Corey 2

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Update 03/11/08:

Many rescues come into MAESSR’s care, blessed with good health, confidence, and basic training. They meet their forever families in a short time. Others, like Corey, need extra time to round out their readiness. With months of love, patience, and steady, gentle leadership, Corey is now ready to become part of a new family. This is the latest on her:

Corey is a love bug. She is bringing her foster mom the fabric tugs and plays really well. Corey also is easily balancing her time between people and her dog friends. She loves cookies. She loves to go on walks. She loves to be petted. Corey is a smaller Springer and easily fits in her foster mom’s lap for naps. Oh, my!

Corey is getting brushed and getting her toe nails done regularly and is as sweet as they come. She will sniff for bunnies and cats in the backyard. And, she loves to run and play. She brought her foster mom a broken limb from a recent storm. It was six feet long, and she could not have been prouder. Good girl, Corey!!!!

Update 02/07/08:

The calm, repetitive assurances that Corey receives in her foster home are beginning to pay off. She is bonding with the other dogs in the resident pack. She is much more relaxed around them and takes cues from them. When her foster mom feeds a medication to Lucy, Corey sits like Lucy to see if she can get a piece of hot dog too. Okay, for training, Corey gets hot dog too!!!

Corey is gaining enough confidence to leave her foster mom on the porch to go explore with the pack. GOOD! Corey also can be sent into the yard to potty herself now. She is still shy around people of all ages, but after she sits or downs to a new person and gets petted, she begins to adjust to them. By the time she has been with them a few times, she is much better.

Corey prefers to deal with women first, and then, if necessary, with men. She has always been a bit more leery of men, but, she now lets men feed, crate, and take her to potty and play fine. At this point, however, she has not generalized to all men, so each person needs to be patient and let her work out that you are OK too.

As a typically active Springer Corey would do well with someone that likes walks and spends time outside to help her expend her energy. She’s not hyper but she will take longer to settle at night when she doesn’t take a walk due to weather or a busy schedule during the day.

Her foster mom is working on Corey’s off furniture) command, but Corey is very sneaky. When her foster mom goes to the kitchen, Corey gets on her bed. As her mom walks to get her, Corey hops down, leaving rustled blankets as evidence of where she has been… :)). She is very happy to snuggle and cuddle in soft spaces with or without her humans!!

Update 01/08/08:

Calm, repetitive assurances are at the heart of helping Corey handle new situations. While taking care not to overwhelm her, her foster family is gradually introducing new patterns of activity to her days. Typically Corey is totally afraid of anything new during the first 3-5 exposures, but with calm, repetitive assurances, she can be okay with it. Once she is OK with one new situation, though, she doesn’t necessarily generalize well, so a small change can send her running the next time. 

An instance of how this has worked for her with a recent pattern – her foster mom was petting one of the resident dogs. When Corey came up and her foster mom tried to pet her, Corey ran from the situation. Five days later, her foster mom was able to pet Corey and the same dog at the same time. On Day 15, another resident dog came up to be petted too and once again, Corey ran away. Five days later, her foster mom could pet Corey and the second dog at the same time – very, very small steps but moving forward. Corey is also bonding with the resident dogs enough to stay out in the yard a bit more and allows her foster mom to walk the porch without becoming upset. This too is heartening to see.

There is one situation in which Corey seems to be taking a step backwards right now. She seems more afraid of men than in the past. The friendly male visitor that she had learned to ignore on the porch is now OK if he sits or stands with her, but she will run if he walks. She totally freaks at a camera too and put a hole in a couch the day she looked cute sleeping there and her foster mom tried to take a picture. For now, we’ll have to stick with her original pictures and hope that with calm, repetitive assurances, she will come to trust cameras, too…

Update 12/09/07:

Shortly after Corey completed her heartworm treatment, she moved to a new foster home. This one, too, has many dogs and a big back yard. Important to Corey now, it has a family with time to work with her on basic skills. 

She has definitely bonded with her new canine friends. She is fine with the resident dogs and is encouraged by them to go away from her foster mom and see the ¾-acre backyard. Corey still checks in with her foster mom too much, that is, more than she would like to see Corey feel the need to, but Corey’s ability to step away is better than when she arrived.

Working on sit, down, and stay is ongoing, but Corey’s confidence is not yet high. She is so afraid of her foster mom’s hands that when she tries to give Corey a treat, Corey ducks first and then takes the treat. To help Corey past this, her foster mom is doing some target training with a clicker, wanting Corey to see her hands as a good thing.

New situations are hard for Corey to handle as well. Even with her foster mom and fellow pack at hand, she ran back to her crate instead of meeting a friendly visitor on the porch when he sat to pet the dogs that came to him. With two more visits, Corey has now mastered ignoring him and will go through the porch to the backyard. Her next step will be to take a treat and get petted by this visitor. Until Corey is successful with this visitor, her foster mom will hold off introducing her to kids.

Having been an outdoor dog before coming into rescue, Corey is on a puppy training schedule when it comes to house-breaking. She is not making mistakes that way, a small but important confidence-building step toward full success. She also whines in the night and her foster mom has found out that it is for attention – not a potty need! Sneaky, little dog!!!

In many ways Corey is far better than when she arrived and everything was new once again for her. The skills she is working on take time but will come. Check back to share in her steps forward…

Update 10/24/07:

A personal mini-milestone for Miss Corey, she has completed treatment for heartworms and tested negative at her last vet check. Yeah!!! She can now bound around and play to her heart’s content with the other dogs in her foster home. 

Corey has come a long way in a short time. She has adapted well and enjoys indoor life to the max. She is still somewhat shy, though, and has her anxious moments, so she will be staying in foster care a bit longer. With a little more time to increase self-confidence and comfort in a vastly bigger world than she has ever known, Corey will be all the more ready to meet her adopting family. Keep your eyes on this little sweetheart…

Update 8/29/07:

Corey has completed her first heartworm treatment and is doing well. With more time in her foster home, she has discovered all the joys of being an inside dog. She loves to sleep in the bed with her foster family (which is a no-no, of course, but she is so cute that she gets by with it). Her favorite pastime is checking out the bottomless toy basket every day. There she is certain to pick out a stuffed toy from among the many kinds because that is what she loves to carry around and play with. Corey is still very shy but is warming up to the men in her foster home. She is a terrific little girl and will be a wonderful companion in an adopting home as soon as she is heartworm-free. Keep an eye on this sweetheart.

Original:

Corey is a very sweet, shy, gentle Springer girl who is learning first-hand (or paw) how wonderful it is to live inside. She has not had any accidents in the house, and she loves to sleep on the bed. Unfortunately, Corey has heartworms and will begin treatment for that next week.

Corey came to MAESSR along with Simon and Jade as the result of a divorce. All three dogs had lived outside and are currently learning the joys of inside living. We will post updates on Corey as her treatment for heartworms progresses.