crate is, although she uses the laundry room here, since it is a perfect size. She is for the most part potty trained, but has had a couple accidents since being here.

She seems to equate coming inside with getting into trouble. So we have a difficult time getting her to come to us when we are trying to bring her back inside. It's frustrating, because we don't know how to go about it. We don't want to do anything to reinforce her ideas of coming inside equalling punishment, but we don't want to continue to let her get away with not listening either. Especially for getting her to come to us. She's started noticing the fence, and has shown interest in figuring out how to jump it. Luckily, we have caught her before she got over so far.

We've decided to put a runner out front, and attach her to it when she goes out. That way, she is tied up, but still has freedom to run. We'll just have to make sure she isn't able to jump the fence and really hurt herself while on it.

My daughter came up with the name Samantha. I'm not sure where she got it from, but it's cute, and we all agreed that we like it. So that is now her name. It only took us four days to get her one. Albeit, the kids were spending the weekend with their father, so were not here to come up with one, and I really wanted them to be a part of the naming process.

So far, Sam is fitting in quite well here.


On another note, today our kitty came back! He's been gone for probably a month now. I had just mentioned today that I planned on putting away the kitty litter box and his food dishes, etc. I had finally given up hope. It's as if he heard me and decided that wasn't okay! When Dustin went to leave for the grocery store, there was Boo, on the porch waiting. He's in good condition- not matted or anything. I don't think he was taken indoors somewhere necessarily, but he was fed. He seems to have been getting some kind of attention. His fur is still clean and soft, and he is still as lovable as ever!

And he still hates the dog. Make that plural, now!