Dog getting better

Could Maggie, AKA Dumb Dog, be finally forming new neural pathways? I think she is learning how to learn. I don’t know what her former life was like, but I don’t think she got much attention. When we got here, she didn’t even know how to play—and was only partially housebroken. She did learn playing, but other learning (including housebreaking) seemed slow. She learned to lay down well, but everything else was very slow—and usually she just would lay down when she got confused.


In the last week, she has managed freestanding to a verbal command, solidified jumping obstacles to a verbal command, solidified spin to a slight hand motion, is great with target touching and yesterday even brought it to me twice! Then, she would only lie down. She is sitting on a verbal command, too, and that was a tough one to get—all she wanted to do was lay down.

If I am playing with the cat, she leaves the room and lies down—waiting for a treat. This includes when we play “throw,” where it throw pieces of cat food for Thunder to chase.

She sits and lets me put the leash on her.

I think she is starting to understand that if she sits on my lap, she can’t chew on my hand. What I ended up doing with this problem is just putting her on the floor immediately when she started to do it. She gets it right about half the time. Then I pet her and praise her.

Maybe there is hope for her…