Good Dog

     We've now had Ada the Dog for three months. Overall, I can say we are very happy that she is around, but it has been a bit more difficult than we expected.
     The shelter was quite careful to match us up with an appropriate dog, given our situation: we're first-time dog owners, we have a cat, kids play in the yard, and we're not at home for 10 hours at a time. They suggested a medium-sized, mellow, kid- and cat-tolerant dog, and then recommended Ada. She tested well around kids and cats, and didn't bark much. After a few days at home, though, she relaxed a bit and a lot of not-so-great features emerged. She tracked our cat (a very bad sign, as that precedes an attack), lunged after squirrels, other dogs, and cats, and she snapped at a person in the yard. Andrew and I were seriously freaked out. We discussed taking her back, because we were adamant that we did not want to risk the safety of our cat or the children that play in our yard (because, um, it's their yard too).
     We decided to find someone who could help us figure out if the situation could be saved. Luckily, one of my bosses recommended a terrific trainer, who previously trained killer whales at the Seaquarium. (If you're in the Miami area, I can give no higher recommendation to the trainer at Completely Canine.) We had private lessons to learn how to curb her aggression behaviors, and to improve her obedience. She then graduated to group classes. It only took a few weeks before the aggressive behavior diminished. The focus now is on socializing her (getting her used to groups of people and dogs) and improving her self-confidence. It sounds silly, but we spend a lot of time doing things that help our dog learn that she is a Good Dog. We take trips to a pedestrian mall, where she can practice walking through crowds, we take her to an outdoor cafe so she can practice sitting at our feet, and we practice sitting and laying down, all so she can have a good experience and find out how great she is and how much fun it is to obey (where fun equals dried duck jerky).
     There are still a few challenges ahead. It turns out that she is afraid of rain and thunder. This is a huge problem - in Miami, during the rainy season, it rains every single day. When it rains at night and she's in her crate, she barks like crazy. There's no place in our apartment we could put her and not hear the din. After a week of 3 am wakings, we were desperate. (I mean, if I wanted to wake up nightly to unbearable noise, I would have had a baby.) For a while, we've quit crateing her at night, and we're slowly desensitizing her to thunder. I've spend days at home with her, listening to loud recordings of thunder and rain, while she wears her wrap shirt and chews on a treat.
     The trainer also highly recommended swimming. (Good Dogs know how to swim, apparently.) Andrew took her to the dog beach this week, and she enjoyed swimming. But she also took the opportunity to twist out of her harness, and ran back and forth across the nearby expressway. Andrew chased her across the six lanes of traffic for a while, and eventually averted tragedy. Ada was no worse for the wear, but it took a couple of beers before Andrew calmed down.
     All in all, I'm glad we got her. She clearly had a rough life before she got to us, as she was picked up on the street and has some scars. But she's a good learner, and is trying her best to be a Good Dog.