I've had a lot of people ask how Chewie is doing, so I thought I'd give an update. If you missed Chewie's story, you can read about it here.
It's amazing how far Chewie has come since we brought him home four weeks ago! It still astounds me how resilient and adaptive dogs are. Although Chewie has his issues (which I'll talk about shortly) he feels like part of our family now. He is no longer frightened of me or our two other dogs. I still come in second when my husband is around, but when David is at work or out running errands, Chewie seems content to hang out with me.
Chewie and Luna have become play buddies! It's so fun to watch them zoom around the house and wrestle, especially since Chewie is about 1/3 of the size of Luna, but the size difference doesn't seem to matter. They're getting along really well.
As far as Kali is concerned, she seems indifferent to having another dog in the house. Chewie, on the other hand, is determined to win her over. He is constantly licking her face! Kali tolerates it, but so far, hasn't reciprocated any affection back to Chewie. But again, I'm just happy that they get along!
Now that the weather has warmed up, Chewie loves exploring our backyard. His favorite things to do are chasing a tennis ball and finding sticks. He also loves sitting on the swing with me and watching the birds.
As I mentioned earlier, Chewie has some issues that we're working on. Although he is potty-trained for the most part, he will occasionally poop or pee in the house. It's always in the same spot, so if we see him going over that way, we take him outside. He has also peed and pooped on our bed, so he's not allowed on there, so one of his favorite "games" is seeing how much he can test my patience by jumping up on the bed over....and over....and over....
I work from home and my desk is in the bedroom and so constantly keeping him from getting on the bed can be frustrating, but each day it gets better. Keeping him busy with toys helps a lot. I honestly feel like he misbehaves for attention, but I hope that with time he'll realize he gets plenty of attention without needing to misbehave. I quickly discovered that he acts up when I have zoom meetings, so now I kennel him during the meetings and it has worked out fine.
He can be destructive if he's unsupervised (shoes, paper, blankets, books, etc.) but we have plenty of dog toys, so we just try to keep diverting his attention to the dog toys. We also put him in his kennel if we can't keep a close eye on him and that works well. He doesn't seem to mind being in his kennel. He'll often go in there to take a nap, so it's good that we have that option.
In comparison to the first week we had him, Chewie is a completely different dog and although he can be a little stinker sometimes, I'm so happy that we rescued him. I think that he's pretty happy, too. His adorable little dance while standing on his two hind legs definitely demonstrates that!
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