A friend for Honey (temp)

So my moms going away for a week and I'll be taking her 3 year old Bichon during the time. Hopefully this will be a good test to see how Honey (and us) would deal with a second dog.

I've gone back and forth on the issue a lot. I'd love her to have company, but I'm not sure I want the attention that another dog would demand taken away from her. She's pretty possessive when it comes to other animals snuggling me.
She chases away the cats half the time, and she tends to get worried when another animal tries to lie on her favorite spots.

Plus there's the concern about not being able to take two dogs with me everywhere as easily as I can take Honey. I've run across a few rescues who the description says are home dogs (I'm mainly looking at Border Collies) and don't like traveling new places, and that seems like a neat solution to that problem, gives both dogs a chance to have some alone time too.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this week, Bailey is an adorable puppy, and Honey and her just go wild when they're together, huge grins everywhere tons of play! And I'll get a chance to work on training when there are distractions. My goal is to send Bailey home with at least one new trick.

 

We had a rough start to this adventure!!

We dropped Honey off at my mom's so we could run and get some gardening supplies before bringing them both to our house. When we got back we found out my brother had let them outside and the side gate got unlocked. They ran around before being spotted by a neighbor, who tried to get them to come to her. Honey of course bolted at that, Bailey ran home and my brother didn't notice that Honey never came in.

Took about thirty to forty minutes of calling and walking before she ran to me. She was three streets over, and by that point my calls were closer to sobs. I was so releaved to see her!!!! I never want to let her out of my sight again. She was going crazy at finally finding me! Oh god, it was terrifying!

So soso happy to have her safe and home.

 

I don't think I've had a dog run away, where I didn't see them bolt and know where to follow since I was five. I admit it started feeling hopeless as I turned onto that third street! All I could picture is walking in the woods with her, and how she trots up to me everytime I whistle. I don't think I've ever shouted so loud in my life.

(I admit I was shocked by how few people even looked at me, if I heard that I would be exiting my house getting all the information I could so that I could keep an eye out)

Thank goodness for the one neighbor who did see her and could give me a general direction to concentrate on. My husband and my brother were driving around, but given how skittish Shelties are, I did not expect them to have much luck spotting her.

And she was so quiet! Anytime she's outside she's barking at other dogs, squirrels, cats, I kept passing houses with these things and hearing nothing! It had me panicking. With how reactive Honey is to cars, my heart clenched every time I looked towards the main street. I was so worried she got on it, panicked and something horrible had happened!

I had to spend all night forcing myself not to over cuddle her! She likes being by us, but usually not touching. She did take me over to the park on our walk when we got home though, and sat on my lap for about fifteen minutes while we gently swung on the swings.

By the time half the night was past, she was passed out in her box, so exhausted from her adventures.

 

I started thinking about it this morning, and I want to try to find someplace that prints on fabric, so I can get her name and my phone number printed up a bunch of times and cut them into bandanna's. Honey won't let anyone close and at least this way people have half a chance of seeing the number or her name and being able to get in touch with me.

She's microchipped and she has a dog tag on her collar, but neither of those do any good if you can't catch the dog!