Day 24: Dogs are weird!

Day 24:  Two whole days without internet means no updating!!!

So, my opinion that dogs are weird has been re-affirmed.  Kipling has decided over the last two days that coming in the back door is scary.  So, now we have to play this game where he stands in the doorway, but won't come in until I'm not looking.  If I turn around too soon, he runs back outside.  It took me an hour to get him to come inside the other night.  I finally had to hide in my room, wait until he was firmly in the living room, and then vault the sofa to get to the back door and shut it before he could bolt back out.  Not sure what's going on in that little doggie brain of his.  Pippa has suddenly decided that "outside" means "crate" and so whenever I make her move from her corner, she throws herself in her crate.  I now have to shut all crate doors to get her outside.  The last weirdness for these two - they won't walk over a towel on the ground.  They have no issues with throw rugs, but apparently the towel in front of their crate is scary.  Kipling and Pippa keep sliding in to their crates because they scurry around so much, and I was starting to worry that they'd hurt themselves.  Kip has bad hips and a bad knee.  Pippa is just such a round little thing.  So - I put a towel on the ground in front of their crates.  Pippa was desperate enough to go in her crate that she finally ran over it.  Kipling, I had to lead to his crate by his collar.

On the plus side, Pippa continues to respond more and more to me.  She's continuing to look at me whenever I say her name or talk to her.  She's continuing to come find me if she hasn't seen me in a while.  Kipling is getting braver too.  He actually came up and licked my toes while I was sitting on the couch last night.  He also kind of asked to be petted the other night.  Charm was standing in front of me, getting petted, and Kipling came up next to her.  I slowly reached out and started scratching under his chin.  He relaxed in to me as I kept petting his chin and chest.  I stopped and moved my hand away just a bit, and he moved forward and touched his chin to my hand again.  We did this about 3 times before he decided it was scary and ran off.

So, it's still slow progress, and yes, dogs are weird!