Today marks day two of Mississippi’s new life with Tom and I. She is about 1 year old and is a border collie/labrador mix. The OHS has no information about her past. We fell in love with her pretty much the moment we laid eyes on her. She’s the only dog we met at the OHS and she was in one of the last kennels we looked at. We’d both felt like we wouldn’t find our dog that day, then bam, there she was. She licked my fingers through the bars and put her back up to the bars so I could scratch her.
In the kennel, she was playful and smart. She showed us ‘sit’ and ‘shake’ and she was not aggressive with her toy. She let me touch her face and mouth and she loved being scratched like crazy. I could tell she was going to be a handful, but I kind of like a dog with a little bit of mischief in them, and she was irresistibly cute. We took her home the next day after a landlord ok.
What a sweety. Mississippi’s disposition is absolutely adorable when she’s calm and she is very good at many things. She’s perfectly behaved in the car and sits quietly in the back seat. I introduced her to her blanket with no problem as soon as we got back from the Humane Society and she fell in love with the bee toy I gave her. She knows ‘sit’ very well as long as she thinks there’s something in it for her, like a leash, a treat, or some good lovin’. She’s a little impatient at sitting before crossing the street but she does it every time with a little help and seems genuinely proud of herself.
Last night Mississippi slept in our room with us on her blanket at the foot of our bed and only tried to get on the bed a couple times. I gave her a stuffed dinosaur that I sewed a while back as her cuddle buddy and she licked the dino for a while before falling asleep. She slept all the way through til 6:30 am then quietly walked around the room. I took her outside for potty, which she had no interest in, but when I brought her back in to get a little more sleep, she went right back to a spot on the floor and was quiet til the alarm at 8.
Missy has trouble sitting still for more than 20 minutes or so and would prefer to go on 12 walks a day. She pulls with all her might and changes direction without warning. I’m afraid she’s going to choke herself to death. My hands are blistered and I’ve started wearing bike gloves to walk her. She is afraid of dogs and on our first few attempts at leaving the house, she would get really worked up and would bark like crazy until I could get her to a quiet place to calm her down. I finally gave up trying to walk her down our street yesterday and drove her to an empty field with no dogs or kids to freak her out. She did really well, we even did a little running together. She saw 4 dogs and only barked once. Tom came home and we walked her together. He kept her on a much shorter leash and I don’t think she barked once. I’ve taken her out 3 times today and have only had a couple of incidents. After her afternoon break, I brought her in our backyard and she met one of the little terriers next door, but then the dominant one came over barking her head off at Missy. She whimpered and ran towards the opposite side of the yard. I calmed her down and we tried again. A little better the second time, but that was enough excitement for one day. I’m confident she’ll calm down around other dogs in the next couple weeks. She became very submissive with the smaller terrier and I think the barking is just fear based, so there’s lots of hope.
I’ve been trying to keep her sequestered in my office while I work so I can keep an eye on her. She always wants to go outside. The scratching and biting at the office door frustrated the hell out of me. I felt like my trying to get her to stop was just frustrating the both of us, so I left her in the office (her safe room) alone, and of course, the whining, scratching, barking and chewing stopped within 2 minutes. Even when I was outside the office window getting garden tools, she didn’t bark or scratch at the window. When I came and got her out of the office, we had some good, solid play time so she knows the office means happy stuff comes after.
Despite have drank up 4 large bowls of water, Mississippi really didn’t want to go potty the first day. We finally got a tiny tinkle at about 9pm, then at 11, just before bed, she finally gave in and relieved herself. She has not had one single accident in the house so far and she seems very well potty trained. I would just like to train her to go in our yard, instead of the neighbor’s down the street. They will like her much more if she does.
I now completely understand how she wound up at the Humane Society. She is in real need of training, discipline, and engaging activities to channel all her border collie energy and intelligence. The Humane Society has no information about her past but from what I’ve seen so far, I’m assuming her previous owners left her alone most of the time, didn’t train her past ‘sit’ and ‘shake’. She doesn’t even know ‘stay’ very well at all. she probably had an angry male in her life because she won’t even make eye contact with Tom. Thankfully she’s well potty trained, we just have to worry about her chewing and digging up the whole house. She’s wearing me out but I love her so much. She is such an amazing cutie pie and I’m so happy we get to give her another chance at a good life. Can’t wait to get some professional training for her. I’m no dog whisperer. I need help!