Doggie quirks

Today marks the six-week anniversary of the day we brought Montana home. Opinions vary, but a lot of people have told us that it takes rescue dogs a little over a month to really settle in and become comfortable in their new homes. We have definitely seen signs of that with her.

When we got her, she had spent about ten weeks in the prison program, working with four different inmate handlers. Before that, she spent a short period of time with a puppy mill rescue program. And before that, it's anybody's guess. She's not purebred, so it seems unlikely that she was used for breeding in a puppy mill, but you never know--and certainly she had never before been in a stable, loving home. She's three or four years old. When she came to the prison program, she was timid, hesitant, and not spayed. She did not know how to act around people or other dogs. She refused to play with or even look at toys and balls. She was defensive and would never put herself in a vulnerable position.

When we got her, she had made improvements but she still displayed a lot of those characteristics. Over the past six weeks, she has learned to relax, to play with other dogs, and to even play with the occasional toy. She has learned to bark and generally verbalize, and she has learned not to be so clingy. She will even willingly roll on her back to have her tummy scratched. She is a lot more sure of herself now, and she is definitely coming out of her shell.

Still, she definitely has some bizarre habits/quirks remaining. Some of them we are certainly hoping will fade with time. Others I would cry if she lost, because they are just so damn cute.

• People, especially Torsten and me, are the most important thing to her. We come before food, before peeing, before playing. She needs lots of reassurance and lots of love.
• She is a total nuzzler. She likes to rub her face against us, anywhere she can reach--legs, stomach, whatever. When she gets in her dog bed she will usually bury her face in the pillowy side and roll all around.
• She likes to know what's going on at all times. She loves to sit on the balcony, checking out everything that's going on in all directions. If she were a person, her favorite pastime would involve sitting in sidewalk cafes, people-watching.
• She will not eat right away, and not at all if we stand there and watch her. When we put down her food, we have to walk away and ignore her--turning on the TV or picking up a book works best. Still, she will sit there watching us for a minute or two before she starts to eat. If we look over, we can see her big eyes, dark in her white face with her giant ears framing them, peering at us from over the trash can.
• She has a serious lack of mouth coordination. On the rare occasions when we can get her to fetch (and that's been three times so far, so an average of once every two weeks), it takes her several times to figure out how to pick the ball up without dropping it again.
• Similarly, she doesn't seem to know how to chew big things. She is very interested in large treats such as peanut butter-flavored nylabones, cow's ears, and rawhide bones. She will sniff them and sometimes lick them. But she does not understand how to put them in her mouth and chew them. If you break off a small piece of whatever large thing you're offering her, she will eat it, but this still does not teach her that she can have more of the same if she'll just chew on the big thing itself.
• She likes to hoard treats. A couple times we've given her treats and she's walked down the hall with them, only to return quickly without them. We searched all over and couldn't find them, but as we've been packing up we've discovered a couple things buried in the corners of closets. So far, we have not seen her ever go back to something she's hidden and eat it later.
• This makes me think that she would be the total bone-burying type. If only she could figure out how to pick up the damn bone with her mouth.
• She never barks, ever, unless she wants to play with another dog. She is very verbal, though, and makes a variety of adorable throaty noises. She also snores sometimes.
• She is verrrrrry interested in chocolate, which is scary because chocolate is lethal for dogs. She has already chewed up a couple of wrappers that had once contained chocolate, and snurfled a couple of tiny chocolate crumbs off the floor. So we have to be very vigilant.
• She's pretty much the cutest dog in the world, ever.

I can't believe it's only been six weeks since we got her. It feels like she's always been in our lives. She makes everything better. She is the perfect dog.

Here, watch her fetch. I'm so glad we took this video because sometimes I need to remind myself that yes, every now and then, she WILL chase a ball.