Today we celebrated one year since Lottie was forcefully removed from her breeders and came to live here at Snuva HQ! Hooray! Lottie enjoyed the day by spending all her time with her people, having a visit from Nanny Patsy, enjoying yummy food, bouncing around Kingston dog beach, and finding a cache.
Lottie’s come a long way. This time last year she was terrified of us; she thought we were dog-nappers. Today she’s happy and obviously loves us. Some of her achievements this year are:
- Learning how to bushwalk / geocache When I took her on her first cache hunt, she didn’t understand why we were walking on a dirt track rather than paving. Then she was completely baffled when we headed off through bushes! Today she loves going on walks and has even learned the joy to be had in investigating wallaby droppings. She’s not as easily intimidated by logs across the track and only occasionally looks at my like I’m an idiot when I lead her through the scrub.
- Becoming house trained I was actually surprised at how little Lottie knew about living with humans when she arrived, however she’d lived in very nice kennels with other schnauzers. I think it was actually more difficult to train a 1 year old than a puppy. With a puppy, you know that after they have a meal, you put them outside as they will soon leak. With an older dog, they’ve learned bladder control, however they don’t know where to control it and where not to control it. Lottie no longer makes messes inside the house, however she also doesn’t like to do her dog business anywhere except in the back garden. Not very convenient if you’re away camping!
- Being a star at obedience class OK, I’ll admit it, I didn’t take her to obedience classes for very long. I had a medical procedure (or two. . .or three. . .) that made it diffucult. Plus classes being in the middle of the day on Sundays really cuts into geocaching and life. However while we did go, Lottie did very well. More than once we were the example, going in front of the class to show how to do something. If only she didn’t get randomly deaf when she’s having fun and is called to go home. . .
- Playing with toys As strange as it may seem, when Lottie came to us she didn’t know how to play with toys. I guess she’d always had other schnauzers to play with so didn’t really need to play with inanimate objects. From the start she loved ‘puppies’, i.e. soft toys. She had been on heat a week or so before we’d gotten her, so a month or two afterwards she spent a lot of time putting her racoon puppy under Scott’s side of the bed, the ‘Schnauzer Lair’. Now Lottie plays with toys. She’s not ball- or stick-obcessed like Snuva, however she plays with them. She’ll take a toy, throw it, then chase it. And she loves running around the back garden with her dragon.
- Learning about other breeds When Lottie first arrived and we took her to dog parks or beaches, she didn’t seem to understand that breeds other than schnauzers were dogs too. I don’t know if really she was just being in general timid, but that’s the way it seemed to me. Today she runs and jumps and asks for games of chasings.
I still miss Snuva every day, however I’m so glad we have Lottie. I often wish they could have met. They are in some ways so similar and in other ways so different. I look forward to this second year of living with Lottie!