Suteishii no Ren of Yamabushi (Pics added 4/29/13)
Hey everyone!
I had been speaking to Stacey ever since reading her update thread on the pups where she had mentioned that she decided to begin looking for a home for Ren since she wasn't having fun in the show ring. Then finally scheduled it out a few weeks back. I was going to post about it but then figured the most fun way to spill the news would be with pictures! That thread was hilarious with all the speculation and detective work haha
Ren and I just landed back home at Ft. Lauderdale International about an hour and a half ago. I had to let Ren hang out in the A/C'd van with my pops while I went inside and let Tsune do his welcome home dance and then burn off some excitement doing laps in the back yard. Then brought Ren in so he could smell and look at her (in crate) from a distance, then brought her crate upstairs to a vacant room to set her up with some food and water. I let her decompress for about 30mins on her own since she was glued to the back of her crate and didn't want to come out.
Played with Tsune in the hall while she relaxed, then came back to her room where she slipped over to the door and was doing some detective work with her nose around the door frame. When she realized it was opening, and GASP there was a person there!, she ninja'd back behind her crate lol.
So we're both pretty pooped from all the flying, I'm set up with my laptop at one end of the room and she's alternating between napping and pretend-napping-but-actually-spying from behind her crate and next to a little stand we're storing in here. I figure once she sees I'm passed out she'll get brave and do some inspecting. Not a bunch of pictures yet since we're still introducing ourselves, but here she is when I received her in Ft. Lauderdale from baggage claim and also her current spy nest. I was constantly thinking about if she was getting stressed from all the engine noises etc so getting to pick her up in her crate again was great, even if she didn't think it was that great.
More pictures will show up as she gets more confident and as we get used to eachother
Waiting for our car ride home
Napping/spying
Her base of operations
I had been speaking to Stacey ever since reading her update thread on the pups where she had mentioned that she decided to begin looking for a home for Ren since she wasn't having fun in the show ring. Then finally scheduled it out a few weeks back. I was going to post about it but then figured the most fun way to spill the news would be with pictures! That thread was hilarious with all the speculation and detective work haha
Ren and I just landed back home at Ft. Lauderdale International about an hour and a half ago. I had to let Ren hang out in the A/C'd van with my pops while I went inside and let Tsune do his welcome home dance and then burn off some excitement doing laps in the back yard. Then brought Ren in so he could smell and look at her (in crate) from a distance, then brought her crate upstairs to a vacant room to set her up with some food and water. I let her decompress for about 30mins on her own since she was glued to the back of her crate and didn't want to come out.
Played with Tsune in the hall while she relaxed, then came back to her room where she slipped over to the door and was doing some detective work with her nose around the door frame. When she realized it was opening, and GASP there was a person there!, she ninja'd back behind her crate lol.
So we're both pretty pooped from all the flying, I'm set up with my laptop at one end of the room and she's alternating between napping and pretend-napping-but-actually-spying from behind her crate and next to a little stand we're storing in here. I figure once she sees I'm passed out she'll get brave and do some inspecting. Not a bunch of pictures yet since we're still introducing ourselves, but here she is when I received her in Ft. Lauderdale from baggage claim and also her current spy nest. I was constantly thinking about if she was getting stressed from all the engine noises etc so getting to pick her up in her crate again was great, even if she didn't think it was that great.
More pictures will show up as she gets more confident and as we get used to eachother
Waiting for our car ride home
Napping/spying
Her base of operations
Comments
In Chicago I had a voicemail waiting for me letting me know that Ren was doing great and that she was cleared all the way through to Ft. Lauderdale in the event that my stand-by ticket caused me to be bumped from the flight (which didn't happened).
In Florida upon finishing the intercom announcement saying passengers could disembark they called for me to come up, which had me worried at first, but it was just to ask whether I wanted to pick Ren up at baggage claim or at the cargo intake building (across the airport). I obviously chose baggage claim, our gate was the closest to baggage claim and literally within the five minutes it took to get from the airplane to the bottom of the escalator Ren was already waiting in the baggage claim room for packages requiring signatures. I'd never flown a pet anywhere before so this was an awesome experience and hopefully it will set anyone else's worries at ease!
@ttdinh @poeticdragon Thanks guys! Tsune is his usual "OMG who is that who is that whowhowhwho? Can we play? No? How about now? Now can we play? They smell so interesting, let me smell them!" No aggression at all or defensiveness, Ren just isn't ready for all the attention yet so we're taking small steps
(And now I've finally got forum name sorted out with real name via FB! Sometimes that utterly confuses me!)
@shibamistress @Zinja Thank you! Haha you all should have heard our talks about the NK stories, it was all mixing up forum names with real names and then a story about a pet followed by "isnt that *forumname?" "no I think it's *otherforumname*".
@sjp051993 Over the last few hours we've progressed from "Don't look at him and maybe he'll go away, but I'll take the hotdog he left on the ground", to "Ok I didn't die from looking at him and I'll sniff the hotdog in his hand... then take it from the ground", to finally "Yay another hotdog, but his hand is lava so I'll take it with just my teeth and not touch".
I put another piece of hotdog on the ground next to me while typing this and she just walked over, ate it, and then walked around until I looked at her, back to the curtains, but now she's stretched out length wise with her nose towards me like she's thinking it's not so bad
@WrylyBrindle Midway between the hot dog treats I fell asleep and woke up to her chowing down on her food bowl and sniffing me. Idea worked lol.
They also have special requirements for short nosed breeds.
I am super glad that she made it home safe and sound and is transitioning to her new surroundings.
