It feels like it’s been forever since my 2 month (8 week) update on life with Wellie. It’s been a very busy few weeks and I have lots to report.

I was really hoping that by now we could happily report that Wellie was housetrained…but sadly it isn’t so. Wellie is still having accidents inside and has also now decided that our back lawn is extremely scary and won’t walk on it which makes housetraining all that much more difficult. She darts around the yard and sticks to the edges, or worse, does her business ON the deck. I am beginning to get nervous that her “scared-y-cat” phase has kicked in and we might be at this for a while. Corduroy had the same thing happen at around 13 months – but hers was a reaction to loud noises (especially the evil vacuum cleaner and stove fan). Wellie is 18 months now but I’ve heard the “scared-y-cat” issue can happen anytime up until the dog is two. Have any of you experienced this phase where they get afraid of things that never bothered them before? The grass never did anything to her! haha. Although it looks like we may have had a breakthrough this afternoon – she walked on the grass without much hesitation. Cross your fingers for us!

Since we are still having issues with house-training, we are trying to be diligent about sticking to a schedule. With the yard fear, Wellie has been taking ages to go poo in the mornings and has made me late for work on several occasions because we are out there for upwards of 30 minutes. Yesterday I got really mad at how long she was taking and decided that for the time being, every morning I will put her harness and leash on and give her 10 minutes to go. If she doesn’t go in that 10 minutes, we’ll come inside, have breakfast and go out to try for another 10 minutes. I don’t want her to think that she has 40 minutes to do her business in the mornings – it’s just not feasible. This morning was the first attempt at this and it went really well! She did both pee and poo in 10 minutes! Good girl! We shall see if she is still as good when it’s raining out – she still hates the rain.

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Last week we reached the 8 week/2 month mark with Wellie. I’ve decided now to shift to monthly reports, as she’s mellowing out and finding her place in our family very well so I don’t have much to report on a weekly basis.

I’ll be back on June 1st with the 3 month report on how everyone is doing. I’m sure I’ll have lots to report on house training and hopefully we will have made lost of progress by then!

See you in 3 weeks!

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.

This week was lovely because we got to spend much of it together, as a family, for the Easter holidays. Both Thomas and I took off Monday as well as Friday so we had four days and it was awesome. Sleeping in, snuggling and spending time with everyone.

On Thursday last week we took Paddington and Corduroy to the vet for their check-up. While overall they are both doing very well (and aside from Cordy’s “porkyness”), they both have an eye condition that is common in small dogs. It’s called entropion and it’s when the eyelid turns in a bit at the end. It doesn’t hurt them, it’s just annoying and makes their eyes water and we got some eye wash solution to clean their eyes with. When we got home we noticed that Wellie probably has this condition as well. One thing that can happen is that it can block the tear ducts and that is where Paddy is at right now, so the vet told us to give her Oculoheel Eye Drops to help clear that up.

The ironic part about all of this is that I absolutely hate eyeballs – they totally gross me out. Doesn’t matter whose they are, if I can see past the regular eye, it turns my stomach. And now I have to see Paddy’s eyeballs every day to give her drops – the things we do for our beloved pups!

As I mentioned before, we had a lovely weekend of sleeping in and cuddles and Wellie really enjoyed having us home. On Friday, Thomas and I corralled all of the pups to re-take my about portrait for my photography website. I wanted it to be quite similar to the one we had taken in February, but with three dogs. It was quite difficult to get all three dogs together, sitting, looking forward with the leashes wrapped around my leg (this was very important to my photography vision you see). In the end, Thomas did a fantastic job of capturing the pups and they look awesome. I love this portrait so much I think I may blow it up onto a huge canvas. Next up in the photographic adventures is to try to get a shot of the three dogs and me with my face in it as well. I’ve got some ideas brewing.

We headed to my in-laws on Saturday for Easter dinner and Wellie was in heaven sniffing all over their back yard and stressing me out by withholding pooping the ENTIRE day. She also got a rebellious streak in her and was squeezing herself under the deck and generally not listening. She was being quite the cheeky monkey. Fortunately she had some MAJOR poo action the next morning and we were back to regularly scheduling programming.

Speaking of that, Wellie did a lot better with house training this week – not perfect, but a lot better. She doesn’t mind being on the leash at all and just curls up to sleep beside you. The few accidents she did have, we didn’t have her on the leash and she wandered away so that was our fault, not hers. Thomas caught her in action a few times last week and I think she is starting to get the peeing/pooping inside=bad+angry and peeing/pooping outside=YAY TREATS AMAZING AWESOMESAUCE. She is now continually asking to go out to pee and poo which is awesome, but she’s also just asking to go out sometimes (repeatedly) and since we want to make sure she knows it’s great to ask and do it outside, we don’t want to discourage it.

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Today marks week two with Wellington. It really does seem like she has been with us a lot longer.

This week has been harder than the first. When we brought Wellie home, we knew that we would have to work with training and pack leadership, but what neither of us knew was the emotional aspect of it all. This week has been a bit emotionally draining.

