Early days, but

So day2 n me n Esther visited the vet for her RVHD2 jab (Filovac in this case), and a good check over. She weighed in at 1.9kg. Enry is 2.4. She’s long. I suspect a bit of French lop in her make up looking at her ears. But she’s got a small head. French, dwarf, mini. Who knows. She’s in good condition. And following a chat to both my fab vet Hanna@Wildbores, as well as Anne-Louise, I decided she seemed calm enough to move into the long living room with E and me – with a dividing gate system giving her about 20% of the space including her dog crate.

Enry took about 10 mins to decide to wander down her end of the room and check her out. He seemed disinterested at first but they were soon following each other up n down the gate. I gave them 15 mins to sniff each other and fed both of them a bit of flat leaf parsley. All good. No obvious food aggression. And importantly no teeth. At this stage you can’t trust them not to fight but my instincts were positive. I put her back in the dog crate so double bars between them = can’t bite but can smell. And so this has continued to build. They’ve spent controlled time either side of the bars. There’s been no aggression. Enry is such a placid boy. Esther is flighty, her tail is up and you can distinctly smell her hormones especially in the morning. But equally they are independently happy to turn away from one another. Enry even followed me back to the other end of the room and laid at my feet for a rest from the madness. For this to happen so quickly isn’t usual. I was all prepared to get another set of gates in, or even take her back to a different room if she was proving too feisty. But no. Amazingly, they are showing v promising signs. Don’t let it fool you. These things take time and as humans we shouldn’t get impatient, no matter how much more work it makes. Take time. It’s more likely to last.

Esther did her first zoomies last night. Enry, for all his 9 years and counting, stood watching her craziness. He might have been reminiscing. He has chased up and down the gate, but is equally happy to lay out on the floor or in or on his Maze Haven to keep an eye on her. He must wonder how he’s gonna keep up with this young whippersnapper. But the fact she’s got his interest, and is getting him moving… her presence is already doing wonders for him. Hey he may even calm that crazy gal down a tad – pass on his wisdom about how to chill (though she’s quite good at that already). I’ll get a video on here soon. And you’ll see how her ears are when she runs. I wish I’d called her Radar.