She's been here now for 8.5 hrs and is doing well. She is already getting used to happily settling alone for upto 30 minutes at a time without any fuss.
She's just being allowed to chill out and 'de-stress' after so long in kennels and after such a long journey from Wales to Kent.
The next few days will be critical to help her to unlearn behaviour patterns from her kennel life and learn new, calmer ones such as how to relax when she's alone, how to be calm around new people, around food and other dogs etc.
Basic, bottom-line stuff we are working on in these next 48 hours:
1. Not getting stressed when alone.
2. Learning that she doesn't have to be anxious around food.
3. Learning that she gets attention when she toilets outside, when she sits instead of jumps up, when she lies down calmly etc. Basically marking any desirable behaviour we want to keep with a smile and a pat and ignoring any inappropriate stuff. This is not the time to start using rattle bottles, spray collars or rolled up newspapers!
I'll update regularly so that you can follow her progress and learn how I get new dogs settled in and deal with any problems that crop up!
