As I type, it is four o'clock in the morning. Savannah woke me up about an hour ago... I heard her whimpering in her crate and the only reason she does that is if she has to go out into the grass. She has only gotten me out of bed twice in the nine nights that we've had her, and both times, I left her rawhide chew bone in the crate with her. I think she wakes up, gnaws on that bone for a while, then has to get out to sprinkle in the grass, and then get some water because all that chewing gets her thirsty. (Note to self: no rawhide bone in her crate when she goes to bed for the night.)
Speaking of 'going to bed,' Savannah has learned that phrase. If I point to her crate and tell her "Go to bed, Savannah, go to bed!" she will walk calmly into her crate and lay down. It would seem to me that learning "Sit, Savannah, sit!" would be easier, but we're still working on that one. It might be easier for her to learn to "Sit!" if I have tiny bits of a treat in my hand. I had to use treats with our dog Gracie when she was a puppy, and it worked very well.
And speaking of Gracie.... that's why I'm up in the middle of the night. I would have gone back to bed after taking Savannah out to the grass, but I wasn't really sleeping well tonight anyway so I thought I'd just stay up. You can only turn the pillow over so many times and then it's just time to get up. So I'm sitting here dressed for the day, make-up on, and hair somewhat fixed until I can use the blow-dryer later on at a more reasonable hour, being that my husband is sound asleep at the moment, along with mostly everyone else up here in the hills.
My husband and I were talking about Gracie just before I got into bed.... I know he's missing her, which he has since the day we had to put her 'to sleep' (a phrase that sounds soothing but is really heart-breaking). He told me tonight that he doesn't feel bonded or connected to Savannah, and he feels badly about that. With Gracie, there was an immediate connection which lasted from day one until her last breath, and even beyond. We adopted Gracie from an SPCA, and we took that little puppy out into the yard of the facility and she followed my husband around and around, barely taking her eyes off of him. "This is the one," my husband told me that morning... and Gracie was The One for nearly 15 years. My husband was Gracie's Number One Person... she absolutely adored him, and merely tolerated me when he was at work. Never mind that I was the one who fed her and gave her fresh water and walked her most of the time... Gracie's heart was in my husband's pocket, and I'm guessing now that it's still there.
When we went to see Savannah for the first time, we met the woman and her daughter in the parking lot of a McDonald's which was halfway between our town and theirs, to save us both a longer drive. The parking lot was busy with vehicles and kids and that box with voices coming out asking if the customers wanted shakes or fries with their Big Macs. With every unusual and strange sound, Savannah's attention was diverted and her tail was between her legs and she was just plain frightened. She had just completed a 45-minute ride from north of Houston in a crate that was in the back of a pick-up truck, with no protection from the sun and the noises and odors of the freeway.
While I spoke to the woman and her daughter, my husband put Gracie's old leash on the puppy and tried to get her to walk in the grass surrounding the McDonald's parking lot. Too many cars, too many people, too many crackling voices coming from the Place-Your-Order box. This puppy couldn't concentrate on any one particular thing, but still, my husband looked at me and smiled and nodded his head.... his signal that we would indeed take this puppy from these people. I paid the daughter, hugged both her and her mother good-bye, and we let them drive away before getting soon-to-be-named Savannah into the back seat of my husband's car. While my husband drove towards home, I was in the backseat with the puppy, who was clearly shaking and scared.
With any puppy's adoption, everything that puppy knows is taken away, and no matter how much you love her and care for her, that puppy-mind is still remembering the life she knew, the surroundings she was familiar with, and it takes some time for the puppy to get acclimated to her new home. We don't know how many other puppies were in the litter with Savannah, but that mother and daughter had adopted both Savannah and one of her brothers, and for three solid months, those two puppies spent every minute together. The daughter didn't name the puppies--- they were called Puppy #1 and Puppy #2. Not something I would ever do, but I guess it worked for them.