Now... More photos, please. :-D
Seriously, though, congrats on Ren! Just don't let her run away... We all know about older kais being rehomed and then releasing themselves into the wild...
@Zinja We should totally do this soon! I need to save up some money to be good for another trip since I'm sure there will be much overspending on puppy gear (again) haha. It'd be nice to get together when it's cooler too. I took Tsune and Ren on a walk together today which went amazingly well, Ren was nothing but submissive-playful every time Tsune would get a little reactive, he got corrected upon each episode too so there have only been two snarls, everything since then has been either playful or Ren hiding and Tsune continuing to sleep off his neuter incisions. Both dogs were panting and overheated afterwards, and I was soaked with sweat even though all we did was 15mins very light jog and 15mins walking back. Matter of fact I think I was soaked after just the first few houses haha.
@hondru She's used every new person/dog as an excuse to hide behind my legs, but I'll be as vigilant with her as I am with Tsune. No panic attack escapes for her, thankfully we're not in an urban city environment, we're very suburban and have no sharp corners to take, our street corners are all grass and light shrubbery. There's an East Coast Meetup thread where people are talking about middle east coast not too far from Virginia I think, it'd be awesome!
@mirkaM @obuk Thanks guys!
@Saya So far so good! I really expected more craziness on Tsune's part, but since getting neutered he's a lot less of a troublemaker and even gave her a little muzzle lick
Wanting to be social but still shy
Exploring the house after finally letting me pick her up
Kai smile
Exploring on her own, as long as I was within eyesight
Watching the Olympics with me and unsure of what to think of the strange older guy on the couch (my dad)
The "new" outside was scary at first and I had to carry her out, after this I put her down and went to explore the neighborhood
Snf
Thanks guys! I'd say she's pretty much 75% out of her shell with me, she only really gets nervous when others in the house come over since she's not familiar with them yet.
Tsune's excitement about a new friend wore off after he realized that he wasn't getting all the attention. So yesterday instead of ignoring Ren he decided he would just play with all of his toys as if they were the best toys EVER, all in the hallway of course since Ren has only been using the hallway to scurry between rooms to get to me. After about 2 hours of Tsune being ridiculously enthusiastic about his rawhide bone, literally flipping it in the air and throwing it with his mouth down the hall, up the hall, on the bed, across the room, off the walls, he heard a sound downstairs that he wanted to investigate. Meanwhile, Ren had been watching him the entire time wanting to play but Tsune wouldn't come over and was making sure the bone didn't get close enough for her to play with. Then as soon as Tsune got two steps down she sprinted out, grabbed the bone, and took it back to her corner to chew on hahaha. Tsune got back a little bit later and was looking around like "Hey... where's my bone?" LOL.
Last night was really funny. I had been sleeping on the floor in the guest room since getting back, that way she could do all the inspecting and sniffing she wanted while still having her own space around her travel crate to retreat to when feeling pressured. Yesterday she started crying whenever I'd leave the room for too long or she couldn't see me, then when I'd get back she'd start moving closer while doing a happy-whine with her little tail spinning around. Eventually later in the day she even went down the stairs all by herself to look for me downstairs (which was awesome since prior to this she wanted nothing to do with the stairs or downstairs area of the house). So I decided that last night would be a good time to transition from the guest bedroom to my room. So when it was time for bed I picked Ren up and brought her back to my room, Tsune following, then got in bed and laid her down next to me. She was happy with her tail wagging and ears back, apparently I wasn't clean enough for bed and needed a thorough face/neck/ear washing haha.
Tsune also decided she was ok, since he stood up on the side of the bed and then she hopped down to follow him. I woke up two or three times to the sound of things shuffling around on the floor and paper being crinkled. Each time I'd look up I'd see both their little faces looking back with a "He's awake! Run!" expression and they'd scurry out of the room. They're going to be trouble I can tell lmao.
Anyways, here's some more spam from this morning! Oh and Tsune only wears the infalatable e-collar so that he doesn't fit through the fence, Ren has a wider frame and can't fit through.
Time for a late morning nap!
Once she got used to the idea of being indoors, having lots of affection and cuddling, and other things she was surprised to find she enjoyed... She got very anxious about losing those privileges. She would carry on like a banshee when put outside or if I walked out of the room. She shredded anything paper or cloth and we went through four or more beds and countless towels for her. Eventually too she realized that I wasn't going to go away and she wasn't going to go back to the way she lived before and calmed down.
We're working on her socialization with others. She does much better out of the house with strangers. I guess people violating the safety of her home territory are much scarier than meeting those same people away from home. After the people leave and she is free to roam the yard, she has a relapse back to her skittishness - objects that have been moved (such as a chair) are terrifying, common noises (such as the fridge turning on) send her running to the back of the yard.
She very much wants to come to me, and will try over and over again to walk past the scary thing, and then dashes backwards to start over. I have found the best way, if I have time for it, is to go stand next to her. I talk about nothing in particular in a calm voice and keep my hand down so she can nose it if she wants to (we worked on hand targeting in class, and she likes it). When she starts edging past me towards the destination (eg. the house) I take a few steps forward. She will come forward to check the new spot out then back off a few times. Again once she is starting to edge past me I move forward.
It can take 20 minutes to get her from our patio to the back door (maybe 15-25 yards) on a bad night, but worth it I think. She knows I will not force her to do something that scares her so we are building lots of trust. She is also coming to the point that just standing calmly next to her, not really looking at her or being affectionate, keeps her calm and more confident. I can stand beside her kennel when strangers are in the yard and she won't bark and loose her mind. She is even keeping her tail up and looking curiously at the people more and more.