Chaos and Disappointment

Polly went off to dog training on Saturday with a nice girl named Valerie. I didn't see Valerie after class, but got a note from her asking if she could come and work with Polly in her home environment where she (Polly) might feel more comfortable. I had forgotten she was coming today.

In the meantime, I wrote a very sad note to Ashley asking her to find a new home for Xena and the puppies. I thought things were settling in all right, but last night everything exploded. Suddenly Xena and Sheila took an intense dislike to each other. I think it was over food. I had spilled some kibble on the floor when I put down Xena's bowl. Sheila had also been on her own version of a hunger strike for several days, just leaving her food untouched in the bowl--she does this every so often. Actually, all three dogs had been off their feed, though they would occasionally eat the food out of someone else's bowl.

Well, hunger coincided with the food spill and when Sheila gingerly picked up a piece of kibble from Xena's bowl off the floor, Xena went after her, literally tooth and nail. I was unable to get control of the situation after that, other than putting Xena in the cage and locking her inside.

I had hopes for this morning, after a calm night, but Xena's memory is long. She absolutely cannot stand to see Sheila today. If Sheila is in my office, under my desk, Xena stands outside the door and barks and barks and barks until I have to take her back to the cage. If Sheila and Lizzie are outside, she charges the back door, barking. When things are calm and everybody is asleep, I can let Xena out of the cage and she's fine until Sheila wakes up and moves. Then she's on the attack again.

This does not bode well for how she will get along when the puppies are mobile.

As it happened Valerie arrived at the door today just as Xena was remembering that she hates Sheila and there was World War III going on just inside the door as she entered. It had been Valerie's intention to get Polly off in a corner and work with her, but that wasn't going to happen. Xena wouldn't stop barking and Polly, recognizing Valerie as that horrible person who made her to into that scary place, wasn't having any of that bonding nonsense with her. Valerie did say that she was a completely different dog here, so stressed that it is important for her to bond with Polly here where she has me to run to if she gets scared. [I didn't realize that it had taken her half an hour to get Polly out of her car at training and that she bit Caycee, the teacher, during her attempts to touch Polly.]

But before we could get to bonding lessons, we had to find a temporary cease-fire for World War III. Walt locked Sheila and Lizzie outside. Lizzie immediately started leaping at the door, but calmed down quickly. I thought Xena might be OK, because she now gets along all right with Polly, and because she was taking treats from Valerie all right, but then Valerie shifted her position--not even a step, really--and that was too much, treat or no treat. Xena barked and barked and barked and actually bit her in the leg. Thank goodness she isn't afraid of me. I was able to pick her and lock her in the cage and had to cover the cage with a towel because as long as she could see Valerie she would growl and bark.

Valerie just kept tossing treats for Polly, who would dart in, take them, and then back up to me, where she felt safe. She filled up with treats before she would let Valerie touch her, so that is for another day.

In the meantime, the commotion with the other dogs has been crazy all day. Other than taking a nap today it seems that I have done nothing but let dogs out, and then call them back in, and put Xena in the cage and let her out and then put her back in again. As soon as the other dogs get outside, they bark at the back fence. As soon as I call them in, Xena barks at them and I have to lock her up.

My plan had been to go to the store today, but I don't dare leave the house! Which is why it was so important to move Xena today, since tomorrow is Cousins Day and I'm not canceling that. And I don't want to leave this chaos for Walt.

I am going to miss watching Itsy and Bitsy grow up , but it's clear that with the hatred between Xena and Sheila growing, that is not a positive situation for anybody.

However, the family has moved to Ashley's, where Xena can have the kitchen all to herself, and Ashley says probably when the puppies are weaned and don't need Xena any more, we will see them again.

Adjustments

We've come a long way in the short time since Xena and her babies arrived here, but today was a red letter day.

Xena has started jumping into my lap, even when Polly is there. Neither one of them is particularly happy about sharing my lap, but they are both resigned to letting the other one be there, so that they can each get a piece of me. This is a great point gained! When there is low growling from one or the other of them, a quick "Ay!" from me stops it.

I wanted to take it slowly with Xena, to give her time to feel safe. On her second day here, she let me stick my hand in to give her food or water, but if the hand stayed too long, the growling started.

On day three, however, she hadn't been out of the cage since she arrived and she must have been bursting. As soon as the door opened, she came out. Walt and I worked to keep all the other dogs away from her as she ran into the living room and made her mark(s). (I don't even think of that as a living room any more--it's the foster dogs' toilet. Yes, we will soon take up the rug!)

Walt and I were very wary and very cautious. We didn't know what to expect from this little warrior who was so fiercely protective of her babies, but what we discovered is that she's really a very calm, sweet little dog who seems to crave affection.

Dogs usually warm up to me first, because I'm the one who feeds them, but they are frequently nervous around Walt for awhile.

Not Xena. She was so hungry for touch, she didn't care whether it was Walt or me. I think she is the very first dog who has come here scared and then went to Walt right away when she realized nobody was going to hurt her. She sat like this, at his feet, with him petting her for a very long time.

