Leia has been with me and my husband since March 2nd, 2013, a little over three weeks. I have been proof-reading my writings all this time and got tired of writing without posting so here is a post finally :)
She is a great fit and a lovely pup, but she does have separation issues. I want to be able to leave her alone for four-to-eight hours in a day without her dissolving into her yelping-howl crying she does whenever I lock the door behind me to go to church Sunday mornings. See, I am currently on a flexible schedule for employment and taking online classes so I am home most of the day for now. This is a perfect time for intensive crate training, I thought. Leia is testing my fortitude with this one. We have to move quite slowly with this one. She will take a nap with the crate shut as long as I am in the room. That's most of my work already done, thanks to Canine Pet Rescue and Miss Kathy, Leia's former foster mom. I have been gradually increasing the amount of time I am out of Leia's direct sight. So far I can leave my living room, go upstairs, leave my drink in my bedroom, and return right away. That is about 40 seconds and she is nervously licking her lips as she cranes her head to see through the crate holes for my approach. No panting, whoop whoop! I stretched it to two minutes one time and the whistling truck-brakes whining began. So I did research and decided to dial it back to a time frame in which she is still mostly calm and then I would reappear repeatedly which is every 40seconds now. She gets nice Kraft cheese for good crate behavior, sometimes I let her lick a dollop of peanut butter off a spoon through the bars.
I have to get better at NOT celebrating when I release her from her crate. The best way I found is to start a chore while she is in the crate, like washing dishes. Her crate faces the open kitchen and so she sees us while clearly through the entry door of her crate while we cook and clean. So, while dish washing, at some random quiet moment I release her and then go back to washing. I understand that if I make a fuss over her release it'll be as the rainstorm jailbreak success scene in Shawshank Redemption. I don't want her to think of cratetime as prison so the "breakout" is not partytime. In fact, it's no big deal to get outta the crate because the crate IS the partybox. She only gets certain toys stuffed with the BEST treats during crate time. So getting out is hopefully a neutral affair. She even goes in at will to try to elicit a treat!
My main motivation for working hard on her crate training is that I want her to meet my family in Atlanta and if I am visiting family there are bound to be times they wanna go places that aren't pet-friendly like the movies, a waterpark, restaurants, etc. If it were up to me we'd ONLY go to dog-friendly locales. I Looooove my new shadow and I love that she likes to follow me everywhere. I just want to hang out with her as much as she wants to hang out with me.
My mother lives four hours away in Atlanta with three siblings and a stepdad. My father is also four hours away in south Atlanta with two more siblings and a stepmom. Bottom line, I want to take frequent road trips with Leia to visit them all and she needs to be comfortable in staying in her crate for a few hours when we go on any people-only outings like restaurants, waterparks, . I have not lived this close to my family in about eight years since I was a combat medic in the Army moving around for seven years (four years Active Duty, three years Army Reserves) plus I attended college in Kansas as a living situation compromise with my husband. I am BESIDE MYSELF to be living close to family again. My three siblings are 21 year old sister Sharece, 6 year old sister Juli, and 3 year old little bro Justice. I only had time and money to see them annually and every other Christmas all these years. Now I am happy to drive four hours monthly. My two step-siblings living with my dad are Tierra and Gregory. I love them all madly and cannot wait for Leia to meet them.
Leia, the prettiest GSD (German Shepherd Dog) I have ever seen. Sable never looked so good to me til now. She is one of those that grows prettier as the days go by. I try not to let her catch me staring at her because if we make eye-contact I am thrust into a mandatory game of fetch even if it's just two throws, haha. She is very polite about it if I don't want to play any longer. She just lies down and chews the ball until it rolls out of her paws. That is how we know she has fallen back to sleep, seeing the bubbly drool-soaked tennis ball tiptoe back to safety just out of her reach.
I wuv her. Thank God for GSDs
Do you have a dog with separation anxiety? How did you work through it with him/her? Do you have a dog with insane ball drive? What dog sports/activities did you get involved in? Let's hear all about it in the comments below!
