Heartfelt Thank You

I just wanted to pop in really quickly and send a thank you out from Ben and I and this little girl:

It has officially been two weeks that we've had Rosie and I cannot express in words how much your encouragement and kind words have meant!

Rosie has come such a long way in such a short amount of time. She went from a timid restless pup that destroyed her crate in the first few days to a calm, playful daddy's girl. She loves Ben and REALLY wants to play with Paco. It's been great for Paco too, he's got an extra pep in his step and even though he really can't play with Rosie, he's more active and spry.

We've worked with some of her "baggage" and trying to take it one day at a time. After she completely destroyed her liner in her wire crate, see below:

We got another plastic crate with a smaller grid on the door and only holes in the top half so she can't get herself hurt in any of the openings. We moved the new crate directly across from Paco's so when we leave, they can see eachother with a direct line of sight. I thought about putting a blanket or something over the top, but I was so worried that she would pull it into the crate and shred it or worse, so until we get more confident, she's not getting any foreign objects that could be potential choking hazards just yet.

One trick we've done is left a radio playing when we leave and that seems to help so much! Especially with those ginormous ears of hers, she hears everything including all of the cars and kids and whatever else goes on in our neighborhood (it's small, everything is so close). With the radio drowning out the ambient noise, she's still reluctant to get crated, but then she calms down and actually sleeps! She went from being a caged maniac to just a dog that doesn't want you to leave, but she knows we are coming back and that is soooo helpful.

I'm not going to lie, after Rosie demolished that crate, I was scared to death to leave her and was more concerned that she would harm herself in a fit of fright. With that said, after some minor adjustments and taking every single kind word to heart that was shared, I wouldn't trade her for the world! She is the sweetest, kindest, most gentle loving dog and I'm proud to call her mine!

The next step for us from here is to continue socializing her with various people coming to the house. Then once the weather breaks we need to take her to get a harness for outdoor walks (I think she was an "exercise dog" before. When I get in my workout gear and get my shoes on she gets really excited, but then when I hop on the elliptical she's not too thrilled. She's getting much better about her fear of the big bad elliptical though, but I'm anxious to get outside with her.) And see where we go from there!

Thank you all again. We cannot thank you enough! -Ben, Rebecca, Paco & Rosie