Thanks everybody for the compliments on my girl! She's keeping me hopping right now. Her personality is coming shining thru as she gets more comfortable and she's quite the character. She now yodels. Maddie use to yodel when she was happy, so I'm taking that as a good sign. She's caught her hedgie toy in the air, 4 times. So our frisbee hope is still alive. Big Yeah! Sometimes when she runs, she bounces like a deer. Very hilarious. She jumped up onto the bathroom counter yesterday to check out the adorable dog in the mirror. I don't think banana is going to be her thing. I gave her a bite from my smoothie and she was rolling it around on the floor like it was a toy. She had it smooshed all over her paw and the floor. I alternated between laughter and tears on that one. I have to keep reminding myself that she's not going to be Gull. She's going to be her own unique, special self and the discovery of who she is, is half the fun. And I also remind myself I cried the first 2 weeks I had Gull, because he wasn't Maddie. So here we are full circle.
This is the first rescue dog I've had and so far it seems very much like having a puppy. She's learning manners and her name and basic obedience right now. She's picking up on everything very fast though. I just can't believe somebody had her before and didn't even teach her to sit. She's so smart and is like a lil' sponge, with everything new you toss at her. So much potential they just wasted. shaking head. The only issue we're having is she's having a lil' separation anxiety, which I'm guessing is because she was abandoned. I never really had that issue with any of my other 4. I've been building up her time away from me. So hopefully we can work up to her being secure alone. I guess if worse came to worse, I could get a second dog.
So my vet thinks she's a Malinois/Basenji mix and after researching Basenjis online, I think he's right. She's got a lot of Basenji features. The wrinkly forehead. Her coloring and body look very much Basenji like and her coat is low shedding. That was a nice surprise after years of having to de-Collie-hair the house real quick, whenever anybody visited. While she does have a deep bark (the Malinois part I'm sure), she's very quiet most of the time, but she's got that adorable Basenji yodel (Hopefully I can get that on video at some point). She is a hunter. She's come close to nabbing a squirrel in the backyard, twice now. Boy, were they shocked. They were so use to Gull, who'd bark and announce he was coming as soon as he cleared the back door and was too slow to catch'em even without the announcement, that they'd mill around on the ground in the backyard and let him get really close to'em before they'd move. They were totally caught off guard when she came sailing out the back door after them. She got between the one and the tree so fast, you could see the panic on his face. The only thing that saved him was she had to slow up enough to duck under the swing in her pursuit of him. She's bolted after'em while we're out walking too. Onleash of course, luckily for the squirrels. So I'm having to shift my mindset from 10 years of having Collies, back to like having Cairns again. No offleash and working on waiting at doors and gates for Kizzie.
She's such a great dog. I love her to pieces already. I'll keep adding updates on our progress in here. And I'll post some more pics and vids too.
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