It is important to me to foster good relationships between all of the dogs. This is stressing me out a bit because I am really worried that doing things wrong at so early in the development of their interpersonal relationships will affect them later.

I have noticed over the past week that Wellington’s dominant humping of the other dogs happens mostly at times of excitement – during our play time mostly. She hasn’t been doing it as much this week, but has snapped at Paddington a few times and that is something that will not be tolerated. Every time she snaps I put her on the ground on her back and get whomever she snapped at (most of the time it’s Paddington) and have the dog stand over her. She doesn’t like this and the past few nights she’s bared her teeth at Paddy standing over her so I am working on correcting that as well.

I supervise their playtime very closely because of this. If it gets a bit too heated for my liking, I’ll break it up and have them play with something else. But constantly being this aware all the time is exhausting.

Thomas and I are both trying really hard to be calm and assertive leaders, but when I get that exhausted I find myself getting emotional with Wellington and I, myself, need to work on that. It’s hard not to get emotional though when she is asserting herself over our other two dogs.

One incident in particular happened last night. I was talking on the phone with Mom and the dogs started playing. I watched them while on the phone but in hindsight, I should have hung up to supervise more closely. While talking to my Mom I realized that both Wellington AND Paddington were ganging up on Corduroy. I was not happy about this at all. I attempted to break up the play but they just moved into the bedroom and did it again. Then I saw that Paddington was trying to dominate Corduroy in a way I hadn’t seen her do before. I quickly realize that Corduroy was becoming the Beta dog and I am not happy about that. Thomas was extremely unnerved when I told him this and it is something that emotionally affects both of us. We need to work on this. Playing is one thing, but ganging up and dominating is another. It is my understanding that if Thomas and I are good pack leaders, the dogs won’t try to dominate each other because we are already leading them. I am not sure this is entirely correct though.

I have to remind myself often that Wellington has only been with us two weeks and is still learning. What she has accomplished already is nothing short of amazing, and there are just a few things we need to work on. We didn’t train Paddington and Corduroy in two weeks so I need to stop expecting myself (and Thomas) to be able to train Wellie in a short period of time.
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One week ago tonight we drove to Animatch to adopt Wellie. In some ways, if feels like she’s been with us a lot longer than that. It’s only been one week and already she has come so far.

Wellington was given up by her previous owners because she had too much energy for them. This is a reminder to really research the temperament of a dog before you welcome them into your home. I am sure the rescues see this all the time.

Having experienced the crazyness that was Paddington’s puppyhood, Thomas and I knew exactly what energy level we were in for. It turns out that Wellie is actually less energetic than Paddington was at her age. Additionally, she lacks the stamina that Paddy seems to have (we sometimes calls her the energizer bunny). Wellie is energetic in short bursts whereas Paddington just keeps on going.

Wellington continues to surprise us with her ability to adapt, and her good behaviour. She is excellent on leash (far better than Paddington and Corduroy are!!), is eager to learn, rides in her crate in the car without a peep, is gentle and loving and has assimilated into our lives quite well. In four short days she learned her name, sit, stay, leave it, wait, back up and is currently learning drop it. This weekend we plan on teaching her the down command as well.

As good as she has been, we have had some issues, which is to be expected. She is still having accidents in the house (the housetraining may be a long road), she acts possessive over toys when playing sometimes and she has been trying to dominate Paddy and more-so Cordy, but jumping on and humping them. I also noticed that on some occasions she is a bit snappy at bigger dogs on leash which leads me to believe that she wasn’t socialized on leash in her previous life.

We are working on being good pack leaders and are addressing these issues. The one that concerns me the most is the dominance towards Corduroy. Cordy is a very laid back dog and I have an inkling that Wellie is mistaking this for weakness and she is trying to assert dominance. We are working on this by making sure that Wellington receives everything last. She is fed last, given attention last, treats last etc. and because she seems to be picking on Corduroy more than Paddington, Corduroy is getting everything first.

We will also be doing a lot more pack walks as well as doing things to make sure that Wellington doesn’t feel the need to take over. Such things as stepping over her, petting her by being over top of her, asking her to obey commends such as sit and stay before getting what she wants (ie: food, ball, etc), never losing a staring match, and feeding her last.

I have noticed a difference in her attitude towards Corduroy already, but we still have a long way to go.

Because Wellington is still young (she is just over a year), she still needs to be occupied until we trust her completely and she’s grown out of her chewing stage. We are making sure to have a lot of chew toys around and toys that challenge her and keep her busy.

To be honest I had completely forgotten what it’s like to do all of this. Thomas keeps reminding me that we had to do the same steps with Paddington and Corduroy, but for some reason I don’t remember these things. Paddington was really bad at possessiveness with her tennis balls (we play fetch every night before bed), and we worked really hard to get where we are today, which is: she will bring it to you, drop it in front of you and sit and wait until you throw it. We are working on the same behaviour with Wellington and she is coming along really well.
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