We brought Zoe home on July 2, 2016. (We renamed her Zoey, with a Y!)
Zoey had been brought to Calgary from LA at the end of June and lived with her foster mom in Calgary for about 6 days. We don’t quite know how old Zoey is, but we decided that her one year birthday would be on November 1, 2016.
The first few weeks with Zoey were a little chaotic. Although she isn’t a huge dog, at 37 lbs now, she is the largest dog we’ve ever had. She already knew how to “Sit” and she learned “Shake A Paw” and “Stay,” each in one evening. She wasn’t quite house trained and was FULL of energy! She liked to jump up on people and needed to learn some manners. We also noticed that she wasn’t fond of men and liked to sleep in corners of the house where she could sort of curl up into the walls. We quickly enrolled in obedience classes and learned some useful training tips.
Here we are 6 months later and Zoey is a completely different dog! She loves her walks, and car rides, and playing in the park. After a long walk, she loves snoozing on her pillow in front of the fireplace. She rarely has accidents now and has learned to whine at the door to let us know when she has to go outside. She has been on 3 airplane trips to Winnipeg and is SO good on the flights. She flies in her kennel in the hold. We are glad that we worked with her and taught her to see her kennel as her safe place. After a few weeks of whimpering at night, she gradually started going into her kennel on her own. Now when we say “bedtime,” she races into her kennel, waits for her treat, then curls up and goes to sleep. (She snores like a bear!)
Zoey has definitely been a project and we just love her funny little personality. She’s full of love and kisses, mixed with a little mischief. She loves people (though she still barks at men with loud voices) and has been quite gentle around children. She loves playing with other dogs at the park (or sometimes she can become so focused on chasing her ball that she just ignores other dogs). We are still working on some basic commands like “Come,” as she gets easily distracted by birds, squirrels and rabbits. We’re slowly getting there, though.
I just knew Zoey (Zoe) was meant to be our dog when I saw the initial picture of “Zoe the 30 pound Schnoodle” on your website! She has settled into our family and we couldn’t imagine our house without her now!
Thanks!
Kristen
