Savvy's Foster Dogs: Introducing Ryleigh!

With the adoption of Miss Finley, came the arrival of Miss Ryleigh. She is a serious ball of energy. In fact, I'm convinced that she is literally a ball of energy that just happened to pick up a bunch of dog hair while rolling around.

LOVES car rides already!

This munchkin just does not stop. The second her crate opened at the daycare when I went to pick her up, she ran out and ran right up to me. I picked her up and was immediately COVERED in kisses all over my face. This action has been repeated any time my face has been within range, by the way (laying on the floor, sitting on the couch, picking her up, etc). She immediately made friends with Owen and Mini, and is still making attempts at being friends with Hardy. Ryleigh loves to play with toys. But it's kind of a "Oooh a ball! Oooh a rope! Oooh a squeaker! Oooh a ball!" type of thing. She is also extremely curious. She has to explore every single thing. At one point on our drive home from the daycare she explored under the passenger seat. Yes, she is that small...only about 6lbs...and that's soaking wet!

To be fair, I'll give a better update of Mini (full name: Minaki) here too, since I haven't yet done her justice. I will be making definitive guides on Mini & Ryleigh hopefully this week.

After having Mini for a couple weeks, I'd describe her as a playful couch potato. She spends all day playing with the other dogs (more so since the introduction of Ryleigh, Mini just loves her!) In the evenings she spends about 50% of her time playing and 50% of her time napping on the couch or in her bed.

Mini's bed. This came with her when I picked her up, and she just loves it. We'll see how much she likes it after I wash it, but if she still does I'll be happy to send it along to her adoptive family if they want it!

Mini loves to play with squeaker toys. She destroys the squeaker pretty quickly, but she seems to like them even after they don't make noise. Sometimes she will play tug-of-war (even once with Hardy!) but what she really likes to do is chase the other dogs and wrestle. Since Ryleigh entered the house, I've noticed Mini has been acting as a motherly figure to her (don't forget, she just had puppies of her own not long ago, also up for adoption on the Fluffy Dog website!). Mini likes to teach Ryleigh how to do dog things...like how to play properly, and how to go outside to go potty, and she even will discipline Ryleigh when she gets out of hand.

Mini's favorite type of toy

And in case I didn't mention it in my last post, Mini has heterochromia! No, that's not a disease...it means she has 2 different eye colors. One blue and one brown. No, she's not blind in the blue eye...I've tested! She does see out of both eyes, and from my non-veterinary opinion, she see's just as well out of both eyes. But it's a cool little feature that makes Mini unique, and you can brag to all your friends about it!

Mini (on the left)...check out her heterochromia

Owen is my last peanut (but certainly not least!). He's doing extremely well lately. I sometimes have him wear a belly band in the house to deal with his marking. He hates it and knows that he doesn't have to wear it outside, so most of the time he hangs out outside (which he prefers anyway, because he can watch the wildlife). This past weekend I did not make him wear a belly band in the house, and he did not have a single accident. Just a little proud foster-mom bragging there. I've also been working with someone on his reactivity/biting for the last couple weeks. So far we've established that humans aren't the problem, objects are. So now I'm starting positive association training with him, to change his fears about certain objects to something positive. Even though this might sound like a negative, I think it's really beneficial that we've discovered that people aren't the objects of his frustration. I wouldn't be afraid of adopting him to a single person or a couple, or even a family with older children who we know wouldn't try touching him with scary objects. I have some new training tools in my arsenal, so I'm going to work with him on his object associations until the day he's adopted. I have no doubts in my mind that he'd make someone a great pet, whether it's today or in a month.