Home Alone

After two weeks of wandering and cycling in Spain, I came home and drove up to Michigan to pick up Nadine. Would she remember me? Would she be wary of me and prefer staying near my mom with whom she undoubtedly bonded with much more over three weeks than she did with me in three days? How would her habits now be, after all this time freed from that puppy mill life? She was sick when I first got her and so timid; I wondered if those behaviors would have changed.

My mom had not managed to perfectly housebreak the Nadester, but in nearly every other way, she was a different dog. She was slow to do her business outside (still is, unless she smells an invader dog - which in my neighborhood is every single tree, bush, fence, piece of garbage...), but would bullet around the dining room table upon coming back inside. Each time she got a treat, she would snatch it from your fingers and tear off like a dress on prom night. Whether she was afraid someone else might take it from her or she was just so happy to have a treat, it was hilarious to watch her nab and run.

Her tail was one of the most obvious changes. No longer tucked between her legs or hanging lifelessly to the floor, Nadine's curlicue tail stood straight up, with the end twirled over and poofball of fur resting on her back like a 50s starlet's mink stole. Glamorous Nadine was most definitely a happy dog. As I previously mentioned, that tail is her barometer - up means she is content with the current situation; wagging is VERY happy and usually indicates a treat is in her mouth or she is antagonizing a dog considerably larger than her; hanging down is uncertainty likely caused by a nail clipper in my hands or I am saying "crate" when she doesn't feel like doing "crate"; and tail tucked under means it's thunderstorming either outside or on the telly. She really can give you the weather report!

Much to my relief, Nadie did remember me. Her reaction wasn't what it is today when I get home (a writhing, wiggling mass of fur, running circles around me in between jumping on my lap and licking my arm with her freakishly long giraffe tongue), but at least she wasn't scared of me. She also knew I was someone from her pack and that I needed watching. For the rest of the weekend, she followed me or my mom around that house, like the momma dog she is.

While my mom and I were making a lot of mistakes in Nadine's training, we had at least learned that a crate was Nadie's happy place. Yet for some anthropomorphic reason, I wanted to give Nadine a little more freedon when we were gone for more than a few hours. Ignoring the crate experience my mom had so far, we tried keeping her in the bathroom with the gate one afternoon while we ran errands (read: bought more dog crap). On coming home, Miss Nadie came barreling at us, no longer in the bathroom, with tail wagging and a sense of pride in a job well-done. She had freedom, alright, just a whole lot more than we expected. Further investigation showed that she had managed to push, rip, and tear the metal fencing of the gate and wiggle her little 10 pounds through a hole she MacGyvered. Where she found the duct tape may always be a mystery...

Our Little Houdini had done it again...whether it was the fabric travel crate or a metal gate, this dog was not going to be contained in anything smaller or larger than her lovely, plastic, 1x2 foot box. And good thing too, as it was time to hit the road back to Chicago and I was hoping I would have a better experience in the car then my parents. We knew she was ok in the car, as long as she wasn't in that travel crate. She rode on the floor of the car all the way to Canada during her stay with my parents, so the car was no longer scary. I just hoped she could travel in her new plastic crate the three hours to Chicago with me. I wasn't about to risk having her loose on the floor - she had to be in a crate - but would she flip out and try to claw her way of that too once we hit 70mph?