SNIPSA has an adage for adoptees: "Three days, three weeks, three months." The first three days can be a honeymoon, little doggies on their best and most cooperative behavior. They begin to show their humans who they are in three weeks, but in three months, they know they are home and can be themselves in all their glory.
In the beginning, I thought Luci was almost like a cat (or a boyfriend); she only wanted to be within inches of me at all times. But of course, she'd been moved from one place to another who knows how many times? She wanted to impress me with her affection.
I wasn't sure she was particularly smart, but I knew she was extraordinarily sweet and a keeper no matter what. I told her so but she still watched visitors carefully in case one of them might pick her up and take her away. Now she's cool. She knows we have friends and she knows they aren't going to take her away. She knows people by name and can do anything I ask her to--except take the clothes out to the dryer and wash the dishes.
She's even learned not to help me make up the bed and to wait on the floor until it's ready for her jump and land on top. She follows directions: stay, hop in, hop out, come on--all in English. My bilingual- now puppy, it turns out, is plenty smart and still sweet as ever.
It took her two weeks to show me that she's a haul-ass runner and I'm waiting anxiously for the fence, being built today, to be completed so I don't have to watch her every single minute for one of her impressive romps into and including the street.
I took her to the Bark Park today and she defended herself admirably against the four big dogs who came to greet her. I don't think we'll go back there any time soon.
Like any good man or woman, she has many aspects to who she is. She's showing more sides of herself a little more each day, and I'm still crazy in love!
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