My dearest Keely is still unfurling her personality for me. She’s been my companion for just over two months now and I think she realizes that she’s here to stay.
She’s barking more, for one thing. Not a lot, usually when there is a loud noise outside she doesn’t recognize, but for the first two weeks after I brought her home she did not bark at all. Then she barked rarely, and only barked once or twice before stopping. Now, though, she will jump up and bark a lot at the mailman, for instance. I am taking this as a sign that she considers the apartment her territory now.
We are both walking longer distances now. When I first got her she was still in recovery from heartworm treatment which, you know, kind of stresses the heart. She was not up for much and honestly, being very sedentary, neither was I. As example A, allow me to note that my fitbit usually clocked me at a mere 5k steps a day, if that. When I first started walking Keely I still rarely went over 5k steps, but slowly that went up to 8k, then 10k regularly. Usually if we get all the full walks in for the day I avg. about 12k-14k steps.
She also a lot more playful now, with very definite expectations about when and where playtime shall occur. If I fail her, she lies down with her back to me and huffs a lot. Message received: playtime is sacred!
Subjectively, I think she’s less nervous around me. This has been a slow development, but she doesn’t give me as many wide-eyed, “oh no!” looks as she used to. It’s easy, with dogs, to over-anthropomorphize their expressions and behavior, so I try not to put too much into “interpreting” her expressions. But nervous/skittish is something that is easily recognizable in a dog, and I think I did not realize how nervous she actually was until she started feeling more comfortable. I still get the whites of the eyes every so often, which may never change — I don’t know what she went through before we met, and I assume there might be unhappy things there that haunt her. I just do what I can to help for feel safe and loved.
She’s scheduled for surgery on December 6th to get a broken tooth removed. Her bloodwork came back last with no flag raised — she’s generally in really good health. Of course when she goes in for surgery I’ll be a wreck, but that’s the price of loving a dog as much as I love Keely.
I wouldn’t change a thing.