Another Faith update

This will be another dump of pictures of Faith. Most of them I took on the 3DS so the quality probably will be lesser.

Faith carrying her toy tire

In our bathroom near mom's legs

 Faith had a bit of a "traumatic" experience some time back when I took her for a walk. Behind our house is a huge dead end holding 3 cul de sacs. We can't simply go behind our house because our neighbors put a fence to separate our lawns, so we would need to go around to get to it. I figured that would be a good place for her to walk. In fact, she has been taken there quite a few times, so this wouldn't really be new to her. We have to pass an active road to get to the only entrance, however, but it's not like we would be crossing it or anything.

On our stairs.

 On the way to the Cul de Sac area, a truck decided to honk its horn as it passed by us. This freaked out Faith, and had her trying to run away on her leash. I grabbed her and just carried her for a bit till she calmed down. She was all right after awhile, but still remained very cautious as we entered the triple cul de sac area.

Tackling her red ball thing

There really isn't any traffic there, being a dead end and all. She seemed very rushed to get out of there though, probably because she heard a large dog bark. After our trip we headed back to our house, on the same road that the truck had honked at her. Faith was pretty upbeat, however. Then a bus drove by, air rushing past and being noisy in general. This had her freak the crap out, desperately pulling me, trying to get away in any way she could. I picked her up and she was shaking.

I held her till we got onto our street. When I put her down, she was either rushing to get home, or stopping, not wanting to move. It was as if she was in a panic, unsure whether staying still was safer, or rushing home for the familiar. When we finally got back, I tried bringing her in our backyard in case she needed to use the bathroom still (she typically holds it on walks). She peed shortly then ran over to me, in between my legs, frightened. 

When she got into the house, she ran up to dad and curled up to him scared. Told my family what happened as for why she was acting that way. Over the next few days, she would cower whenever she heard a loud car drive by, even when she was inside! We had a hard time taking her out to do her business, we believed she was holding it in to delay it.

She really loves sticks.

Walks were out of the question, almost. Mom, Sis, and Sierra all tried to take her for a walk, but as soon as she heard a car drive by, she would cry and try to pull back home. In some ways, her not wanting to be outside as much was a relief; she would often make us go out with her for hours. Leaving her out alone would have her scratching the door or barking at us. With her not wanting to go outside, she would instead insist playing inside or just cuddling up with us. After some time, she would get over this fear, but even today, she gets nervous when a truck, bus, or any loud vehicle drives by.

In other news, another of our neighbors got a puppy. Faith no longer is the youngest in the neighborhood, and she seems to love him too! His name is Moe, a mix of basset hound and what we suspect to be dachshund. With the addition of Moe, Faith is now surrounded by Male dogs; Our other next door neighbor has a beagle named Freckles (seen below), and our neighbor in back has a large dog (don't recall the race...) named Yoshi. We've mused a big puppy party with the neighbors but a few problems come up with that. Freckles isn't neutered (and seems unlikely to be) and we don't want him humping her, so unless he gets fixed, they will only play with each other between the fence.

Faith and Freckles sniffing each other.

 Yoshi is behind a wooden fence (seen below) so is very hard to even play with him behind that fence. Yoshi is a very large dog too, mom is nervous with the idea of them playing until she gets full-sized. Our neighbor mused in the past about making a gate so they can visit each other, but we doubt that's in the cards just yet. We're going to wait to see how big she gets before seriously considering that idea.

Chilling against the fence.

 As for Faith playing with Moe... she has a good chance to play with him. He's just a little smaller than her now, friendly like her, and they both seem to like each other when nose-to-nose. Mom wanted to delay them playing together until Moe was more settled into his home, wanting to make sure Moe knows that is his house so Faith doesn't try to play a dominance maneuver or something. Not that we know she would but better to be safe than sorry. He's pretty settled in now, but we haven't set a playdate yet.

Faith ignoring Freckles. Totally a "FOREVER ALONE" joke.

 A problem we've been having with Faith is her digging holes. Both Freckles and Yoshi keep digging under the fences trying to get to her, and Faith tries to imitate them. We can't scold Freckles or Yoshi, but have to keep scolding Faith; her digging not only gets her dirty, but she might slip into the other lawns or hurt herself/have them hurt themselves. The fence separating her from Freckles is a rusty old gardening fence.

Now when we first got Faith, Freckles had broken into our yard a few times by getting under the fence, thus why so many bricks and poles are put against it. He was actually respectful to her at that time, according to my dad. Probably because he realized she was just a baby then. If he were to break in now, there's no doubt in my mind he'd try to hump her. Besides that though, under the fence is kind of sharp, and would hate for either Freckles or Faith to get hurt.

 As for Yoshi's side, well... We can't easily get over there if she were to escape in back.

Lol, you can see my shadow with the 3DS.

 She's managing to go up and down our basement stairs. At first she would just cry at the top of the stairs whenever someone went down. Surprised mom one day by following her downstairs (she nearly dropped the laundry basket). For awhile, Faith could go downstairs only, but cried for someone to take her up. Now she can do both with relative ease, though sometimes gets too nervous to go back up them. Seems if she doesn't think about it, she can do it.
 

Sleeping in the living room

 Lately, she hasn't been eating as much as she should. Barely eating one meal a day for some reason. We tried many different methods to get her to eat, such as adding some table food she likes. Hell, mom cooks egg whites for her sometimes just to get her to eat more, but even then she won't always eat. As a result, she has less energy and sleeps a lot more. We're a little worried, but it;s not like she's completely starving herself. We plan to take her to the vet if it continues any longer. She DID get some vaccinations, but it was a week ago.

Sleeping on my dirty clothes.

Sleeping with her toy slipper.

 Faith has also gotten a lot more lovey-dovey. Instead of being as playful, she just will want to curl up next to you, or give you a bath.  We think this is related to her not wanting to eat as much too; perhaps the teething pain makes her wanting to eat less. She has lost quite a bit of teeth, two I apparently helped her lose along the way when playing with her.

 It's actually a funny story. When Faith was a bit more bitey, we decided to play with her with gloves so that she could chew on our hands without hurting us. She was able to learn whether she could bite us or not with those gloves. Mom started it, but I made more games with them that Faith liked.

Some glove play

 While playing with her, she bit down on the gloves a little hard and out popped a tooth. Surprised me a lot. I mean, yeah I know they lose their baby teeth, but with my old dog, I never saw his teeth drop out; I always assumed when dogs lose them, they end up swallowing them. This happened with dad as well, though I don't know if he was playing with her with the gloves, but he managed to get another tooth of hers. Mom started putting them in a baggy to show people, possibly save them for a bit too for some reason heh...

Rewind back to Thanksgiving, when we only had her for less than a month.

Another time I played gloves with her, I ended up loosening another tooth for her, but it got stuck some. She ended up biting on it a little, making a noise that made me queasy (and mom freak out) before she finally got it out herself. I think she almost lost all of her baby teeth now; she has a bare spot in her gums where the adult teeth are slowly growing. I'm kind of hoping thatmaybe THAT is why she lost her appetite lately.

"Why can't I carry all these toys?"

"I has stick"

 Hoping she gets out of whatever funk she is in. I imagine with whatever anxiety she has coupled with the teething and truck incident has her stressed out more than normal puppies. We're dreading when we have her spayed; can't imagine with her separation anxiety how she's going to act. And after the surgery, she might not want to eat at all!

Laying there, looking pretty.

 

Weird pose of hers.

 I'll try to get a picture of Moe and her together when they finally get to play, and will update when anything else of significance (big or small) happens. Until next time...