This is Dolly. She is a beagle that we have had staying with us since last Friday morning, as we are boarding her as part of our side business and labor of love Barneys Home Dog Boarding. We love her. She is very sweet, and only a little high maintenance, so that’s wonderful. 🙂 Ironically she is the first beagle in all the dogs we have boarded, even though our dog boarding is named after our first late beagle Barney. Before her stay here she was pretty shy with other dogs, so living temporarily with our three dogs has helped her get important socialization experience. At first she would avoid them, and now she acts just like one of the pack.
She used to have no cat experience, and that is going relatively well too. Only a few times has she tried to chase Bambi, and only the first of those was a dramatic chase most of the length of our apartment. Now it’s just a chase of few feet once in a while. She is learning! Of course I’m not sure which is teaching her faster, my “No” at the end of the chase, or the fact that another of our cats Smokey takes it personally and tries to teach her a lesson with body language and hissing after each mini chase. As usual each of our cats helps in their own way to socialize the dogs to cats. 🙂
Oh and the only high maintenance aspect to her is that she does not usually go to the bathroom during our many daily yard visits, so I have to also take her on various walks as well. Also she has not yet been trained to take much direction on a walk so is used to going wherever she pleases. She is very resistant to most standard gentle correction, so I have learned the right bribing, I mean training method for her on her walks. I guess we are all learning things this week!
Yes, Dolly is a wonderful guest. We would gladly welcome a return visit from her!