Ch-ch-ch-chance
So despite adjustment issues and overall surprise at how a dog can be *that* energetic, Chance is actually settling in very well. He makes good company for me during the day, because he likes to sleep very peacefully for most of it and then he wakes up in the evening and pokes and pokes and pokes me and if I do not rouse, he climbs onto me on the bed, so he is basically training me to get up and move around more. I do not always appreciate this but I do think it is good to keep to a schedule, and he does help with that in a way that alarm clocks really do not.
A couple of walks a day seems to keep him from bouncing off the ceilings; typically he gets a nice brisk exercise walk with Brad and then a slower less brisk cafe walk, usually with little training bits all along the way, with both of us. On good days Brad gives him a bonus walk in the evening as well. He is responding well to his emergency recall training; in class he came to it even though the teacher was feeding him something yummy. (We waited until he seemed very intent on the food to call him, so it was a fair test.) We haven't tried any hard tests of it "in the wild" out of fear that it would undermine his training there, but we are scheduled to do a moderately difficult one this week. I still wouldn't bet on it against chasing a squirrel; his prey drive is just incredible. But we are working with him on doing attention exercises after he has seen a squirrel dart off, with some success, so these things do improve with repetition.
He's also just very cuddly; I am probably spending a not inconsiderable amount of my "up" time just cuddling him, because he'll take it as an opportunity for some scritching, and that's just not a bad thing to be spending time doing. He loves being brushed and even mooches for it sometimes, so I am brushing him regularly and it seems to be very good for his skin and hair; he actually may need brushing more than Jack and Moose did because of his allergies; his coat is nice and silky now with the regular attention, and it's so easy on him that it's not much harder than simply petting him; he is no work at all to groom and will even present different sides for grooming.
He sleeps through the night now! This is a huge relief. This may change next winter if we get mice in the house again, but we'll be better prepared for it if so. We ended up using a combination of confining him away from parts of the house where the mouse were under the floors, putting down cayenne to keep him from snorfling/scrabbling at the corners, and using an air filter as a white noise generator to mask the wee beasties. The other day, Brad saw a cat proudly trotting by with a mouse in its mouth and, while I should undoubtedly feel rather sorry for it, all I felt was relief that there was one less mouse to come hide in our house.
A couple of walks a day seems to keep him from bouncing off the ceilings; typically he gets a nice brisk exercise walk with Brad and then a slower less brisk cafe walk, usually with little training bits all along the way, with both of us. On good days Brad gives him a bonus walk in the evening as well. He is responding well to his emergency recall training; in class he came to it even though the teacher was feeding him something yummy. (We waited until he seemed very intent on the food to call him, so it was a fair test.) We haven't tried any hard tests of it "in the wild" out of fear that it would undermine his training there, but we are scheduled to do a moderately difficult one this week. I still wouldn't bet on it against chasing a squirrel; his prey drive is just incredible. But we are working with him on doing attention exercises after he has seen a squirrel dart off, with some success, so these things do improve with repetition.
He's also just very cuddly; I am probably spending a not inconsiderable amount of my "up" time just cuddling him, because he'll take it as an opportunity for some scritching, and that's just not a bad thing to be spending time doing. He loves being brushed and even mooches for it sometimes, so I am brushing him regularly and it seems to be very good for his skin and hair; he actually may need brushing more than Jack and Moose did because of his allergies; his coat is nice and silky now with the regular attention, and it's so easy on him that it's not much harder than simply petting him; he is no work at all to groom and will even present different sides for grooming.
He sleeps through the night now! This is a huge relief. This may change next winter if we get mice in the house again, but we'll be better prepared for it if so. We ended up using a combination of confining him away from parts of the house where the mouse were under the floors, putting down cayenne to keep him from snorfling/scrabbling at the corners, and using an air filter as a white noise generator to mask the wee beasties. The other day, Brad saw a cat proudly trotting by with a mouse in its mouth and, while I should undoubtedly feel rather sorry for it, all I felt was relief that there was one less mouse to come hide in our house.