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Mercy |
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Saturday, September 25, 2004
This morning Anastasia and I went to Atlanta and didn�t get back to home six hours later. I left Mercy in the crate (not in the bedroom) because I didn�t want her to urinate on the carpet since we were gone for so long. When I played back the audio tape when we came back, I heard Mercy howling for five minutes somewhere in the middle of first hour, but she stopped herself after five minutes, so it was okay. I�ve been leaving the crate in the bedroom at all times, and Mercy seems to be okay with it.
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I got Mercy some more pig ears, and she likes them very much. But I�m still only giving her two Greenie/pig ear per week, and that seems to satisfy her chewing urges. Mercy is doing very well in her basic obedience training while inside the apartment. She does �Sit� and �Stay� very well just on voice command (but she does know the hand signal for �Stay�), but with �Stand� and �Down�, I still have to use voice command/hand signal combination, but she does them 90 percent of the time when I use the combination command (maybe 60 percent of the time when I just use voice). Also she has no problem �Stay� indoors even when I�m out of sight for 10 seconds (haven�t tried longer time yet). When outside, her �Stay� is very good, but I still have to put a little pressure on her back end to make her �Sit�, but once she sits, her �Down� outside is very good. And of course she has no problem �Stand� outside. There are more distractions when outside, but I don�t think she would do her commands when there�s squirrel, birds, or other dogs around yet. I also taught Mercy to do the tunnel tonight. I just kept putting treats further and further into the tunnel for her to go inside without being afraid, just like I did with Penelope. She still doesn�t like to do it without treats yet, but I�m sure she�ll like �Tunnel� as much as she likes �Walk� in about a week. |
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Mercy and Anastasia are doing pretty well together. Tonight Anastasia grabbed Mercy�s tail and bit it repeatedly. For the first ten seconds, Mercy didn�t even move. But after that, Mercy turned around and stared at Anastasia. Later tonight Anastasia did the same thing with Mercy�s ear, and Mercy had the same reaction. And now Mercy doesn�t even chase Anastasia when the cat zooms around in the apartment. Now the only time Mercy would go up and sniff and stare at Anastasia is when the cat gets close to me or the toys (dog or cat toys, I guess Mercy likes cat toys so much that she thinks they are hers too). But she only does it half of the time, so I�m giving her positive reinforcement when she doesn�t react to it. I think in a month, she will probably ignore Anastasia when the cat gets close to �her� property. But because I don�t have another dog, I can�t really train Mercy to not guard against other dogs, especially if her adoptive family has another dog. But I think she will be okay if the family has a male dog. If they have a female dog, it�s best if they already knows what to watch out for and what to do when Mercy starts to guard her things. |
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Sunday, September 26, 2004
Around 2 AM this morning, I woke up in the middle of my sleep to take Mercy out potty. I was very sleepy, so I walked her right back up to the apartment after she urinated. But five minutes later, she tinkled on the carpet next to my bed. Maybe like Millie said, Mercy is one of those dogs who needs more time when she go potty. Or maybe Mercy needed to poop and I didn�t let her, so the urine came out later, because it wasn�t a lot of urine. But I�m going to take her to the vet on Monday to have him check on urinary tract infection just to be sure.
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Dr. Ravis has been asking me to bring Mercy over to play with Samson ever since Mercy came. But I had to tell him that Mercy couldn�t play at all during the first two weeks of her heartworm treatment. But this weekend it�s been two weeks, and I asked Dr. Ravis if Mercy and I could come visit Samson and let them play for a few minutes. So on Sunday afternoon, I took Mercy to see Samson. Samson was out on the patio when we got there, so we took Mercy outside to play with Samson there. |
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The dogs did fine when I pet Samson (although Mercy wanted to join in the action too), and they did fine when Dr. Ravis brought out two biscuit treats. Mercy dropped hers, so Samson ate both pieces. Dr. Ravis also brought out a rubber dog toy with squeaker, which Mercy played with for a few seconds. Mercy even let Samson mount her (Samson is neutered, so he was just showing her that he�s the boss). |
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Mrs Ravis petting Mercy and Samson. |
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