Lizzy moved to my house in Ham Lake because her previous foster had to get their house ready to sell.

Since she came from a commercial breeder, Lizzy was fearful of a lot of things because almost everything is new for her. Her first foster family did an amazing job with her! The doorway no longer scares her and having a fenced in yard has helped her confidence. Now she will walk the fence around the yard checking under pine trees and following the bunny scent, hoping to find it.

When Lizzy meets a new dog, she needs a slow introduction. Maybe because there is more than one dog here, she might have felt outnumbered. Her initial reaction was to growl to let others know that she isn’t comfortable, which is good. My dogs, who are all former breeder dogs, listened to her and moved away. They waited until she approached them to meet.

Lizzy is still afraid of sudden movements or things falling. I dropped a piece of paper and she scurried into the living room! Another time I was standing near where she was eating and I scared her when I turned to pick up another dog’s dish. In time she will get used to these things.

Since day one, Lizzy has always followed me everywhere, except the bathroom. She wants to be near her humans. She picked her safe spot as the end of the couch lying next to me. At night she follows me to the bedroom. When I tap on the bed, she doesn’t think twice about jumping onto the bed.

This former breeder mama is the sweetest dog who just wants to please! Since day one, she hasn’t had any accidents in the house. She has a strong bladder and can wait for many hours before having to go out. For a while, she wouldn’t follow my dogs to go out, I had to call her to go out.

Her first foster mom said she didn’t counter surf. She never did here either until 2 weeks ago. One morning when I got up my dish cloth was gone from the kitchen sink. I suspected it was my dog who took it because a corner from it was lying next to the crate.

That afternoon Lizzy threw up what was left of her breakfast. Two hours later she threw up the whole dish cloth—I was so happy to see that! So now I can’t keep any towels or wash cloths where dogs can get them. Lizzy also likes to chew on soft toys and will eat ears or feet from them so I can’t have them out unless I can watch them.

Lizzy’s only quirk is she likes to eat mulch. I don’t buy colored mulch or rubber mulch, but I don’t want her to pierce her intestines either. I just have to distract her from the mulch and get her into the yard, but she tries to pick up one more piece to bring into the house.

Lizzy doesn’t play with other dogs yet, but did play bow to my dog yesterday. Then she didn’t know what to do. She takes carprofen twice a day for her mild osteoarthritis in her elbows and that seems to help.

Lizzy did great during the fireworks. All she did was lift her head as if to say “What was that?” and laid back down. The first few weeks that Lizzy was here, she got nervous when I walked out the door, even to get the mail.

Every day after that, I went outside for a few minutes and built the time up to 15 minutes, then 30 minutes. I could hear Lizzy barking for about 10 minutes, but then she would either watch out the window or lay on the couch. Now she knows that I always come back. She has free roam of the house because she really doesn’t like a crate.