Poppy Black Labrador/Collie Mix Female 3.5 Months Old ID#3189

Poppy came to Brookline through a collaboration with Justice Rescue.  Poppy along with her littermates were pulled from a PA breeder due to poor living conditions.  Please read her blog from the bottom up to learn more about her time in foster care.

May 3, 2023

Poppy has been making so many improvements! She is now, for the most part, letting us know when she must go potty. She’s starting to walk to the door, sometimes she will sit and bark but at least she’s going to the door! Crate training is also improving, she wakes up around 6:00 am and then we’ll go potty, eat and then back into our crate for another hour or so. She’s also taking naps in her crate now with no fuss about being crated!She’s starting to get cuddlier with us too, guess it just took a little longer to trust us! She loves
belly rubs and curling up next to your face to sleep! Bonus points if you have the heating pad
on!She absolutely loves our resident dogs, she’s always trying to curl up with them and tries to
sleep in our senior resident dog, Xena’s bed with her at nighttime now. Most of the time, she
doesn’t succeed, but occasionally she does!She also LOVES people. There is not a human she doesn’t love, especially if she already
knows you. Her whole entire body wiggles from her head to her tail and she makes these cute
little grunting sounds. She is the cutest little puppy.

April 17, 2023

Poppy had a good week. She is learning so many new things, and for the most part knows how to sit, lay down, and sometimes paw. There are some days she is not in the mood to participate, but that’s okay she’s still a baby. She’s inquisitive, and keeps us on our toes, but she does aim to please. We have come to realize she does best with a consistent routine and ample amount of time for naps in between play times.Potty training is going okay. For the most part she goes outside, but if she’s left alone, she will pee in the house (just for fun I guess). If we keep to a consistent routine, she is pretty good at it. For the most part her potty schedule looks like this: when she wakes up in the morning, after naps, after play time, after she eats, and then an hour after she eats.  She knows she gets a treat when she potties outside and runs right up to you and sits.

Crate training is improving, slowly. She still sleeps in a human bed, and makes it very known she will not be sleeping in her crate. She goes in her crate while we’re eating dinner, or we must run out but that’s never long. She may settle down in there after about a half hour, but it doesn’t last long.Poppy is the princess in our house, she is very confident and tries to show the resident dogs she’s the boss. She wants everything someone else has, if the resident dog has a bone Poppy takes that bone, even if she has the same exact one! During mealtimes she will try to leave her bowl to steal whatever food the resident dogs are eating, she’s afraid of missing out on something better I suppose! There are a few times that she gets scared, if resident lab Harper does bark at her over something she’ll sometimes hide behind our legs, but only for a split second before she’s back to whatever she was doing.

Poppy has also finally stolen resident dog Harpers heart. Harper is now letting her lie with her, and one of their favorite things to do is play tug. They can play tug for a while, and after poppy is tired, we’ll go potty and take a nice long nap. (Thanks for babysitting Harper!) Poppy has also learned that she can’t play with the other resident dog, that dog is a senior citizen and sleeps all day so sometimes poppy will take a quick nap with her but has learned to just leave her alone.We’ve been loving having her here and know she will make someone’s family very happy! She has such a strong little personality and brightens your day with her excited wiggle whenever she sees you.

Bonus: Pictures of her first PUP CUP! 

April 12, 2023

Poppy is settling in fantastically. She is 11 weeks old now, and she is all black with the exception of white sprinkles on the tips of her paws, she also has the start of the wavey fur on the top of her back. She is fitting in well with our two resident dogs, and even our cat. She is the happiest little puppy; she must be so thankful to be in a home full of people! She absolutely adores everyone she meets, she has the lab wiggle, her whole-body shakes and her little tail wags and wags.

She is still not loving the crate, it’s a work in progress. She sleeps in a human bed at night, and that has been going well so far. She typically goes to bed around 9:30pm and will stay in bed until 6:00am, so far this is the best solution and she’s been sleeping through the night. She is crated when we are not there, this is for a very short time though, she’s still a very young puppy and needs supervision and consistent potty breaks. We are currently potty training, and she has been taking ques from our resident dogs. It’s going slow but she is very smart, so it won’t take long. She already knows she gets a treat when she goes potty outside, so she sits right after she goes and waits for her snack.One of her favorite activities is EATING, so she definitely got that lab gene! She knows when it’s mealtime and will sit in her designated spot in the kitchen next to resident dog Harper waiting for her morsels to be prepared.She loves her toys and must have at least 20 out at all times so she can run from toy to toy, but her favorite seems to be good old fashioned tennis balls! The brighter the better! She also loves anything that crinkles, and her chew toys.Poppy loves other dogs, hopefully her forever home will have some furry siblings for her to play with and learn the ropes from. She is also still a baby and won’t be able to be left home for long periods of time without potty and play breaks.

April 9, 2023

We picked up Poppy from another volunteer yesterday.  The other volunteer had picked her up from Justice Rescue earlier morning for us.She is 10 weeks old and very small! She loves her toys, especially balls and her crinkle octopus that she stole from resident dog Harper.She is definitely a cuddle buddy, she loves to be near a human or on a human.She had a good first night, but absolutely hated the crate so she slept in bed with Theresa and slept all through the night until she woke around 6 am. We’re going to have to work on making the crate a happy place for her so I got a heartbeat puppy thats supposed to be here today, we’ll see how that works.She is doing okay with going out to potty, only a one or two accidents which were our fault not hers.