Scarlett #2 Black Labrador Retriever Mix Female 9 Months Old #3081

Meet Miss Scarlett.   Hard to believe a family turned this beauty into the shelter, but luckily the shelter reached out to Brookline. Thought to be a little under a year old, she just made the long journey north to her foster home.  Stay tuned for updates as she settles in.  Read from the bottom up!

November 9, 2022

We’re now back from our trip, and as much fun as Scarlett had, I think she’s happy to be back.  She was excellent in the car and snoozed with the resident dogs for the entire trip with one one potty break.  Needless ot say we got in a good outdoor play session when we got home.  We were suspicious that she might have a uti as she was starting to mark a lot outside and also was starting to have one accident a day.  And as it turns out the poor girl did and so is on a two week course of meds to make her as a good as new.

Scarlett is the sweetest gal, and we’re getting quite attached, but we know there are more dogs to help, and that she needs her own furever home.  Look for her to be made available soon- after we’re sure the meds are working.

She loves the resident dogs and they’ve got a good routine going of walks and play, but she would really like to have a dog with more stamina to play longer with her.

November 5, 2022

Scarlett says life at the beach is better.  She absolutely loves it up here, although she isn’t so sure she is interested in the water, at least not these cold waters of Maine.  She only got wet all the way when she had her back to a small wave and it broke over her.

This has been a good experience for Scarlett as there is a lot more activity up here in southern Maine than there is  in her foster home.  We’re getting lots of practice walking on side walks and crossing streets with cars and seeing people and their canines.  One thing we’re seeing is that she is a bit more shy with new people here  (especially indoors in this smallish rental) than she is at home.  I don’t think we appreciated how much change she has experienced up here.  She has even been a bit growly out of fear but once she realizes you are safe (and the resident dogs greeting the person helps a lot) she is good to go.    She had the hardest time the first day and is getting better every day.

October 28, 2022

While Scarlett’s foster parents thinks Fall is all about raking leaves, Scarlett thinks it’s all about spending more time outside.  And she is loving all this nice weather.  She loves running around and playing ball and playing chase if she can interest the resident dogs.  The other day she had a playdate with a dog that was just about her age but twice her size, and they did very well together in her new friend’s back yard.  What we were happy to see is that she does have an “off” button if she’s had enough play (that rarely happens in her foster home).  She romped off and on for a half hour with the Golden but both pups were happy to relax and regroup at intervals while the two legged’s chatted.  Good pups!

Scarlett is also doing pretty well in her crate and sometimes goes in on her own and doesn’t fuss when the door is closed behind her.  We’re not abusing this, as we want to make sure she has positive associations with the crate.  At night she is still a bed partner, and while she snuggles more than foster mom loves, she is very good and hasn’t chewed anything or had an accident.

Scarlett will be posted soon but we couldn’t quite get in last call before a planned trip to Maine so she’s going to have a 6 day outing there starting next week.  We’ll see how she does on the LONG car ride there and back and what she thinks of the beach (daily walks will be her exercise and the forecast is looking good).  We can’t wait to see what she thinks of the ocean.

We’re still working on her not jumping up on us when she’s excited (particularly if she hasn’t seen you for 30 minutes- oh my!) and occasional mouthiness, but she is getting MUCH better.  She’s a sweetie and she wants to please and channel her joie to vivre in ways that please us.

Lastly Scarlett likes to sunbathe, whether inside or outside!

October 24, 2022

Scarlett is settling in and we’re learning more about her.  We’ve learned that if you’re around, she really is not a fan of the crate, but she will usually oblige if she can see you and you give her something high value to chew on.  If you move out of sight she is not so happy- and won’t even chew on the bone.  But we did leave her for the first time today (for about 45 min)  to see what she’d be like if she knew we weren’t home, and I’m happy to say that she did much better.  Via camera I could see that she chewed happily on her No-Hide venison chew.  When it was done, she was sitting up and looking around, but there was no barking. Eventually she lay down.   The resident labs were in sight and one was snoozing on the other side of the crate, and I’m sure that helped.  When I came home and they heard the car, the resident dogs ran around to the back door where they knew I’d be entering.  At that point Scarlett did bark but you can’t really blame her.  She was very excited when I came up to her crate but I made her quiet down by asking her to sit, and to hold the sit until I opened the door.

In spite of a lot of effort, night time crate training is not going so well, and this sleep deprived foster mom finally caved and so Scarlett is now sleeping up on the bed.  The good news is that she stays up there all night (she is not the first dog to rise) and she hasn’t had an accident or chewed on anything she shouldn’t.  Good girl Scarlett.

Scarlett still wants to play way more with my dogs than they want to play with her (and I have to be the mean referee to instigate a time out), so I’m trying to find a younger dog for her to play with.  I took her by herself over to a park yesterday, but even though it was a lovely day, there weren’t many people out. So we walked over to the dog park (which I’ve only been to once years ago).  There were probably about half a dozen dogs inside the fenced in area with their owners  We sat outside the fence for a bit so she could check it out- and a few dogs came to the fence to meet her- but she was surprisingly subdued and wasn’t so sure she wanted to go in.  After awhile a nice couple arrived with their yellow lab and Scarlett got interested and decided to follow them in.  Once in, Scarlett was very polite with all the dogs, but wasn’t too interested in playing.  She just wanted to check them out, and she went up to most the owners for a pet or two.  I’m working on getting her a one-on one playdate with a young dog that likes to play, and hope to report back on that soon.

