Adopting "Belle" AKA Audrey-Belle

After the passing of our soon to be 10 year old Lhasa Poo we decided the void she left in our home was to great and needed to be filled. My friends said I'd get another dog but I wasn't so sure. I was still grieving, my heart was broken. I would still look at Petfinders.com from time to time just to see what was available. I had a friend who was also helping to find another perfect pet for us. I had seen a little Yorkie twice online but passed on her due to her story. My friend called me to say she found a Yorkie and that I should check it out. I did, it was the same Yorkie I had already passed on twice. I started thinking maybe there was something to this since I had been led back to the same dog three times. The pet info had a number so I called it, why not? I talked to the foster mom for an hour, she said the Yorkie (Belle) would be at Petco for adoption the next morning. The Petco a couple miles down the road from where we live. We were looking for a small female, that we hoped would like car rides and Yorkshire Terrier was one of the breeds on the list we were considering. Once again I thought maybe there is something to this. My husband and I went to the adoption early the next day, there she was a tiny little girl in a big cage all alone. We thought she was so CUTE almost swallowed up by the cage. We held her and asked basic questions, then took her to the back of the store away from the noise and crowd to get to know her better. She was very frightened and out of her element so we couldn't get much of an idea of her personality. She was a breeder dog before so everything was new and scary for her. Our daughter and her boyfriend came by to meet her also and we as a family decided to bring her home. We didn't realize it till later but we had spent two hours with her in Petco! When I looked at her health record I saw that she was being spayed, etc for adoption at the same time our little Lhasa Poo was sick and dying. Then as I was paying for Belle I noticed that we were adopting her on what would have been our Lhasa Poo's 10th birthday. I decided there was definitely something to this. Belle was meant for us.

Adopting Belle Part 2.

We adopted Belle on June 28th 2008, she was a breeder release and already 4 years old. I am proud to say she has been a very good dog for us. We are so glad we took a chance on bringing her into our home. She has been a part of our family for 8 months now and has come a long way. She still has a long way to go but we aren't worried. She is a very quick learner for the most part and the only thing that really holds her back is fear and lack of trust. From what I have read those are not uncommon issues with dogs who have this kind of past. They say some get past it and some never do, we will love Belle no matter what so it's ok. Which brings me to her name, we didn't want to totally change her name she already had plenty of changes to absorb. So we hyphenated it giving a small dog a big name. Our daughter loves Audrey Hepburn who also had a Yorkie so we named her Audrey-Belle.

The first order of business with Audrey-Belle was house breaking, we found her favorite treat and she had it down in a matter of a few weeks. The neighbors setting of fireworks the week of the 4th of July set us back because she was afraid to go outside once it started to get dark. She will eat from our hand and tid bits of our dinner when she sits nice and is quiet and patient. We didn't teach her to sit and be quiet but when I told her to do that she did so we rewarded her with a tid bit and it just stuck with her I guess. However since she'd never had human food before we found that a little goes a long way with her. We have to be selective in what we give her also. She is very good about her food she will let me touch it etc. However if she is in the kitchen eating or drinking and someone walks up to the door she will stop and walk away till they leave. This is part of the trust issue, she won't let anyone approach her when her head is down in a bowl, not even us. Sometimes when we call her she will come to us sometimes not but I have heard alot of Yorkie owners say this. Sometimes she cowers when we go to pick her up and we don't know why, there is no reason for it she just does it out of the blue. She doesn't like sharp or loud sounds, the other day I just tapped a paper plate with my fork and she moved to the other side of the bed, I did it again and she jumped off and left the room. She doesn't like the kitchen broom either for some reason. She has some issues/quirks that we will never understand but they aren't anything we can't deal with.

We have never been able to kennel her, I guess she had enough of that being a breeder dog. We've never had a dog we didn't kennel before but it clearly traumatizes her to even be near the kennel door. When dog sitting the puppy AND the cat went into the kennel, Audrey-Belle stayed about three feet away and just watched. I said there's a party in the kennel and she looked frightened so I didn't force it. That was the first time in months I even had a kennel out thinking given some time she'd relax about it a bit. I tried putting a treat in the kennel and leaving the door open. She waited till we left the house to get the treat out. I tried setting up an X-Pen in the kitchen for her when we first brought her home and turned around to see her at the top of it ready to go over the edge. She climbed straight up the 36" side earning her the title of "spider dog" for awhile. We never put her in it again.

Due to her seperation anxiety and trauma of being kenneled I had to find a new groomer. I finally did find one who only does one dog at a time and allows me to stay with her. She does better with each visit but still hates her nails trimmed.

When we first brought her home she had seperation anxiety very bad. She is much better about it now, sometimes when I leave her home with my husband he says she still sits in the entryway and howls. Yet when I am home and he comes home from work she is so excited to see him she just about flies out of her fur. It took a few weeks after adopting her for that to start but she greets him everyday, she actually listens for the garage door. I found another treat she loves different from the one I used to potty train her, I call it her "stay at home alone treat". I only give it to her if I can't take her with me, she knows if she gets that what is going to happen and seems to be ok. We leave the tv on for her so when our house creaks and pops it isn't so loud and doesn't scare her so much (we hope).

Audrey-Belle was terrified of the cat (who is bigger than her) when we brought her home now they play together. I recently started to dog sit a new puppy, Audrey-Belle and the cat both seem to like the puppy ok for the first hour then they are ready for a nap. They look at her as if they want her to go home already. Sadly we have never been able to get her to play with toys, she'd never had them before. We keep trying but she just doesn't get it, peek a boo in clean laundry once in awhile is about as playful as she gets. Her favorite things are being with us, going on a safari in our nature area and running in the fenced back yard.

I take her in the car and she loves it, she is always ready to hit the road. We have a Snoozer car seat for her, she can sit or lay down on a trip. So far she has been to St. Cloud twice, Arkansas, California and Montana once. She prefers our son's huge pick up truck to my husband's little Saturn. That is how I leash trained her, I tried it at the park once and she froze like her feet were glued to the grass and no matter how long we waited or tried to get her to move she was frozen stiff. On the road trip I put the harness and leash on her and she was only to happy to stretch her legs and go potty. By the time we got back it was routine, the car stops, she jumps in my seat when I get out, I put the harness and leash on her and set her in the grass and off we go.

We let her go to our son's house to be watched while we went out of town, she bolted out their door right after arriving and tried to run back home. Now if we need a sitter we have them come to our house. We had to spend the night away once unplanned so there was no sitter and when we got home the next day she was UPSET. We got home on Sunday and it wasn't till a few days later on Friday when we had her in the car that she even made eye contact with us again. She'd been acting funny and standoffish almost a week.

Audrey-Belle is not a morning dog, she loves to sleep in late. My husband calles her our little lump, as she doesn't move once she's asleep and we don't know how one little dog can take up so much bed.

At Halloween we found that if I hold her and the doorbell rings she doesn't bark, but if she's on the floor she barks like crazy.

She will let strangers pet her in public if I hold her or she's in her carry bag or shopping cart. She won't let anyone pet her if she's on the ground, leash or no leash or even in our home. When our friends or grown kids come to visit she won't let them pet her either, so we are still working on that. Recently we noticed if our daughter sits in a chair Audrey-Belle will let her pet her sometimes, sometimes not. But if she pets the cat Audrey-Belle is starting to come closer and closer wanting to be pet too. We are considering this progress, who knows what new thing she will show us next.

Just before Valentine's Day she started giving puppy kisses.