As I watched Savannah sleeping on the sofa in the TV room this afternoon, I had to laugh at how she has adapted to her new life over these last five months. Has it just been five months since we brought her home? How can that be.... it seems like Savannah has been here forever.
Considering that the first five months of Savannah's puppy life was spent in an outdoor kennel, she has surely made herself more than comfortable here after those first weeks of anxiousness over her new surroundings and her new people.
Princess Savannah has learned that living inside a house rather than outside in the yard isn't so bad after all. That first day we brought her home, poor Savannah didn't even know how to walk in the back door. Her first weeks with us were a test of "first times" --- a car ride, the porch steps, the back door, the puppy-crate, the cats, a leash and collar, even a simple walk up and down the road... she hadn't been exposed to any of those things before she came here. Even a name! Her previous owners had not even given her a name... she was Puppy #2 and the other puppy in the kennel with her was Puppy #1.
And now, five months later... Savannah's favorite place to sleep is in her plush and comfy bed in the corner of the breakfast room, and if our cat Sweet Pea happens to be curled up in there, she just walks into the TV room and stretches out on the sofa (from end to end). This puppy loves car rides, especially to the dog park... and she's well-behaved when she sits on the back seat and looks out the window--- a big step up from her previous transportation in her other life, which was in a metal crate in the back of a pick-up truck. (Why people do that to dogs is just beyond me.)
We were worried about Savannah being unfriendly or too aggressive with our cats, but that has never been a problem. From her first day with us, she was as curious about the cats as they were with her, and even our old gentleman cat Gatsby quickly accepted Savannah as one of the family.
Early yesterday morning, my husband and I had to take Gatsby to the vet's office. Poor Gatsby clearly wasn't feeling well and we didn't know what to do for him to make him more comfortable.... what he needed was antibiotics and medication from the vet, which worked wonders. Gatsby had to stay in the garage for the first 24 hours, and then Savannah gently nuzzled Gatsby's neck when we let him on the porch again. Savannah smelled that cat from his whiskers to his tail, most likely recognizing that vet-office odor, and she was probably asking Gatsby "So what did they bring you in for?"
For a puppy who was Miss Independent when we first brought her home, Savannah has changed that tune over the past five months. She follows me from room to room, she lays up against my husband when he's in the TV room, she will nuzzle and snuggle and clearly want to be held and petted... everything you could possibly want in a puppy is in this puppy.
My husband has said that Savannah 'hit the puppy lottery' when we brought her home, but I think that works both ways. We clearly have a very good puppy who just needed some time to get used to us and to her new surroundings. Savannah still has some adjustments to make... hearing gun-shots from the surrounding properties still scares her, and she insists on trying to protect me from vehicles that drive along our road here.
I do miss the squeaky sounds of her blue monkey toys, but we can't give those to her anymore because her puppy teeth have turned into big-dog teeth and the last blue monkey she had lasted about twenty minutes before being torn to shreds. There was a time when my husband was buying every blue monkey dog-toy in this town so we would always have extra monkeys in the house for Savannah. I have one blue monkey left, which Savannah isn't aware of... I've got it hidden in the cabinet where her treats are kept. I don't really know why I'm saving it... maybe I should just give it to her and let her chew it and play with it and when it gets torn up, I'll just throw it away.
I just can't seem to do that. The blue monkey is not only cute, but it's a distinct reminder of Savannah's first puppy days and months with us and I can't bear to have that last remnant of her puppy-hood destroyed. I may take that last blue monkey out of the cabinet and bring it upstairs to the library... I can put it on one of the shelves with the vintage children's books.... and just let it sit there, looking totally blue and cute.
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