New Experiences!

Well a couple of weekends ago, Ely and I took the plunge. I have been spending more time with the Girlfriend and since we live a little distance apart I had to find Ely a pup-sitter. The Girlfriend invited Ely and I to spend the weekend with her and her kitty. I packed up our stuff (Ely does not travel light!) and we headed north. Ely thoroughly sniffed the house, she ran the perimeter getting to know the area. I'm sure she noticed the strong cat smell, but did not seem phased by her. The Girlfriend assumed the cat would make herself scarce and hide most of the weekend. It seemed the cat realized that something was up with Ely, she didn't run from her or antagonize her. After some more sniffing Ely settled down and relaxed! A few times she came nose to nose with the cat, who hissed once or twice. This surprised Ely, but didn't scare her. After a fairly relaxing evening (she was a little nervous and pacing throughout the night) and Saturday morning at home with the kids, the Girlfriend and I ventured out to a movie. As you faithful readers know, Ely has been peeing in the house and I worried about this. We removed the cat box from the bathroom, added Ely's blanket, water bowl, a kong-o-cheeze whiz, and some treats. We gave the neighbors a cell phone number and told them to call if Ely got too loud or sounded like she's eating the toilet. This was a successful outing! Ely was fine and hadn't eaten something she shouldn't or peed! Later that night, Ely was off to meet another dog and his mom in their household. Unfortunately, the first thing Ely did was pee on the carpet, luckily our new friends were very understanding. She bumped into a lot of things, invoking lots of sympathy. There were a couple of moments where Ely ran into the new doggie friend and the dog jumped or took this as a sign to play, which freaked Ely out to the point of growling. For those of you who know Ely, this is pretty unusual. They managed to sort it out and the Lab learned to be gentle around Ely. The following morning Ely met the Girlfriend's people, including a couple of kiddos, one who's dog crazy. Ely was so calm! She let people pet her and didn't freak out with the little one around. I was so proud of her!

Ely has been staying outside during the day and doing well. On Halloween, I was a little worried about Ely being outside late at night, so I gave her a go inside. I made her go to the bathroom and loaded up the treat ball for her to roll around. She didn't eat anything she wasn't supposed to or go to the bathroom in the house!

I think we're getting better?