So then the mother and daughter decided that their lives were too busy for two puppies... they put an ad on the Craig's List site, and that's when we came into Savannah's life. On the drive home that very first day, my husband had to lift Savannah into the back seat of his car (she had only been in the back of that woman's truck, never inside the vehicle). I sat in the back seat with soon-to-be-named Savannah because my husband and I thought she would be less frightened that way. She did settle down after just a few minutes, curling up on the other side of the seat, but then she slowly moved her way closer to me and put her head on my arm and her paws on my legs. And that's how we drove home, with a sleeping puppy up close right next to me as my husband and I tossed out possibilities for her name.
For all of these days we've had Savannah, I've been walking and feeding her, talking to her, saying her name so many times that I know I must sound like a broken record to that puppy. Her crate is in a corner of the kitchen, and she has free run of the entire kitchen and the breakfast room. When we go into the TV room, she follows us in there, bringing along some of her toys. The TV room and adjoining bathroom has always been the kingdom our inside cat Sweet Pea.... who has not yet made friends with Savannah. Sweet Pea watches her play from a distance, Savannah watches him watching her, and I do think that they'll be fine once the cat gives the puppy a chance.
I also think that my husband and Savannah will be fine, but he has to give her more than nine days to form some sort of relationship with him. I've spent the last hour looking at dog-sites on the computer, reading questions and answers on non-bonding problems with dogs and their people. Nearly every site has said that most dogs will bond quickly with one person in their "pack" but they will (and should) accept everyone in their family. I know that Savannah realizes that my husband and I both live here, and we are both her new people, but she trusted me first, and she's taking her time with her trust for my husband. We don't know if she had any contact with men when she was with her previous owners. Personally, I don't think so, because my husband is not the only man that Savannah doesn't trust-- I introduced her to a friend's husband and Savannah backed away. She is also hesitant with our female neighbors, so I'm inclined to believe that in her previous home, her main company was her puppy-brother, and she probably saw the mother and daughter at feeding times and that was it. Dogs are pack animals and need people-contact.
Our dog Gracie died in July of 2010. We've been without a dog all this time. Now we have Savannah, who has proven to be an exceptional puppy.... no accidents in the house... no chewing of things other than her own toys. Savannah knows her name, she knows that her new family consists of me, my husband, one inside cat and two outside cats. Except for one split-second when Savannah tried to play with Sweet Pea, she hasn't made an aggressive move towards the cats. When our dining room had eight of my friends here for tea last Wednesday, Savannah calmly watched them coming into the back door and she gave everyone a puppy-smile but kept her distance. When we all went into the dining room for tea, Savannah followed us and just walked slowly around the table, watching everyone and not touching a blessed thing in that big room. I think she walked around the table three or four times before she started to go out of my sight and into the living room, so I put her into her crate with a toy and she stayed there quietly for the rest of the tea party.
Patience. This puppy needs patience. And love. I don't think she was really loved as if she were a member of the family. We don't know all of her history, and I know that fact is now bothering my husband. Savannah is not Gracie, and probably never will be anything close in my husband's eyes, because Gracie was his one-and-only perfect dog of a life-time. And while I understand that clearly, Savannah of course doesn't have a clue. After watching her every move for the past nine days, I truly believe that Savannah had zero contact with men before we adopted her. And she probably had very little contact with anyone other than the mother and daughter who owned her before. They were very nice people from what we could see, but I do believe that you just cannot keep a dog out in the yard like a cow.
I have been typing for over an hour. Needless to say, I am beyond wide awake. Savannah has been sleeping soundly in her crate... I don't hear a sound from upstairs so my husband is still sleeping also. Our inside cat Sweet Pea is sitting in my lap and hanging half of his body over my right arm.... he's watching the computer screen and purring... and my right arm feels like a dead-weight. Sweet Pea comes out into the breakfast room now only when Savannah is in her crate.
I'm hoping that this very sweet cat will learn to trust Savannah as much as he trusts me and my husband. I'm hoping that Savannah will learn to trust my husband as much as she now seems to trust me. And I am also hoping that my husband will trust his initial decision to adopt this puppy, and give her the patience and time she seems to need to get used to having a man in her life. We've only had Savannah for nine days... and she has gotten closer to me simply because I've spent more time with her, especially during the days when my husband is at work. His connection with her will just take a bit longer to solidify, and I hope he can remember that.
That's a lot of hope for 5:30 in the morning.
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