9/11/14:

(NOTE: Gracie developed severe separation anxiety - once she realized how wonderful life is in her new home, she couldn't bear the thought of losing her people, so started to panic every time they left. The adopters are highly devoted and are trying very hard to help her through her anxiety - and save the rest of their windows, door moldings, etc. etc.! Fingers crossed.)

We spent two hours today with the behavioral specialist/vet. We now have Gracie on 80mg of Clomicalm and will be adding 1mg of Alprazolam as a test. If she tolerates the Alprazalam, we will give it to her when we are away from home.

 We left the office with a detailed program that has three phases:

1) Relaxation exercises so Gracie can learn to be calm
2) Desensitization
3) counter-conditioning.

Our goal is to use behavior management so Gracie will be weaned off of the meds and in three-six months she will be less anxious and destructive when we are away.

Hope springs eternal!  The training process appears exhausting but Gracie is worth it!

 

5/24/14:

Last evening I was out weeding in the yard and Glenn was doing something else. All of a sudden, Gracie sped past me like a speeding bullet.  "Oh no" I thought...she's off after a deer! Nope- that wasn't the case. Glenn reported that she had started at the edge of our lawn/pasture and was running full out around the house just for the sheer joy of running. She made three complete loops until she dropped to the lawn in exhaustion.  It was soooo cool to see her unfettered abandon that it brought tears to my eyes. Also, I had no idea that the old girl could run so fast.  She was really moving. I was impressed.

4/30/14:

Gracie is doing great. Here is a pix of her relaxing on the patio during "cocktail hour" (AKA-Mommy doggie has a glass of wine while Daddy doggie slurps a beer).

4/26/14:

Gracie traveled like a champ! Six hours in the car and nary a peep. We are having more success with the potty training.  Still not perfect but a great improvement. She was introduced to the grandkids today. Although she was a bit nervous, she did fine.
So...unless something unforeseen development occurs, we'd like to proceed with the adoption when we return.

4/19/14:

OK- my final Gracie story for a while---

I have a small canister vacuum cleaner with a crevice tool that I use to get dog hair off the dog beds.  With my other pooches, it worked like a dream.  Well, as you know, Gracie's hair is short, stiff and almost impossible to brush up.

As Gracie was watching me as I used the vacuum I thought, "hmm...I wonder if Gracie will let we gently vacuum her?"

Guess what? Gracie actually seemed to enjoy it!.  What a dog!!

4/13/14:

We are still working on potty issues but Gracie certainly has one routine down pat.  Each morning, after early-riser Glenn gets up, Gracie comes upstairs and jumps on the bed and takes a snooze until I'm up and about.

4/11/14:

Gracie is doing well but we discovered that our perfect pooch has paws of clay..  Actually, we still adore her but we are having a bit of potty issues. It really is our fault as we were overly confident in Gracie's potty habits.  As a result, we gave her the run of the house and discovered a nice pile of poop and a hearty dose of urine on the carpet when we returned home after being gone for an hour. We are going to work really hard to get her on some sort of elimination schedule. Until then, we'll just make sure to keep off the carpet when we are gone for a bit.  She's a quick learner so we are confident she'll figure things out.

4/10/14:

Not the best pix but as you can see Gracie is feeling more  comfortable in her new "digs".