So now we are officially a two dog household!! How did that happen so quickly!!

We have officially adopted a lovely rescue dog called Nellie, I’m not completely one hundred percent on the name yet. My reasons for our reservations are because she was named that by the dog warden and only had the name for about a week while she was in the dog pound/kennels, then she was fostered for a couple of weeks and they called her a different name, then she was taken by a rescue and called Nellie again for another week. Poor thing has had quite a lot of upheaval in the last month or so. It’s such a major decision and I want to do what is right for her so I’m not sure if it is best to keep her as Nellie as at least it’s something slightly familiar to her, or should we give her a complete new start, new home, new life and new name. Well I am just not sure what is best so if you can offer me any advice, please do.

Now a little bit about Nellie, she is a springer spaniel and they think she is possibly about nine months old. She is very pretty and pretty skinny at the moment and what a little cutie!! Considering we have only had her for about three hours, she is now asleep in Duke’s bed and seems quite content. I want her to feel loved, wanted and happy. I’m not sure what her life was like for the first eight months of her life, but knowing a little about her background I think she maybe wouldn’t have had many home comforts and may not have been played with too much. We have had to get a puzzle bowl for her because she would guzzle her food too quick. She went a bit berserk when we fed her earlier and was chasing the food round and round the bowl. I think it was a good idea we got the special bowl actually because she would have consumed that food in about a minute otherwise and would have made herself sick.

She certainly is a real livewire! She follows me round and Duke round and anyone else in the house! We bought her a really nice snuggly bed and she has decided she prefers Duke’s bed and then he decided to go in hers so we shall see how that pans out!

I think she will need quite a bit of training and actually I would quite like to take her to puppy training lessons because it’s better to get a bit of guidance. All in all, I am sure that we have made the right decision, although at the moment it doesn’t really feel like she is our dog, does that make sense? It is going to be a massive period of readjustment -for her, for Duke and for all of us. I will update in the morning and let you know how the first night goes.

OK so the first night was actually pretty good considering it’s another new home and another new set of people! As she has been used to being with other dogs and also because her and Duke seem to have accepted each other, we made the decision to shut them in the kitchen together overnight. We didn’t really want to get a crate for her as we didn’t do this for Duke and we have a relatively big kitchen that is ‘dog proof’ as in there is nothing that she can chew that will harm her. We put both dog beds in the kitchen and tried our best to settle them. Initially she seemed to settle but then after about fifteen minutes or so she started barking and pawing at the kitchen door – causing quite a racket. We stood our ground hoping she would settle (we obviously would have gone to her if she had sounded distressed) and thankfully she quietened down and we didn’t her a peep out of her all night!! We got up about 6 o’clock – please note this was a DAY OFF WORK – and got greeted by two waggy dogs and nothing on the floor that shouldn’t be there, if you know what I mean!!

So I have optimism that things are all going to be ok.