Holy crud, that was a big shift.
Despite our best efforts at adjusting the dogs to the new place, we knew it was gonna rock their little world pretty hard. Check in that column- world rocked.
Their poor little insecure selves spent the first 3 days almost literally underfoot. For Odie it was literal a couple of times, Piper just kept getting kicked in the shoulder. They continue to go the wrong way when given commands to go outside or to their 'houses'/ crates. Although it is interesting to see how they make the connections- their door outside used to be through the kitchen, so now they go that way, despite the new door being at the other side of the house. Their crates used to be in the living room, so they still head that way, despite their crates being in a totally different room now. And people say Dogs are stupid, brainless animals..... feh.
The insecurity is also manifesting itself in the renewal of some old crimes.
yay.......
Piper is the MOST affected by this change (yet another time where she is just like the human who picked her- resistant to change) and therefore her renewed crimes seem to be directly connected to that. She has peed on an area rug twice- the same one- while one of us was in the room with her, but not paying attention. Thankfully, she's blocked from getting into the guest room and marking that spot again. She also felt a strong enough attraction to a tube of (pricey!) hand lotion to grab it off the table and chew on it for a good 10 minutes before I found her with it. Less then charming, to say the least.
Odie on the other hand, has a renewed interest in rolling in inappropriate things. Oh yay- my favorite. Hopefully this will fade once he's found all the nasty stuff and caused us to pick it up as a result. Of course, we do have fruit trees now, so there's potential to have semi constant rotting things to deal with. Again I say... yay.....
On the flip side of this coin, we've learned new things about the dogs now that their environment has changed a bit.
Odie is a mouser! He yelled at, then tried to pick up and run with a mostly dead (hopefully) mouse last night. This was AFTER he'd pawed at and tried to dig up a dead rat carcass over the moving weekend. So, clearly his hunting Jack Russell genes take over around small rodents. This could be a very helpful attribute, or it could end up with dead rodents all over my yard. I know where my vote falls.
Piper is endlessly eager to please! (I guess that's not entirely new) but she has adjusted to new changes well in some regard. She's learned to get on her pillow when she's in a room with us, which is a new trick as she never had pillows before. She also likes to be where we are, so if she has to be a certain way to accomplish that, she's amenable- thus she'll stay in a doorway as long as she can see us. She picked up on new boundaries of new rooms within a day. See- she is smart! for a dumb dog anyway.
In general, I'd say the transition is going well, if a little bumpy. We're revisiting some old crimes, but hey, everyone relapses once in a while. We'll re-institute the Rehab procedures and see what progress we can regain. In the meantime, if someone has a secret to getting dogs to remember things like where the door is, feel free to let me know.....
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