Feelin' comfortable

Well, Comfort Zone seems to be living up to his name. He is fitting in quite well so far. He was very excited to meet my dogs, two Greys & a Deerhound mix, but remained polite. My hounds were all happy to see him... ok, the girls were. Luke, my senior male, was curious then went on his way. The girls really like CZ and he seems to feel the same. Our youngest, Stellaluna, is quite smitten with the new kid in town. I will admit to being a bit smitten with him myself. (We already have our quota of dogs though.) CZ and Luna play quite well in the yard. He is not the bundle of energy our Luna is. While he is active and engaged outside, inside he returns happily to his xpen and settles down easily.

He has not had any interaction with the cats yet. One was laying on the stairs when we came home yesterday and CZ did looked there but did not appear to take notice of the cat. He was not quite sure what to make of the horse, so has stayed a bit away from the fence when PJ is close by. CZ was very curious about Squiggy the goat but seems to have grown bored with him now.

CZ spent the night in his xpen in the living room since he seemed so happy an comfortable in there. (Usually our fosters sleep in the bedroom with the rest of us.) He slept the night through without a peep. Good boy! Around 6:30 AM CZ started a little growling then barking. Then he stopped. I was confused and though he was again quiet I got up to go check on him. Of course, the other dogs got up with me so I put everyone out. After everyone was back in and settled down on their beds again, CZ did a little bit of barking. I noticed he was staring out the window. I called his name and he stopped immediately, looking at me instead of outside. Good boy! Wondering if someone was walking a dog or some such, I went to check. CZ was seeing PJ the horse in the front pasture. There was no barking at all at PJ when CZ was outside. However, he did after catching sight through the window of that large creature out on the front lawn. I strongly suspect this was the source of the barking earlier this morning. With the blinds on that window now closed, silence has resumed.

So far this boy has been nearly perfect. He does pull on leash so we will work on that. Most of this is from excitement. After a little while he settles down. To make things easier, I bought a harness with a ring in the center front of the chest piece to which I clip the leash. This way if he pulls he turns himself sideways. This is much preferable to pulling on a collar. He cannot pull as hard and he does not end up choking. With his front clip harness on he is walking on leash much better. There are more times when he isn't pulling and that gives me a chance to reward him for walking properly. Rewarding for good behavior is more effective than just correcting bad behavior. He gets to learn what I really want and a recent study shows we learn more from our successes than our failures. He learns quickly so I am sure even with my meager training ability he will catch on to loose leash walking. In the meantime, walks are fairly easy using the harness.

Oh, speaking of learning quickly. He was not sure how to get in the car yesterday but willingly allowed me to lift first one, then the other front leg onto the seat then boost his bottom up to. Next time I proceeded in the same fashion but his scrambled his back legs up as I boosted. Third time he lifted his own front legs up but hesitated until I gave him his extra boost. Fourth time he did the whole thing himself. He rides in the car very well and waited calmly in the back seat when I made a stop on the way home to pick someone up at a car repair shop. He is going to be a good traveller.

And how about learning the stairs? Well we have some stairs made of railroad ties set in a small hill behind the house. These are a good intro to stairs and he made easy work of them. We have a ramp from the porch to the front yard. All the dogs use it exclusively except Luna. So last night when Luna decided to go up the stairs instead of the ramp, CZ decided to follow her. After getting his front legs a few steps up, he stopped and looked confused. So I walked over, took him by his harness and tried to help him out. With a little heft on the harness he shifted his weight and moved one back foot onto the bottom step. Now his weight was tipped forward so he moved a front foot up one step. This was all he needed apparently. From there he scrambled up the rest of the way on his own. He has now done those steps unaided quite a few times though he has also used the ramp. He is not yet graceful on the stairs but there is no hesitation.

It is a joy to watch him learn. This is one of the best things about adopting a Greyhound. Besides all the fun and affection, which CZ offers up in bulk, it is a blast to help show your new Grey what this whole wide world has to offer. Like all Greys we have had here, CZ is intensely curious. He is a confident boy and really seems to enjoy learning so he is going to be going to be a blast.