I know it's been a while since our last update. I have been busy working with Lily and trying out some new things to see if they would help her at all. There has been some progress, so that is a good sign.

I had a discussion with the vet, and we decided to start Lily on a low dose of Prozac to see if it would help with her anxiety with noises and new things around the house. It seems to be helping, although I am thinking we might need to increase that a little bit.

Lily is not quite as jumpy with noises and seems a little more relaxed, but she still runs to her safe places with even small amounts of noise. The vacuum continues to be an issue since that is quite loud for, her but we are working on that also.

Lily also had a visit with an orthopedic vet to see if the limping on her right back leg was due to her hips, knees, or some other structural problems. The vet did not find anything that stood out on her X-rays and she also didn't feel Lily was in much pain due to her right back foot having only one toe.

I am going to see if I can come up with some sort of a boot for that foot just to give her some extra cushion since the one toe and the middle pad have to support her.

We had our adult kids over for a get-together a couple of weekends ago, and Lily did bark quite a bit even though she had met all of them at separate times. We finally put her in a bedroom so she had a quiet, safe place where she could calm down.

Even though there has been progress with just me and my husband in our house, Lily seems to get overwhelmed when several people come over at once. Lily has met new people on our walks and while hesitant, she does OK when we are outside. With some of those people, she actually walked up to them for pets.

I did have a couple of exciting moments with Lily when we were out in the yard. Lily was laying in the sun while I was doing yard work, and when I walked up to her, she actually rolled over and wanted belly rubs. Such a great development that she was comfortable enough to do that. First-time belly rubs were pretty special.

Lily is also taking treats from my hand now. Before, we had to put them down close to where she was laying, and then she would pick it up and eat it. If she is out of the crate, she generally takes the treat into the crate to eat it, but recently she stayed out of the crate to enjoy her treat. Yay!

While it seems that Lily is making very slow progress, I am very happy that even baby steps are achieved. Lily is a sweet girl and just needs extra time and patience to learn to trust people and that things out in the world are not so scary. We will continue to look for ways to help her come out of her shell and give her all the love she needs while we do that.