Today is a great day. One year ago today we brought home a little scared dog who wasn’t sure what was going on. One year later, she is an integral part of our family and we couldn’t imagine our lives without her.

Portrait by Jennifer Bailey Photography

She has come such a long way. This year has definitely not been easy, but every step of the way has been worth it. It was quite the challenge to figure out how she fit into our family, and into our lifestyle but I can safely say now that we are finally there! She has found her place and is very confident and happy about it.

Portrait by Jennifer Bailey Photography

I must apologize for not writing the 11 month update, but I wanted to save it all for this post.

Wellie has been doing so well that we can’t even believe she’s the same dog! She rarely has accidents in the house anymore and we don’t even really need to use the bells on the back door anymore as she lets us know when she has to go out. She still needs to go out quite a bit, but as long as we are able to let her outside, she doesn’t have any accidents.

Since day one, Wellie has had attitude and it still shines through every once and a while. We are making sure to keep working on making her realize that we are in charge, not her.

We still are crating – she doesn’t fully have her freedom back yet and we are moving very slowly with it. She now is allowed in the kitchen when we are gone out, but only sporadically. She is also allowed to sleep on the bed with us, but only every other night. We need to do this slowly so that she doesn’t think that she’s in charge.

One thing we’ve realized recently is that Corduroy is the top dog in our place. It was quite the surprise to realize this because she’s the most chilled dog of the bunch, but she is the only dog who can control the others and none of the other dogs ever bug her. Ever.

Corduroy and Wellie are still best buds and do pretty much everything together. It’s the cutest thing. Paddington and Wellie still don’t love each other totally, but they do love to play together but once they are done playing, they go to their separate corners.

One thing we realized over the Christmas holidays this year, was that Wellie was wagging her tail for us. I’d never noticed the absence of tail wagging, until I saw her actually doing it. It made me sad to realize that she wasn’t’ wagging it for so long, but made me so happy that she’s wagging it now and we know she is so happy to see us and be in our family.

Wellie is such a ham and LOVES the camera. She adores posing for portraits which is funny because Paddington and Corduroy are quite the opposite!

Wellie fiercely loves Thomas. Every evening she lays on his lap and gets him to pet her. She much prefers sitting with him, to sitting with me. When she sleeps on the bed, she is always pressed up against him (he doesn’t love this as much as she does! haha). It’s really wonderful to see the bond they’d developed and I know it will grow over the years.
I like to think that Wellie and I have a special relationship. She is still quite an independent dog, but will come to me for pets and love, and especially for playtime! She loves chasing after balls and her kong wubba.

Dog sandwich.

We haven’t actually had Wellie’s hair cut since we brought her home! One fun fact for you today. We both prefer our dogs to be scruffy and fluffy and she just hasn’t needed it yet. We do bring them to get their nails trimmed every other week though because Thomas and I are quite awful at it and it’s MUCH less stress to have someone else do it for us.

Little dog, big love.

Part of me cannot believe it’s been a whole year, and the other part can’t image what our lives were like without her. Wellie-bellie, you are such a delight and we love you to pieces. You are a part of our family that we are so very happy to have.

Read 10 Months with Wellie here | Read 9 Months with Wellie here | Read 8 Months with Wellie here | Read 7 Months with Wellie here | Read 6 Months with Wellie here |Read 5 Months with Wellie here | Read 4 Months with Wellie here | Read 3 Months with Wellie here | Read Week 8 here |Read Week 7 here |Read Week 6 here | Read Week 5 here | Read Week 4 here |Read Week 3 here | Read Week 2 here | Read Week 1 here | Read Welcome to Wellie here.

Ottawa Dog Blog Founder, Liz

Liz is a dog lover and photographer living in Ottawa with her partner in crime/husband, Thomas, and three dogs; Paddington, a Maltese/Yorkie mix; Corduroy, a Maltese/ShihTzu mix; and Wellington a Yorkie/ShihTzu mix. She loves dogs, candy, milk, tomato juice, grocery shopping, shoes, movies and DVDs and most of all, her amazing hubby!

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