This is what I call Mercy�s �Mommy�s Little Girl� look.
I'm teaching Mercy to sit by the car door until I could open the back door for her, so I wouldn't have to pull her to get her out of the driver seat and then drag her to the back seat.
Overall Mercy rides in the car pretty well, when the car's moving. When we stop in the parking lot or in the gas station, she would try to get into the front seats. She's okay with wearing a harness that's strapped into the back seatbelt to keep her in the back, but usually she doesn't need one.
Mercy's tail is very expressive. I can definitely tell her moods by watching her tail. I just love it when she wags her tail when she's happy.
For the past month, Mercy's been eating her meals from her bed (what a princess). I would put her bowl in her bed then sit next to her while she ate. She wouldn't eat otherwise. But ever since Thursday, I've been training her to eat by herself. I just placed the bowl on the living room floor. She wouldn't eat Friday morning, but finally she ate Friday night. She tested me again on Saturday night, but eventually she ate at 11 PM. And I've been moving the bowl closer and closer to the kitchen where her water bowl and feeder stand is. Hopefully she will eat by herself in the kitchen by the end of this week.
Mercy likes her crate, but just in case her new home doesn't have a crate, I started training her to get used to not having a crate around. Yesterday I took off the top part of the crate. I think tomorrow the crate will be off the floor and just leaning against the wall in the bedroom. And by the end of this week, the crate will be stored away in the closet.
I gave her another bath yesterday afternoon. She was again very good in the bathtub, with "Stay" commands. She is still a little uneasy when I clean her ears, but overall she's letting me do it.
It drizzled yesterday ever since noon, and we didn't get to take our daily walk, so last night I put Mercy on the treadmill. I put Dudley on the treadmill too when he was here, but just for five seconds, because he freaked out when I turned on the machine. Mercy, on the other hand, for some reason would only walk with her front legs when I turned on the treadmill. So I had to support her back legs for about ten minutes, but after that, she seemed to get it and started walking on her own.
On Tuesday morning, it was drizzling again, so we went to Petco and just walked around for 40 minutes. Mercy had a lot of fun sniffing every aisle. Here she is sniffing the frogs.
Mercy playing with a Jingle Ball. She can�t play with the IQube ball anymore, but she likes to bite the Jingle Ball too.
After skipping three meals (not on the same day) earlier this week, Mercy finally reached a compromise with me about her food. She would eat from her feeder, by herself, as long as I put a half teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil in her food. So now instead of giving her fatty acid capsules, I just put a half teaspoon of olive oil on her food every meal.
When we came out of the store, it stopped raining, so we walked for one mile on the bike trail. We passed by a female Border Collie who was trotting behind her owner without a leash. Mercy was very good and ignored the dog.
Yesterday afternoon we walked around campus for 45 minutes. I thought it would be good to have her practice walking through crowds, because it's part of the Canine Good Citizen test. And two people said Mercy was very cute. The walk got Mercy all tired out last night. Mercy now would sit and stay and down even when she sees the squirrels. I just started contacting people to see if Mercy can take the CGC test soon.
Last night I talked to a perspective adopter in Pensacola. Millie and Debbie both liked her very much, but I think her lifestyle doesn�t match with Mercy�s personality, so I had to turn her down. But Millie said there are two more people who are interested in Mercy, and several people who are looking for a young female Springer in our region.
This morning at the vet's, while we waited in the waiting room, we met four dogs, Mercy barked at two of them when they came over to sniff her nose. But Mercy remained quiet with the other two dogs, who stayed about three feet away. She even "Sit" when the dogs were around. But Mercy licked the office cat's nose. The vet said her blood is negative this time, and he recommends another blood test in six months, but she's all done for now.
Afterwards, we stopped by the pet supply store to set up an appointment for pet sitting in November, and Mercy was very good with the two big Labs who passed by us when I was talking to the pet sitter. And Mercy ignored the cat who was walking around in the store.
