From A Pauper To A Princess - The Journey of a Puppy Mill Dog (Entry 12)

Karen, one of CPCRN's foster mentors, has graciously allowed us access to her diary documenting the journey of Flopsy, also known as Rusty, from the puppy mill to her forever home. The diary will be broken up into short sections and posted. Check back for new entries in the series entitled "From A Pauper To A Princess - The Journey of a Puppy Mill Dog". (Previous Journal Entries: Entry One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven)

9/8/07
We took Rusty to the vet, along with Kallie (Frappe), to have her ears checked. It turns out she has a yeast infection in her ears. Poor kid wasn’t showing any symptoms. I think these mill babies develop such a high pain tolerance, because they know they aren’t going to get any help in the mill.

After the vet visit, we took both Rusty and Kallie to Petsmart. Rusty was extremely nervous without her foster brother and sisters. She balked at everything. Kallie was no comfort to Rusty, because I had to carry her through the store, since she isn’t leash trained, yet.

I started to give Rusty a new supplement I ordered online for stress, a couple of days ago. Tonight, I noticed when we were in the backyard, Rusty wasn’t pacing as much. I’m not sure if I am imagining this, but I am so hopeful that it’s helping her.

9/16/07
This is a weekly update on Rusty. I began giving her a new supplement last week, “Stress-Free Calmplex.” I have begun to notice some subtle changes. One of them is that she is playing with McDuffy and Holly every morning and night. She’s so cute, she play bows, rolls over, they jump on her, she jumps on them. They go at it for quite a while, mainly until Rusty notices me watching them.

Something else she has been doing is coming into the kitchen when I am making their meals, with the other dogs. She started making this little noise to tell me I am taking way too long, getting her meal ready. When it’s time to eat, she races around, jumping up and down.

Rusty is still pacing in the backyard and is very difficult to catch out there. Inside the house, it’s getting easier to catch her though. She usually races over to where the dog beds are and will jump in one of them. She’s been so good getting her ear meds, too.

This evening, when I was laying in bed reading, Rusty started whining in her crate. I thought maybe she just wanted out of the crate, but she didn’t stop. I then decided she must be alerting me she needs to go outside. I let her out of the crate and took her outside and she went potty immediately! What a great little girl she is for alerting me!!

9/17/07
This evening, the weather was cool, so I took a couple of blankets out to the grass and picked up Rusty and laid on the blanket with her. I just stroked her back, because she doesn’t like to be “rumpled,” she likes a smooth stroke. She was laying on the blanket next to me. After about 5 minutes, I stopped stroking her and moved my arm. She had every opportunity to run away, but she chose to just lay there! Every once in a while, I would start to stroke her again. When I would stop, she would sniff my hand and my arm. After about 20 mins., she got up and ran away. However, she would start to meander back over towards the blanket, but she made sure she didn’t get too close.

9/18/07
I took the blankets outside again tonight and did the same thing with Rusty. She didn’t try to run away when I’d stop petting her. She did get spooked when McDuffy started barking.

To Be Continued ...