Hello everyone! Welcome back to BirthMay 2022! Today’s post post is all about my dog, Fox, and the 9 months since I’ve adopted him!
In case you’re new, every May I blog every day and call it BirthMay! Why? Because it’s my birth month and I’m super extra.
In case you’re new or missed my previous posts, Foxy is my 5 year old Chihuahua that I adopted last year! He had a lot of difficulty adjusting to his new home, so we’ve had to employ the help of a behavioral vet, usually referred to as his therapist, in order to help get him to be a good boy. He’s come a lot way, so I’ll be sure to share that here!
Adopting a Rescue: 9 Months Later
Fox has really come a long way these past 3 months! He’s reliably asking to go outside when he needs to potty, finally! He wasn’t fully potty trained when I adopted him. It seemed to me that he understood he should go outside but he seemed to view it was optional. As in, if he’s outside and needs to go then he’d go outside, but if he wasn’t, he’d just pick a spot inside and go potty. Now, he has figured out that if he scratches the door and his mom is around, I’ll take him out right away! If he scratches the door and his grandparents are around, they’ll call his mom to come down so I can take him out! Sometimes his grandma will put his harness on him and open the little gate that lets him run upstairs to come get me so I can take him out too. It’s so cute!
He also shows no more signs of wanting to bite anyone. He’s much more comfortable with all of us now, understands that we are his family, and loves to hang out with all of us. Everyone loves to feed him too, since he loves anyone that feeds him, so he is quite chunky again. Hopefully when the weather is nicer we can walk more.
Speaking of, he still hates walks but he is finally comfortable enough to walk around the nearby park! He doesn’t want to walk more than one lap, although I can generally get him to go around for 2-3 laps before he refuses to go on. I hope I can get him to enjoy walks this summer.
His training is also going fairly well! He knows sit, down, no bark, and outside now! I think he knows come, wait/stay, go to bed, off, and paw, but he is very inconsistent with them still. That’s mostly my fault, since I have been so busy with work that I’ve let raining take a back seat in the past few months. But we’re back at it now!
Speaking of, we are signed up for another round of obedience class! Unfortunately, he gets so nervous still around other dogs that he won’t participate very well! He knows sit and down, but he is so nervous he won’t listen and just stays on high alert all class. Again, it’s been too cold to really go out much but I do want to train him outside too and hopefully that helps. But even with treats, he’s too nervous in class to listen properly, so that’s pretty worrisome. Plus, his class was basically evicted from the building so this is the last time he can participate for sure.
Fox now has a dog sitter! I arranged one since I need to travel for work in July and one of my friends and coworkers has agreed to watch him. She and her hubby-to-be are so excited to watch him for a few days! My parents seemed surprised that I found a sitter, since they’ll be around, but also relieved not to have to watch him 24/7 when I’m gone. They are happy to help out from time to time with the fun stuff, but they don’t want to have to worry about taking him out necessarily.
Speaking of the grandparents, he missed his grandma so much when she was in Mexico last month! We joke that Grandma is his favorite person, although it’s honestly not really a joke considering grandma gives him all the people food he wants. But it was nice to see him get closer to his grandpa and it was also nice that he spent more time with me!
Fox has become such a good work buddy for the most part. He still will occasionally bark if he thinks a neighbor walking on the sidewalk is getting too close to the house, same with delivery drivers, or other strangers. (And “too close” means anywhere within a one house radius.) But he is better about not barking now! He has also been known to squeak his toys during calls and meetings, even the ones with the broken squeakers! Somehow, he manages to get them squeaking again! It’s pretty funny though honestly and no one seems to mind.
Oh, and I finally got him pet insurance! I was going to go with Healthy Paws but their site was refusing to work, and kept timing out and giving me errors so I got Pets Best instead. I paid for the year up front, just to get it over with and to try to make sure I don’t cancel it! Honestly, I’m torn on it. On one hand, I think it’s a waste, because it doesn’t really cover anything, much like human health insurance. It’s only Accident/Illness and doesn’t even cover his heartworm meds! Plus, everyone I know IRL says pet insurance is a waste because they never use it or it never covers anything they try to use it on. But on the other hand, I have seen pet insurance being mentioned multiple times in one of my finance groups on Facebook and TikToks from vets and their employees saying they wished more people would get pet insurance. At the end of the day, I suppose I’d rather waste my money on it and have it than to risk not having it.
Speaking of his health, he went to the vet last month! He needed to get blood work done for his heartworm meds. He does not have heartworms! Yay! He gets some meds that have a bacon flavor so he thinks they’re treats honestly. It’s so funny to watch him take his meds so easily when his cousin will try to spit out hers all the time (although hers doesn’t taste like bacon, so I can’t really blame her). The vet tech also said he did great and behaved very well! Phew!
And that brings us back to the main point of this post, he’s become such a good boy! As rough as those first few months were, he’s become such a different dog since then and many people have commented on that! He’s such a good boy and I love him so much. It’s really amazing how he’s adjusted and learned how to be a good dog. I’ve mentioned before how I did debate taking him back a few times, especially when he bit my dad and then tried to do it a second time. But he’s come such a long way and he’s really been a great dog since then, so I’m glad about that!
And that’s Foxy’s 9 month update! The next one will be celebrating his gotcha day! YAY!
Thanks for reading!
Pamela
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