Sadie-dog

So far, Sadie's working out very well! It appears she will be great with the kids. She loves running around the backyard with them, loves being petted and given attention from them and especially loves when they share their food. Logan actually got up at 5am yesterday to play with Sadie. I think the moment it was light enough to see they were outside running around. He's disappointed that after TWO NIGHTS she still won't sleep in his room. Kaylin wants Sadie to sleep with her too, but her room's such a disaster Sadie won't even walk in. When I woke up this morning Sadie was sleeping in our bed. Um... Well, at least she doesn't move around, sleep on my legs or snore. Yet.

My biggest concern after the kids was the cats. Sadie has never lived with cats so we didn't know how she'd react. At this point she's basically ignoring them. Tess loved Brady and actually seems happy to have Sadie around. Sadie was lying in the grass with a bone and Tess crept out from the garage, snuck up and sniffed Sadie's tail and then batted it and ran back inside. I don't think Sadie even glanced at her. Simon has been fairly bold, walking right up to the dog repeatedly. Sadie just gives him an uninterested sniff and wanders off. Tiger has had the most surprising reaction. He has been desperately attempting to impress Sadie with his awesome fierceness and show that he is the dominant animal of the house. Poor Tiger has spent the past two days all puffed up and growling to no avail... Sadie has completely ignored him. Poor kitty is used to dominating the neighbor dog who cowers in his presence. To Sadie, Tiger is no more threatening than a bicycle or soccer ball. She has to maneuver around him, but he is little more than an object. Tiger is amazed at his own ineffectiveness. He's losing confidence. I can't wait to see Tiger's Plan B.

My final major concern was how Sadie would get along with other dogs. Stupid Neighbor Dog in particular. Most of my neighbors have at least one dog and most of them run free at least occasionally. Stupid Dog runs free most of the time. As a matter of fact, he was running in our yard the night Colleen brought Sadie. All five kids were running around and Colleen and I were trying to figure out how to get Sadie out of the car. I finally just opened the door and figured "come what may." Sadie and Stupid ran all over the place. She seemed to enjoy the play until Stupid would not remove his nose from her butt. Then she had to get fierce and show some teeth. Last night Stupid was sticking his head through a hole in the fence (cut around a large tree root.) He was barking and whining and Sadie was completely ignoring him. Finally, I guess she had enough of his crap because she went up to his head and growled and bared her teeth and then snapped at him. I'm pretty sure he scraped his mouth when he jerked back through the fence and that she didn't actually bite him, but he was bleeding a little. He deserved it. Stupid dog.

Otherwise, she's doing great! She leaves the kids' toys alone, isn't destructive and I'm pretty sure she won't be a chewer. She's four years old and relatively calm. I wasn't sure what she'd do yet so I left her in the garage yesterday while I was at work. No messes of any kind. Her two biggest faults right now are whining and getting into the garbage. I'm hoping the whining subsides in a few days when she feels more comfortable here. As for the garbage, we'll need to work with her and probably get a more dog-proof trash can in the kitchen. No biggie. Well, right now she's whining to go out so I better end this!