2016 April – First Contact, Bedtime, Space, Meltdown

First Contact

Here is a picture of me meeting my new human in my new home.

I am 3 years old and quite excited and a little bit overwhelmed but I am trying my best to stay friendly.

I have been here for about 10 minutes.

I was dropped off by a taxi driver who seems to have come in for a cuppa.  I pulled her all the way to the front door and then swept through the house like a tornado.  The taxi driver had to drop my lead in a hurry or she would have come with me.

I have been given a tennis ball which is a good start.  I do like a tennis ball.  It took me less than a day to shred this one.

 

This is a picture of me conked out because it has all been a bit much. As you can tell, I am not at all relaxed and I’m keeping my tennis ball close to me.  It’s the only thing I trust at the moment.

 

Apparently I am an impulse acquisition so there is nothing ready for me. The taxi driver has found me a bed and got some food sorted so that’s all OK.  In fact, the humans seem as surprised as I am that I’m here.

They seem mostly alright but you can never really tell with humans.

 

Bedtime

We had some fun and games when it came to bedtime I can tell you.  The taxi driver seems to live here too which I wasn’t expecting.  Anyway, both humans seemed to think I would be ok in the kitchen and put my bed in there.  Then they said goodnight and shut the door on me.  I am not keen on being shut in anywhere, even if it is a big enough room.

I waited until everything went quiet and then I threw myself at the door.  Then I waited a few minutes and did it again.

Then I waited.

Then I scratched at the door.

Then I repeated all of the above.

I weigh close to 40kg so it made quite a lot of noise.

I thought to myself, I can do this all night so that’s just what I did.   The humans did come in to see if I was OK and to try to reassure me so I played along with it and then carried on once they’d gone.   I did this for the next 2 nights as well and by day 3 the humans were both looking a bit frayed around the edges, if you ask me.

The next night they left the door open and I went and slept on the settee instead.  I had a nice sleep thank you very much for asking.  It goes to prove humans can be trained.  You just need patience, perseverance and a consistent approach.

My bed has been moved into the study now.  The study door is always kept open.

I am sort of settling in but you can still tell I’m not really relaxed.  These humans seem OK but my experience with humans is that they are largely unreliable and occasionally unpleasant and I don’t really know how long I’ll be here.

I am being incredibly stoic (in the old fashioned sense) because that’s the kind of dog I am.  Also nothing bad has happened so far and the humans are putting in the effort to make me feel at home.

 

Space

They are also giving me lots and lots of space to do my own thing.

I am not keen on being touched and I move away if anyone gets too close.  I know I was a bit jumpy all over people when I arrived but generally I am definitely not up for being cuddled or stroked. I did let the taxi driver brush me a little which was mostly alright but honestly it is just too much for me at the moment.

 

Meltdown

I have lived in all sorts of places in my short life.  The taxi driver spent ages looking at all my paperwork, some of which was poorly redacted and reckons I started out in Malaga, then to Ireland (puppy farming?) then to the UK.  I have been rejected from 2 other homes already apparently because I was too ‘exuberant’.   It’s not what I’d call it if I’m honest.   I’ve also been at several kennels in between all of this.

All this change has made me quite upset inside and deeply suspicious and a little bit shut down.  I expect a psychologist will have a proper name for it.  These new humans have got their work cut out to prove to me that they’re worth my love and attention.

Anyway in the meantime, we do lots of playing in the garden to tire me out and we will be going for a walk in a day or 2.  I reckon that might be a bit of a shock for the humans if I’m honest because my brain sometimes does a funny sort of meltdown in the outside world and I’m pretty sure no-one has warned them about this.

I did have a sort of a meltdown when the taxi driver first collected me, so they should be expecting it (see Nov 2020 diary entry for the full story).  Unless the taxi driver thought it was a one-off.

Well, the humans are in for a shock then, aren’t they?