Epic and Sophie update

Epic is settling in nicely here. There have been some potential adopters interested in her, but it ain't over til it's over. Actually, in Epic's case, she was already adopted and was given back to the rescue group just a few months later due to divorce! Hopefully the next time it will stick. She is a very endearing girl and deserves a good home.

We worked on leash manners today on our evening walk. Epic has a strong athletic build and is an enthusiastic puppy, and because of this she pulls sometimes. We played the game where I went abruptly in the opposite direction when she pulled at the end of the leash, and she caught on pretty quick. She likes to please. We'll keep working on reinforcing nice leash manners; she's just so excited by so many things at her age that she forgets herself (and the person dangling at the other end of the leash, ha ha). Her pulling is not that bad, but we'll aim to make her the perfect walker just the same.

Here's some Epic trivia: whenever she lies down, both of her back legs splay out to the sides and behind her, like a frog, instead of being tucked underneath her, like a dog. I'll try to get a picture, but whenever you look at her, she gets up to wag her tail at you! Hard to take a picture without looking, but we'll try...

At the opposite end of the social spectrum is...you guessed it, Sophie! The person who got her off the streets was over for a visit late last week and showed us a few techniques for soothing and social cat body language. We've been continuing to spend a little time with her each evening, and now with our expanded kitty 'vocabulary' we are able to put her more at ease. She will sometimes eat treats right in front of us, and she's calm enough to look out the window while we're standing next to her. She consistently lets us touch her whiskers - we get a hiss every now and again, but as our cat expert said, that's just nerves. We also have a strategy for the hissing - we move closer. This avoids positively reinforcing the hissing behaviour. If we backed away every time she showed us she was scared, she'd keep doing it and we'd make very little progress.