Nadine had very quickly learned that humans were being nice to her. That may have been a new experience, after the puppy mill and shelters, so she was milking it. She would soon follow her people from room to room, just to keep an eye on her pack. She was a momma dog and likely had countless litters of puppies, so she was well-versed in the job she was supposed to do. She was visibly distracted when my mom and dad weren't in the same room with her. For the three weeks she was with my parents, she learned to control them as best as her 10 pounds could. She would pace between the rooms where they were and then walk to the blanket she had co-opted in the sun room, lay down, and wait for them to come sit in the room with her. My mom used that room as her early morning coffee break/crossword puzzle place, so Nadie decided that was where everyone should be, all the time. If you weren't there, she was going to stalk you until you moved.
As I mentioned, during the few days with me, she was settling in and getting over a cold, so she was very lethargic and uninterested in toys, attention, or even food. That was beginning to change after her first week as a pet. At this point, she really wasn't much of what you would describe as a pet. There were no pet-like behaviors. No kisses. No excitement when I came home. No playing. No barking, no whining, no crying. Nothing that told me she was happy. Except... that tail was popping up more often, especially when she heard the word "outside" or "walkies" as my mom relabeled it much to my embarrassment. It was even starting to wag ever-so-slightly.
Although she was not pet-like in the traditional manner, she did need to be by her people. She had quickly replaced her sisters with us humans and wasn't about to lose this family too. Nadine separation anxiety was made uncomfortably clear for my mom on Nadine's first night there. I live in a small, one-bedroom condo; my parents live in a large, two-floor house. Big difference between the two for Nadine, who came from life in a cage.
My mom had made the half-bathroom off the kitchen into Nadine's room. My parents' bedroom is on the other end of the house far out of smelling distance from the bathroom. Just after falling asleep, my mom woke up to a dog yipping. She immediately assumed it was a dog outside, since we had never heard Nadine bark before and had begun to think she simply wasn't a barker. Slowly it hit that, like a bad horror film, the sound was coming from inside the house. She walked toward the bathroom from which a small, squeaky, and slightly raspy bark was emanating. On getting within the smell zone, the barking stopped. Walking away, it started up again. Nothing doing, Nadine needed her people near her. At my house, she was in my bathroom right next to my bedroom with the door open but boxes to contain her so she was able to hear and smell me. Not so at my parents.
In retrospect, it would have been better to let her bark until she stopped and fell asleep, but Nadine is a really tough one to resist. My mom didn't. She slept on the kitchen floor that night, while Nadine was quiet as a mouse.
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