October 20, 2022

Score one for foster mom.  She made the crate so enticing in the bedroom and it worked.  We put in a white knuckle bone (great alternative to a regular marrow bones because they are cleaned and roasted without the messy marrow or meat) and Scarlett happily went in and started chewing and passed out 15 minutes later.  And she slept soundly until 6:30am.  We’ll take it.  I also put in a Snuggle Puppy heartbeat stuffed toy but without turning on the light to check, it’s unclear whether she snuggled with it.  She didn’t chew on it anyway!  Good girl  Scarlett.  We’re also doing a few sessions in the crate in the family room during the day, and she’s good as long as she can see us, so we’ll be working on getting her more comfortable with being out of sight of us.  Baby steps.

Scarlett is a smart girl.  She knows not to pester the grand dame of the house (our 13 year old lab) but she will try to engage the other two.  Sometimes they’ll oblige with a game of bitey face or race around the rhododendron.  Other times they won’t and she’ll give up (particularly if they give verbal correction).  We’ve found that she loves playing fetch which is great exercise.  She also loves to do those crazy puppy zoomies where she really wears herself out.

October 18, 2022

After two uneventful nights sleeping in the crate, Scarlett decided she was not happy about sleeping in the crate, so it was a long night for all involved. She was fine going in this morning (but she gets a bone) so I’m just going to back step a bit and work on ways to get her feeling secure and being OK in the crate (and going in without being pushed in!).  After several hours of a combination of talking softly and reassuring her, ignoring her, waiting it out, etc… and taking her out once to pee, we caved when she started biting the crate.  On the bright side, she passed out and slept like a rock the rest of the night (but on our bed!).  And she didn’t have an accident.

When she’s not having a crate session during the day, we have allowed her to be on the couch if she hops up.  Funny that certain fosters gravitate to the sofa immediately even though the 3 resident dogs only try it (occasionally) when we’re not home.  As you can see, she is VERY comfortable.  She’s working on her third or is it her fourth wind of the day.

October 17, 2022

As expected Scarlett is now a pro going both up and down the stairs, so much that we’ve had to close all the upstairs doors so she doesn’t keep going up and bringing us things.  Her favorite things are slippers and pajamas, but she gives them right up when asked.

She is doing great on walks, although now that she is getting little more confident she is pulling some.  She’s just excited.  The solution is to use the front clip on the harness while we teach her to heal.  Luckily she’s still small, so none of the pulling is hard to manage.

Scarlett had another uneventful night in the crate although she had to be helped in as even treats at the back weren’t enough to tempt her.  During the day we crate her for an hour or two in the morning and an hour or two in the afternoon, and in this case she is lured in with a knee cap (yuck).  She’ll chew for awhile and then falls asleep.

She’s a busy little girl and loves her toys, and we swap them out often to keep her interested.  She wishes the resident dogs were more playful but she did engage in a great game of chase with our youngest lab who loves to be pursued.  Again good exercise for foster mom since she’s attached to the leash.

She’s a bit of a momma’s girl and follows foster mom everywhere.  She’s not even sure she wants to go out without her, but once they get going she happily does her 2 mile morning walk with the others and foster dad.

The house training is going well and her only accidents have been from her not quite holding it all in when we suit up to go out first thing. As her bladder gets bigger, her foster parents are being better about putting the water up earlier in the evening.  And don’t forget to close the toilet lids.  She’s already figured out that she can get water there!

October 16, 2022

Scarlett is doing well.  She’s a beautiful girl and if you didn’t know it, you’d probably think she was 5-6 months old (she’s a little over 40 pounds), not closer to a year.  But based on the maturity of her back molars I think the vet was right with his guesstimate of 9-12 months. But I see no other breed in her but lab.   Scarlett arrived with a lot of energy, but we all got a good enough night sleep once she mastered the stairs.  She slept in the crate without making a peep until around 6:30am this morning  I consider that a win.  We had to carry her down, but she figured out how to get down the next time she went up.

What we know about Scarlett so far:

• She loves both people and dogs.  Cats are an unknown.
• She isn’t quite sure how to distinguish which type of play is appropriate with people.  She has play bit hard a few times, but we exaggerate the “ouch” although sometimes I don’t have to exaggerate- and she seems to be catching on.
• She is a typical lab who loves her toys and chew bones.  If you’re not paying attention, she’s just as happy to chew a kitchen chair leg though.
• She is a typical Hoover lab that loves her food.  Luckily we have a spare slow feeder for her.  It would not be safe to leave food out on the kitchen table!
• She has a ball drive and we’ve been playing fetch with her while she’s on the leash.  Good exercise for both of us!
• She likes to jump up and hug (cute) but sometimes it’s too much of a pounce.  So we’ll be working on paws on the ground.
• She’s well on her way to being house trained and seems to already understand the command “go potty.”
• She likes her woods walks more than the one we just did around the block. The real estate For Sale sign was traumatic for her lol, and so we had to go back and get an ambassadog, i.e., resident lab Liesl, to accompany her.

October 15, 2022

Scarlett was definitely happy to get out of the car and had a great time exploring the back yard and meeting the resident dogs.  She was hoping they’d be a bit more playful, but we’ll see if they come around.  We went for a nice long walk to get some of her energy out and while it’s clear she wasn’t used to a leash, she pretty much had the hang of it by the end.  A harness was definitely helpful for when she kangaroo jumped forward (forgetting that she was on a leash).

Once inside she was a bit calmer as there were new rooms to explore and things to sniff!  She had one accident (to be expected) but the rest of the day she did her business outside.  Good girl Scarlett!   The resident dogs definitely helped with that.

Scarlett is very puppy like (and large puppy sized at 42 pounds).  So far she loves chewing on nylabones and racing around with squeaky toys.  She was not interested in testing out the stairs so will see where everyone sleeps tonight!