Bailey’s been with us for 6 days. What a nice little dog she is! It’s a real pleasure to have her around the house. She has settled in nicely and her condition is rapidly improving.
A major milestone has been her transition to a normal diet. Dogs that have been starved have to be eased into eating normal amounts of food. The shelter staff started Bailey on a diet that would be very easy on her digestive system. She was eating a small meals of prescription dog food several times a day. We’ve transitioned her to regular puppy food, increased the amounts, and put her on a normal, two meals a day feeding schedule. She’s gained about 1.25 pounds since she’s been here. Her ribs are still easy to see, but her hips are not quite as prominent as they were last week. Getting her to a normal weight is going to be a long term project.
It never ceases to amaze me that dogs like Bailey, who have known only misery in their lives, are so incredibly resilient. She's very friendly and loves to snuggle. She's also quite playful. Yesterday she went found a tennis ball and played with it for a while. Today she was carrying a bone around the house.
With the increase in exercise comes other improvements. Her feet are getting stronger and her toes are starting to round over to a normal shape.
She's really good in the crate. Bailey knows her name and comes when she’s called. And she's a pretty quick learner. Harriett's got her sitting on cue.
The downsides are that she's not housebroken much, if at all. That's not a surprise, though. It’s unlikely that someone who didn’t feed her would have done any training. She will also do submissive urination if she gets scared, though much less now than on the first day. That, too, is normal for a young pup, and with patient training and positive experiences she’ll gain confidence and grow out of it.
She's a beautiful girl and, judging by these photos, looks a heck of a lot better than when she first came in. Glad to hear she's making so much progress!
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