We did put the big dogs outside and she wanted to be sure they were going to stay there.

She also wanted to make sure that Polly knew that her babies were definitely off limits.

When I fed her yesterday morning, I closed the cage door, but didn't lock it. Later, I felt a dog at my feet and when I looked down, it was Xena. Since then I haven't closed the cage door, but have let her come and go. The bigger dogs give her a wide berth, and if Polly comes too close, Xena lets her know, but the puppies are now big enough that I can see Xena wanting to get away from them for longer periods of time. She wanders outside, she comes into my office, she climbs up on one of the chairs to sleep, she joins me in my lap if I'm sitting down. But it only takes a squeak from the puppies and she is right there.

She's also not really sure that Walt and I are 100% OK. She was on the patio when I leaned down to gently pet one of the puppies and in a second she was at the cage. I moved away before she could decide I had invaded her territory. And while she was greet Walt when he comes down the stairs, tail wagging, with the other dogs, if he walks past the cage, she grabs his pant legs in her teeth and growls. Now he walks the long way, through the kitchen, to get down the hall. Our little Warrior Princess is always on guard to protect her babies.

You'll just have to watch the video of the day. Itsy seems to be the most adventurous of the pups (I think this is a boy from what I think I can see in photos) and was sleeping on his back near the door of the cage.

(this picture is actually upside down, but he looks cuter this way!)

Xena was in my lap. I had just said to Walt that the puppy is so squirmy that one day he was going to fall out of the cage when -- plop -- he did!

I was going to put him back, but I decided to see what would happen if I let Xena handle it.

Watch the video.

The pups are getting more mobile and starting to be a bit vocal, so I think it's only a matter of a week or so before they will be starting to explore outside the cage. Now THAT should be a challenge for our warrior princess!

Xena, Warrior Princess

She is at constant attention. Sitting or lying down, her eyes dart here and there, alert to the slightest movement, ready to strike out if anybody gets too close.

She is Xena, our newest foster and she arrived last night, setting off half an hour of snarling and growling by all the dogs. She is a real warrior princess, fiercely protective of her offspring.

Xena is a mother chihuahua mix, with two puppies about 2+ weeks old (I'm guessing, because their eyes are opened). She and her male companion showed up in a town north of Sacramento a couple of weeks ago. Someone took them in and the next night Xena gave birth. I'm not sure the sequence of events, but she apparently attacked someone who got too close ("It was apparently his fault. He did something stupid," I was told) and the original family called the SPCA, but decided to keep the male. Xena apparently got even more wary when she was on her own, the only protector of the puppies.

Megan called to ask if I could take them and of course I said yes. It's a new experience having puppies here that I don't have to feed and can't even touch.

I've named the puppies Itsy and Bitsy, which I know is going to shock certain people--but these are dogs, not spiders. I haven't seen the puppies well, but Itsy is the lighter colored of the two (maybe entirely white; I'm not sure). Bitsy has the brown body.

Ashley says that Xena is actually sociable and thought she would sooner or later bond with me just fine, but I have my doubts, only because she sees Polly as a threat to her babies and Polly has to be in her face all the time. Polly sits in my lap or stands on the chair, trembing all over in her eagerness? discomfort? fear? excitement? Who knows with Polly. But Xena sees Polly as a real threat, so I don't know what it will take to make Xena comfortable enough to actually get out of the cage. I may wait until Polly goes to Petco on Saturday before actually giving her the chance.

I wasn't going to mess with Xena last night, but I know she's a nursing mom and would at the very least need water. I got a turkey baster and a glass of water and gave her water through the wire mesh of the cage. She took it so eagerly (three basters full) that I decided to live dangerously and tried opening the cage door and slipping a small bowl of water to the side of the cage. Xena let me. She finished all the water. Then I put some bits of kibble through the wire of the cage and she ate those eagerly, so I took the water bowl out and filled it with kibble and she let me put that in the cage too. When it was empty, I refilled the bowl, from outside, using the turkey baster, and left it in the cage with her all night.

This morning I took the bowl out, filled it with food, put it in the cage and added a bowl of water. She let me do all of this and finished the food quickly, but when I tried to take the bowl out again she had reached her limit of contact and snapped in my general direction. I don't think she was trying to hurt me, but her low growl let me know I had gone too far. I left her alone.

Later, to give her more room in the cage, I took long metal tongs and removed the food bowl that way, so my hand didn't have to go into the cage. She didn't growl, but her eyes never left the tongs and she was at the ready just in case. I also refilled the water bowl with the turkey baster again.

Each time I try anything with Xena, I lock Polly in her own cage, but of course Xena doesn't know that.

Sooner or later the cage is going to need to be cleaned, but I'm not even thinking about that right now. Right now the task at hand is to help Xena feel safe and to help her realize that nobody wants to hurt her or her puppies. I'll worry about how to handle Polly and the puppies when they are starting to explore their world at a later date!