Fear period update

Well, I won't say it's over, but I will say I've been seeing a lot of improvement in Keeper's reaction and recovery time in the last few days.

Sept 5th, my brother and his girlfriend showed up. Keeper fear/alarm barked at them. I chased her from the room. If she is that scared, I'd rather she run away than bark. She came creeping back in, and was very flinchy. By the end of the 1.5 hours they were awake that night, she was going to get petted. She was better with them the next morning.

Duncan wears a scarf, entertaining the guests.

My aunt and uncle showed up the 6th and spent the day. There were a couple sotto-voice boofs, but some improvement, still ducking stranger hands. Then my cousin showed up. She wasn't sure about him, but no boofs. A couple hours later, his wife showed up and Keeper walked past like "don't even care anymore." Throughout the weekend, she got better and better with the people coming and going, upstairs, downstairs, in and out the doors, and began seeking attention from everyone. 

By the end of the visit, Sunny, my dad's 16 month old hunting pup, was the only dog barking at unexpected movements of guests (she's very social, she's just sound shy- she was whelped in a quiet garage, and has always had troubles with unexpected sounds in the house.)

Saturday the 14th, I had three people from my writers' group over. No boofs at all, and while a little bit stretchy about it, Keeper went to greet them straight away. (There's nothing like puppy socialization logs to make you sound racist- we're white, the three friends are black, so it's nice to see that she's generalizing across skin tone.)

I haven't really gotten her out, with the heat we had before the family visit, but I'm planning to make some short runs to the Renaissance Festival grounds (they're open weekends, but I'm hoping their parking lot is open during the week so we can go check scents there without crowds), stop in to the vet's property/lobby and maybe some other parking lots in the coming days.

Just go places and see things.

We've also just begun the desensitization to the vacuum. She's not as bad about it as Duncan was, but she doesn't like it at all. She's come along fairly well for 7 weeks of settling in and explaining the basics. Once we're out of this fear imprint stage, we'll get serious about outings.

Keeper mugs for the camera.

I feel a lot better about her chances of making it after seeing her with the three new people yesterday. During the family visit, I wasn't so sure about her.

She's also got a histocytoma next to her left eye that's been growing since I brought her home, but I believe it's finally starting to shrink.