Tesla's First Full Week In Foster Care.

Tesla has graced our household with her presence for 1 full week! What a week it has been. We have had a lot of good progress forward and things to celebrate in just 7 days.

1) Because Tessi is not housetrained we had to make sure we were setting her up for success in this dept. We have been covering a lot of ground in 7 days. We had accidents the first day, to be expected even from fully housetrained dogs, but I was missing cues and also not being diligent enough. That all changed by the second day, (because the humans got it together), and I am happy to say we have only had a couple other accidents in the house since, and as always, that was my fault, human error. But she is just a puppy and will need lots of reminders and reinforcement for going "potty" outside. She really is getting the hang of it though and knows once she is done to come to me for a treat and a "gOOd gIRL!!!!!!!"

This has nothing to do with housetraining. I just thought it was time for a cute pic of the little rascal.

2) Tessi was not comfortable to be picked up. Of course you saw in previous blog posts that she had gone for walks and hikes with us, so yes we did manage to get her picked up and into the car. But  we had to be slow and patient and we had to get creative. One thing that helped us was attaching a light line to her so that we would be able to gently pick it up, stroke the leash hand over hand, while walking slowly toward her. This helped a lot and although she did not like to be picked up (she uses all the stress signals, legs stiffen, trembling, lip licking, yawning), once we had her in our arms and were cooing and petting her she would snuggle in. She also will snuggle on our lap for an hour or more once she is there, and just yesterday she asked to be in my lap so this is nice progress. The last couple of days she is starting to come to us on her own for pets and will let us pick her up more readily, although she is still nervous about it. This will just take time and patience and I know she will learn to trust her people and be comfortable with touch and being picked up.

3) She is getting much more comfortable riding in the car. She was pretty nervous for a few days, the transport getting her here was long and she wasn't sure car rides were something she liked. But now she has learned car rides always end up with a walk, or hike, even if it is just a short jaunt! So she is beginning to settle in and will even chew on something now while she is riding to the next fun adventure. She still needs more good car experiences but I am so glad she is feeling more comfortable with riding in the car.

Tessi spying Tim just before she got down and got him to play with her a little.

4) Most importantly Tessi is learning how great it can be to be part of a family and live in a house. To eat healthy food and treats, and have safe human friends who always have her back. That is one nice thing we, as foster parents, can offer our foster dogs. Way to go Tesla!

Love her eyebrows and whiskers....

In a short 7 days she is really opening up and we are glimpsing what an awesome dog this lil gal is going to be. She just needs to go slow in some things and for her people to be patient and creative.