Things around here are pretty calm for the most part.
Aggie is settling in with us, and we're settling in with her. We still have some behavior issues to work through, but I'm seeing some progress.
Picking her up. She's still not a fan, but she is handling it mainly pretty well. The key seems to be do give her time to realize what you're doing, and to not try to pick her up when something else is causing her to agitate. If she's worked up, she'll panic. And the first thing she does here is use her mouth. She's not biting. She never bears down. But she "mouths" at your hand.
Which leads to the second thing. The "mouthing." She's pretty indiscriminate, but with Randall and I, we understand she's nibbling fingers in the hopes of there being food. Sometimes she'll mouth your fingers and sometimes she'll lick, but it's always in the hopes of a treat.
This isn't a problem for us, though we're trying to gear her to licking as opposed to mouthing, but she also mouths the other dogs. Which would be OK, except Aggie mouths by putting their muzzles in her mouth. That hasn't gone over well with our other foster girl, Penny (and I suspect it was the source of their disagreement when Aggie first got here). Haley just ducks her head, but I can see the look in my husband's Chihuahua's eyes when she tries it with him...probably because there isn't much muzzle to take, which means it's most of his head. Skeeter is not a fan. LOL
The weirdest thing, though, is her licking the floor. And I mean she'll go from one side of the room to the other. Lick. Lick. Lick. Lick. It will drive you mad. Watching her and it seems to be mainly in the evening, which makes me wonder if she isn't bored. Lets face it. Her world is very quiet. During the day, there's stuff going on...maybe not much, but at least some and she's usually wandering around watching. At night? Not so much. Pretty quiet around here, and she walks between the bedroom where I am to the den where Randall is. Back and forth. Pretty soon, she's licking the floor.
So tonight, I decided to give her a rawhide chew flip. She's ecstatically working on it in her crate. So I'm hoping I can find some things for her to do. This only happens in the house, so I suspect it's a lack of mental stimulation. Bored to tears, in other words.
Her weight is stuck. I can get her to right below 17 pounds and that's it. So for now I'm not going to worry much. I'm hoping some exercise can be worked in for her soon (whether we're playing with a toy or a short walk with Randall), and that should help. Plus she's not been here that long and the weight is still shifting around. She's got a bit of a waist, but I would like to feel some ribs. So she doesn't have much she needs to lose. Maybe a pound, pound and a half.
Hope to get some pictures, soon, too. I'd like to get some outside, though she's about the color of all the dead magnolia leaves, so it might be hard to get her to show up. Still worth a try, though.
I will probably update again Sunday or Monday. All in all, I'm really happy with how she's doing. Now if we can only get that licking...errr...licked. :)
