Welcome Callie: The puppy has emerged!

We are now seeing much more of Besse's playful puppy side. She has enjoyed playing with Missy (standard poodle) and Miles (miniature poodle) and has been respectful of Holly (14 yr old sheltie mix). She wrestles with Miles and plays chase with Missy. I have included a video below of Missy and Besse playing the basement. No judgements on the messiness of the basement! It's a "wreck" room after all and with two pre-teens it's almost never in perfect order. Anyway you can see Besse running into the play tunnel as part of her game of chase with Missy. We don't hear Besse bark much at all but she does bark when she plays and you can hear that in the video. Missy is the one with the deep bark and Besse has the higher "chirp."

After she's done playing with the dogs and chewing some of the chew toys Besse will take a nap and she's discovered the comfort of dog beds. At night, she is good about going into her crate for bed time. In fact, one night I couldn't find her and low and behold she had already crawled into her crate and was sleeping. Good girl.

She is a pup so I don't want her getting into trouble when I'm gone so I do crate her when I leave the house. She will whimper for a few minutes and is then quiet. For example, when I take the other dogs for a walk (I can only walk 2 at a time, I'm not skilled enough to walk all 4) I crate Besse. She does whine we a little as we're leaving but by the time I get outside (the windows have been open so I can hear her) she's quiet and by the time we get home 30 minutes later she's still quiet.

One day last week she had a couple #1 accidents in the house. I think it was related to all the wet weather we've been having. She didn't like going outside in the wet grass. So, I decided I would leash her and walk her out in the front yard and with that small change she's had no more accidents. Only that one day and now she's back on track. I've noticed too that she doesn't pull as much when I walk her alone. She pulls when I walk her with Miles each day but when I do the short potty walk with her in front she is good about not pulling so much and also good about getting her business done quickly. Good girl. OH...and I almost forgot to add that today she rang the bell! I have a bell on the back door that my dogs (and on occasion a smart foster dog) ring to be let outside. Little Miss Besse rang it this morning. She nudged it with her nose just like she should. I heard the ring and opened the door and she went outside and did her thing! Super good girl!

I feed my dogs a mixture of raw and kibble. You know, raw is in those freezers and refrigerators that you see when you walk into the pet store these days. In the beginning Besse would only eat the raw and would somehow pick out the kibble and leave it to the side of her bowl. So, I tried a chicken based kibble with her (my kibble was Taste of the Wild Bison) and now she's eating it all up. Her fussiness may have been related to the change of coming to my house or she might really have a preference. Anyway, she's now eating the kibble and any adopter could slowly move her from raw (canned can be a substitute for raw) and kibble to just kibble. I always give adopters some of the food that the foster dog has been eating.

I can see that her "fluff" is starting to show more. You can see she's got some more scruff on her face and her tail is starting to show a "fan." I still think she might have a bit of schnauzer in her. Her tail reminds me of a spaniel. Who knows, she's probably a mix of many mixes but she sure is cute!

She is a pup and will do puppyish things like jump up for your attention and be "mouthy" when she's playing with you. She's a clever girl though and I'm confident with some basic training she'll learn proper manners.

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO OF BESSE AND MISSY PLAYING