Easing into the Pack

You've been here a full week!  It looks like you fit right in!The three of you eat out of your own bowls (although licking someone else's bowl after the meal is fair game!).  You don't interact a lot in the house.  Canon did charge you this morning, right on our way outside and scared you.  I could see you shivering.  Little boy, if you don't stay with us, it won't be because you aren't absolutely wonderful, but because I want you to be safe and and confident.  Because I want you to be able to play without a big white boy taking away your toys.  He doesn't mean to hurt you, but he's so used to being top dog.

I think, Max, you must have been an escape artist.  You try to get out any door we go through.  After I came back from agility drills on Saturday morning, I couldn't find you.  I looked in every room.  I kept calling you in the backyard.  No jingling of your tag.  Michael finally looked in the garage.  You had slipped out as I came in!  I think you slipped away from your home and they weren't able to find you.

I don't think you were pampered like my pups.  You don't know how to snuggle next to a human, although you love to lick my face almost all the time.  Today I taught you to come on the couch with me, jump up and off, but you weren't super comfortable.  We'll see if you do it on your own next time.

Sometimes I see you as part of the pack.  When the big dogs bark at someone walking by, you run after them and bark with them.  Sometimes you've initiated the bark when you hear someone going by.  I love your bark.  Not a little dog shrill bark, not an overpowering big dog bark like Caprice and Canon, a just right bark.  Maybe you will fit in.