A Little Less Excitement, Lucy- PLEASE!

When Lucy came home to live with us, we had concerns about how our senior German Shepherd was going to react to having a puppy around. We both agreed that it would probably take a little bit of time for them to get used to one another, just as it had when the Basset first got involved, and then everything would be fine. I guess what we didn't take into consideration was that Ceasar is much older, and is in a considerable amount of pain, and therefore, not as tolerant of a wild and exuberant puppy- which Lucy is pretty much most of the time!

Lucy is very intent on getting Ceasar to play with her like every other dog she meets, and Ceasar remains adamant that he wants nothing to do with playing with Lucy. Neither one of them is willing to budge, and Monday morning, there was a big blow out at our house.

I fed the dogs as I normally do, Ceasar was outside, and Lucy was in the kitchen with me. I waited for Ceasar to finish eating and then let Lucy out the door after checking to make sure there wasn't so much as a single piece of kibble left in his bowl. As she usually does, Lucy went to the bowl to lick it out, and it all went down hill from there.

I was standing about 10 feet away when I noticed Ceasar approaching Lucy and the empty bowl, and just as I started to move in, everything went south. Ceasar snapped at Lucy, and he put her down. I had to pull him off of her. Lucy was visibly shaken by this attack- typically she just jumps right up and starts yipping at him again. Not this time. I called her into the house with me to inspect her face. She curled right up to me, and when I pulled her away from me, there was blood everywhere.

My little girl got a hell of a battle wound. She had a cut from the corner of her eye (but didn't get the eye!) the whole way down the side of her face! I cleaned her up (with a ton of wiggling and squirming), and watched her little face as the day went on. By 1:00 her face had swollen to the point of looking like she had a small apple under her skin, and the cut was still bleeding pretty heavily.

"Lucy, looks like we're going to see the vet..."

Mary cleaned Lucy right up (with a considerable amount of sass from Lucy) and shot her full of antibiotics. She sent us home with pain pills, antibiotics and a warning for Lucy to try to stay out of trouble for a couple of days. By 5:00 the swelling had gone away almost completely, and Lucy was resting peacefully in the living room. I did notice that she gave Ceasar a wide berth when we were in the yard with him, but that didn't last very long. She's right back to trying to get him to play with her this morning- apparently someones got a short memory or maybe she's just holding hope that he's going to change his mind about playing with her.

All I know is that Lucy certainly enjoys getting her pill twice a day atop a peanut butter cracker...

My little boxer has been doing very well with her housebreaking, and we haven't had an accident in weeks. So, I've been trying to give her a little bit of freedom for short periods during the day... Of course, trouble finds Lucy or does Lucy find trouble? If there is a place in this store to get stuck- Lucy will get stuck. If there is something in this store to knock over- Lucy will knock it over. She absolutely loves to hide under and behind anything and everything- and thinks that her human enjoys the game of hide and seek just as much as she does.

Lucy's favorite pastime when roaming the store free and clear of her leash, is the tags on the furniture. And not just any tags- she likes the rope ones with the large hang tags attached. I swear she has somehow managed to find, and remove each and every one, that she can reach in this store. I guess I will know who to look for if I suddenly start noticing that a bunch of my tags are missing. On a positive note- she doesn't enjoy chewing on the furniture- she only wants those tags...

In her two months of going to the store with her human every day, Lucy has built up quite a fan club. Yesterday, a very good customer walked in the door, and the first question was " Where's Lucy?", not "Where is my furniture?"- our customer just wanted to see Lucy! Everyone in the plaza seems to be tracking Lucy's growth, just yesterday, we were stopped for a Kodak moment while we were out for a walk! Thankfully, Lucy loves people as much as people love Lucy! She makes new friends every where she goes and while she's not completely trained in the "Appropriate Greeting" we are definitely making progress. Most everyone will make her "sit" and she will then volunteer her "paw". Such a Good Little Lucy!

Tomorrow night we're off to night 2 of puppy kindergarten! I wonder what we'll learn tomorrow night, and am hoping that our loose leash walking goes better than it did last week. Somehow when we got in that room with 5 other dogs, all of our loose leash and "heel" training went right out the window. She did well with everything else- but the lure of the other dogs was entirely too much for my little pup- even though I had taken her to the dog park for 45 minutes before class.

Yesterday morning, I was running late getting ready for work. I had Lucy gated in the kitchen (only because there is way too much trouble throughout the house to find Lucy) and I was upstairs. The contractor was in the kitchen using a phone book. When I came downstairs, there was no Lucy, and the door between the kitchen and the "bonus" room, and the door between the garage and the "bonus" room were open. I immediately ran outside and started calling Lucy, not sure what was going to happen. I was so happy to see my little pup come flying around the bush and give me that little look- you know the one- the one where she makes you think she wasn't getting into trouble!

PS: Lucy- your human needs just a short break from all of the excitement... Is there any way it can be toned down- just for a couple of days? "Good Lucy!"