Good Changes and Fond Farewells

Let me start out by saying that I am writing this blog on Friday, January 2, 2009 (Happy New Year!), in spite of what the blogger time stamp may be. I am writing this on my computer at home and will post it to the Internet later - I don’t have an Internet connection at my house. Now to the actual post . . .
I got back to work on Tuesday, after a very long day of travel on Monday, fortunately I didn’t have any problems or delays getting back - doesn’t it always seem to be the case that when you are traveling, you have all the delays and bung-ups going to the place you really want to be (getting the vacation started, getting back from a business trip, getting to the South Pole, etc). Upon my return to the Lodges, not too much had changed, in fact, I was a bit surprised at how little had actually changed. Two dogs swapped runs and one dog, Gina, got adopted, but other than that, things were pretty much the same. Apparently, the people that adopted Gina (a Lodge dog for less than two weeks), came to BF to volunteer just before Christmas. They had agreed before their arrival that they would not be adopting any dogs since they have an eighteen month old lab at home in Indiana and then they met little Miss Gina and they weren’t leaving without her. It was only a matter of time before this little girl found her way into a home, she is spunky and small and outgoing in an adorable kind of way that just makes you smile.
I was a little worried that some of the dogs might give me a bit of a hard time since it had been a week since I had been around. I, and my fellow caregivers, have been making such wonderful progress with Tasha, but I had found that sometimes when I came back from my weekends, she had taken a small step backward from where she was when I left, so I was really unsure what to expect from her, but to my great surprise she was very happy to see me and has been incredibly trusting and doing very well with her training. Over the course of several weeks before I left, I was working on “Kiss” with her. It started out by putting a piece of biscuit or kibble between my lips and letting her take it from me - she was always very gentle, she is good with treats, but when she was taking them from my mouth, she was always extra careful. After a few tries, I started including the command “Kiss”, then after a few days, I would ask for a kiss without the treat between my lips and when she would touch her nose/mouth to my lips, she would get the treat. Now, if she knows I have a treat and sitting isn’t getting the job done, she will try the kiss to see if that will open the "cookie jar" and while before, she would always get stage fright when I would ask her for a kiss in front of other people, she is now kissing both Keeley and Megan on command as well. The next step is to get a brave “stranger” (aka someone that doesn’t work with her regularly) to try the kiss and see if she will do it. I have also been starting to work with her on target training and she is proving to be quite the pro at it as well. For those of you who don’t know what target training is, you teach a dog to touch a target, often your hand at the beginning, and then you can start transferring the target to other things, like light switches and doors. I had tried targeting several months ago, but I would always wear gloves and if I tried with bare hands she didn’t really get what I wanted, I think when she would touch the gloves, it was because she wanted to smell them, but now she is doing it like she has known how to do it all along, plus there is more of a relationship between us now and we understand each other better than a few months ago. She has also started jumping up on me with her front feet and then stretching her body out and arching her back while I pet her. I would sometimes hold up a treat and ask her to jump up on me to get it and she would do it but as soon as she had the treat she would put her feet firmly back on the floor, she always seemed a little nervous and uncomfortable with this kind of contact, but now she is completely different. Jumping up can be a signal of dominance, but it also shows a confidence and comfort that she didn't have before and she hasn’t done it at inappropriate times so far. As well, stretching is a good sign that she is getting more and more comfortable with me. It was really nice to come back and find that she doesn’t seem to have taken any steps backward and has actually continued to move forward.
On Tuesday, Rex’s (aka Sexy Rexy) new people arrived and I got to introduce them to their new dog, it was very cool. He was a little aloof with them and his runmate Sophie put in a very good effort to try and steal the show, but they were smitten. He met their other two dogs the following day and then they took him on a sleep over. He came back for the day on Thursday and then when Terry took him down for another sleepover with them that evening, they told her that they didn’t want to bring him back anymore. He was theirs and they wanted to keep him for the rest of their time in Kanab. While she was very excited that Rexy had found such wonderful people, Terry did have to explain that they would have to bring him back at least one more time so that everyone could say good-bye, that is just how things work around Dogtown. They agreed that they would bring him back at least one more time before they left town, probably on Saturday, but I talked Megan after work today (I had the day off) and she said they brought him up for a farewell visit today and might not come back up tomorrow. I am a little disappointed that I might not get to say good-bye, but even if I don’t get to see him off, I am very happy for him to have found such nice people and I really hope that he has a wonderful life with them!
Well, that is about all I have for today, I hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year. My wish for 2009 is that this Earth and all her inhabitants will find in them the spirit of peace that has been so lacking of late and we can all learn to delight in the differences of our fellow humans (and all creatures for that matter).
As a final note, I would like to offer my deepest condolences to Jane Goodall and the staff of the Jane Goodall Institute on the passing of Gregoire, he was an inspiring reminder that all creatures on this Earth deserve the deepest respect and honor humanity can offer. He will be missed. You can read his story here: http://janegoodall.org/gregoire/default1.asp.