Claude's Progress

This weekend it will be 7 months since Claude moved in. There have been lots of issues, but overall he is a healthier, more confident and more relaxed dog. Leaving the living room (apart from going out the back way to the garden or for his walks) has remained a problem for him. He clearly had conflicts, and without making them worse we tried to show him it was okay to step over the threshold into the hall.

Yesterday Bonnie came home and found him relaxing on a rug in the hall. It's hard to believe it's taken him 7 months to take the chance. I think he knows now that he is not likely to get into trouble for passing doorways. We feel the Little Man is making progress, and learning to trust us.

This evening he was more than usually playful in the park. He ran, he came to me to be scratched, he greeted his friends. The timid, thin, shy, dog that moved in with us seemed to be a totally different animal to confident playful Claude.

So we came home and I went to my computer to attend to some stuff. When I came down, Claude was nowhere to be seen: not on his mat, not lying in his favourite spot, and not in the hall. It took me a moment or two to spot him.

Having not shown the least interest in the last 7 months, Claude was dozing on the sofa. He has finally, we think, decided that he's at home, and may as well enjoy all the benefits. We fussed him, so he knows he's not in trouble, then we suggested he'd probably be better somewhere else, as we needed the sofa, and he went. I paraphrase - that was the outcome, though some cross words were spoken by both sides in the process. The point we want to get to is that he feels free to use the sofa - the cover was made for Laddie after all - but that he knows he has to give it up if we want it.

He's rather a handsome dog these days, and since today, also for the first time, he licked my ear, I guess we may be friends one day after all.