Adele
I’m sorry I missed your previous e-mail. We get so much junk mail and I didn’t catch yours as coming from the Humane Society. Anyway, Adele is a sweetheart. She is bringing a lot of love to our home.
In the house she is wonderful. She hasn’t gotten into anything and follows commands well. The first night when we walked into the bedroom with her, she automatically went to the bed we had for her at the foot of our bed. She hasn’t been up on our bed or on our couch. (Our neighbor invites her up on his bed to watch TV with him and she gladly accommodates him!) Adele asks permission to come up on my lap when I’m in the recliner. Generally, if I’m in the recliner, she thinks she should be too, unless there’s a nice spot of sunshine on the floor. She seems to think she should be massaged about ten hours a day. We’re doing our best to accommodate her need!
We got an invisible fence for Adele, but that hasn’t been as successful as we had hoped. After a couple of shocks, she now gets petrified if we put the collar on her, so we’re backing off from that. She does well with voice commands, so we go out with her. We need more work with leash training, but we’ve purchased a harness that goes around her chest. We’ve also got a gentle leader, but she’s not interested in that.
The first time we took her out with a regular collar and leash, after a tug of war she seemed to be settling down and doing quite well. My husband commented it was going well at which point Adele decided she’d had enough and she flattened out on the road, back legs straight out behind her. When I tried to encourage her to get up, she rolled over for a tummy rub! Our yard is about a third of an acre, so she’s got some room to run, but we need to work more on walks.
Adele LOVES to go to the postoffice to get the mail with my husband. She sits so stately in the pickup for the half mile ride! We’ve also had her on some longer car rides and she does very well.
We’ve been trying to teach her to fetch a ball. She’ll gladly run to get the ball, but hasn’t gotten the idea that she’s supposed to give it back. She’s gentle, though, when we take it from her. It’s hard to find toys that interest her. A Nylabone only held her interest for a very short time. She did demolish a small football within a few minutes. I found some tough rubber balls that have held up okay. She finds them somewhat interesting. She’s only mildly interested in rag bone tug of war. A toy with treats is only a little interesting.
Adele has been introduced to a couple of neighborhood dogs. Our neighbor who has invited her onto his bed has a chihuahua mix. Adele mostly ignores the little guy. He’s really meek around her. She spent one day at their house when Pete and I were both gone and all went well. Adele is not fond of the female dog on the other side of their fence. We plan to introduce her to my brother’s dogs in the near future. Hopefully we don’t need to use too many closed doors and kennels!
A couple of days after Adele came to live with us, we took her to the vet for a preliminary checkup. She tested positive for Lyme’s disease, so she was on powerful antibiotics for a month and has now had her Lyme’s vaccination.
In summary, we love Adele. She is a much better dog than we would ever have expected to get from a shelter. She obviously had some good training somewhere along the way. She’s a great addition to our family!
