When I brought Magnus home, Maizey was somewhat less than thrilled. I thought she may have a hard time adjusting to this big of a change, but she has really done awesome.
"You're right Crazymomlady, this little guy isn't so bad!""
At first she really didn’t know what to do with this little ball of fluff that was dying to play with her. Basically she spent the first two days running from him. She never reactively barked or lunged at him, but she certainly didn’t want him getting close to her.
But today I am happy to say they are playing nicely. They played tug for the first time yesterday, and today she deigned to be in the same picture with him!
You can see even in the pictures that she still isn’t her normal perky self when she is right next to him, but I am leaving the choices up to her how much interaction they have she is starting to accept him and even initiate play.
And now at the end of the day they are both sleeping at the end of the bed, the very picture of peace.
I am so proud of my little girl. Even though it is a source of stress for her, it’s good because she is learning to manage nervousness in a way she never had the opportunity to before. Since he isn’t a threat to her and he also isn’t going away we have a chance to work together on building calm confidence in a lot of new ways.
And it really is paying off, it makes me so happy to see her enjoying him. I know I have to be careful that he doesn’t catch her reactivity, that he doesn’t cause so much stress that she is further traumatized, and that they build a happy friendship. But so far I just couldn’t be happier with how things are coming along.
So you can see for yourselves, this is a short clip of the progress we have seen. You will notice in the “EEEW. . puppies are gross” clip that Maizey was feeling quite stressed, but I love the very last shot of her. It’s as if she is saying, “See crazymomlady? I played with him, and it was fun! Aren’t you proud of me?”
And I am, so very proud of my little princessface!
