[nagdu] application for Leader update

[Nimer Jaber]

Hello,

In my experience, dogs are super great at reading human emotion.  If you 
are stressed...and how could you not be...if you are sad, as I'm sure 
you are for going through this super difficult time, your puppy will 
be.  Make sure that for the time you are with her, you try to act as if 
you're chill.  While you make her the center of your universe...which 
she is...remember that anything that you do that is out of the ordinary 
in terms of extra attention is something she'll pick up on.  Try to act 
as you've always been with her and she should be calm.  While I know 
it's super hard to do, try to make her think that everything is great 
and wonderful...and when you go to the co-worker's house, act as if this 
is a super happy place and try to interact with the kids as well.  When 
you leave, save your emotions until she can no longer see you.  There 
are two schools of thought...one is to take her there for a brief, short 
amount of time and then take her home with you again.  The other is to 
just take her and leave her there for a while to let her acclimate.  I'm 
sure people on this list will chime in with opinions...I've found that 
just taking a puppy and leaving them with their new family was 
easier...but that could be just because I'm me.

I'm sorry that you are having to go through this.  The first dog is the 
hardest.  I didn't know what people meant when saying that, but I do 
now...and it's pretty true.  You don't know when the right time is, even 
if you do manage to figure that out you'll second-guess yourself...I 
hope that you can surround yourself with support and love during this 
difficult transition...and that you can make it as painless as possible 
for Jada.

Thanks.

On 5/9/2015 11:43 PM, Mardi Hadfield via nagdu wrote:
> Hi Abby, Mardi here. You might have the little girls come over and get
> acquainted with Jada. Have them play with her and she will begin to look
> forward to the girls coming to see her.That is what I do for some of my
> really shy rescue dogs.It seems to work.  Hope this is helpful.  Mardi and
> Shaman,retired and Neechee.
>