This post may become a regular feature, as it seems like we’re learning new things about our shy girl every day.
You done with that camera yet?
Here are a few things we’ve learned about Pyrrha this past week:
- The girl is great at chasing moths! She enjoys this nighttime activity immensely. And she’s pretty successful at catching them, too.
- She may not have a great memory with house guests? She was immediately fond of our friend Ann-Marie who was staying with us this past weekend (a bit leery of Ann-Marie’s husband, Shaun, but warmed up). But the next morning, when Ann-Marie walked out of the bedroom, Pyrrha growled at her. This, obviously, was concerning. We were all pretty shocked and I corrected her with a sharp “no.” Ann-Marie, who is good with dogs, walked slowly up to her and let Pyrrha smell her, and then she was fine with Ann-Marie for the rest of the day. My only guess is that she was possibly scared by Ann-Marie’s big, baggy pajama pants, which made a lot of movement? It still seems strange, though. Definitely something to watch and be aware of.
- Pyrrha loves running in crazed circles by herself in the yard. She doesn’t do this terribly often, but sometimes, when the moon is full or whatever, we’ll look out the window and she’s just tearing around the yard in circles. Then she’ll suddenly stop and look around, as if she had surprised herself. The lady clearly needs more exercise than she lets on.
- She is really excellent company while dining out. For all of her anxieties about social interactions, she is so calm and comfortable–for whatever reason!–dining out with us. We took her to her third restaurant this weekend, and she was great. More on that later.
- She’s grown very confident on our neighborhood walks. For the first few weeks, she wanted to go on walks with me, but she was slinking around most of the time, startled by most novel sounds, and keeping her tail and ears low or tucked. Now, she knows what’s going to happen when I say, “You wanna go on a WALK?” and she runs up to the front door and sits patiently (as she’s learned) for me to leash her. She is not as nervous and even seems more confident when we walk down entirely new streets.
- We’ve found her very high-value reward: Liver jerky. (At least, I think that’s what it is.) Our sweet neighbor Pat, who has four dogs of her own and also fosters adoptable dogs, gave us some liver to share with Pyrrha and, wow, she goes crazy for it. We’ve decided that it’s going to only come from Guion, since it’s a really great way for her to associate him with GREAT things. She follows him around the house for a good while after he gives her a bit. It’s very cute. And, yes, it might be bribery, but it’s working.
- She’s decided that she likes digging. This is kind of a bummer, since we have lots of pretty plants in our backyard. I caught her last night digging up one of our pepper plants. Since I caught her in the act, I could give her a quick verbal reprimand–which quickly stopped the digging–but we’ve found numerous little holes all around the yard since.
More to come, I am sure!
