August 16, 2003
Grace is named because when we first got her she was constantly tripping over and spilling her food and water bowls and falling over everything else. She had no grace so we named her that. Spiral on the otherhand spins, all the time. We were told, she was kept in a small cage with seven other Italian Greyhounds and she learned to circle the cage. She does this all the time, even when walking on a leash in the backyard. Our vet said that this is normal behavior for dogs that are constantly kenneled and have no space to move about. She will probably never grow out of this trait and will always circle to the left.
Both girls were rescued from puppy mills. They seem to have been abused because sometimes they can be pretty shy of us, especially Scott. We have been relativly sucessful at housebreaking and crate training. Spiral is pretty sucessful at staying in the crate and holding it until we take her ouside at designated times to "potty". Grace, on the otherhand sometimes seems like she is not trying at all and goes to the bathroom in the house or her kennel right after coming in from outside. Most of the time she will go and has only had a few accidents. It is hard to teach older, abused dogs new tricks. Our biggest problem has been to teach them to tell us when they want to go out. We tried the ringing the bell trick, but they didn't seem to go for it. We will keep trying. Hopefully they will pick it up soon.
Grace has a cute thing that she does now. When I am laying on the couch, watching TV, she will jump up and lay down behind me and snuggle up. It is really cute. :-) She also knows how to "give me five." She can hit the mark most times...Spiral is getting better about being petted. I think she has come to understand that we aren't going to hurt her. She has started getting really excited over treats, which is so cute to watch.