Lucy makes some friends

Lucy seems to be more comfortable with us and has shown more energy and excitement since her first day with us. When we get home after work, she greets us excitedly, jumping around and playing. One night she even gave me a series of barks because she got so excited, which is definitely abnormal for her, since it was the first time we heard her make a sound.

Lucy has not made too many friends yet, but did encounter a gaggle of cats. On one of our walks, we took Lucy to a neighboring apartment complex and something suddenly caught Lucy's attention. Turns out it was a cat on a parked car. As we approached it, Lucy wanted to play, but it ran off in a hurry. Lucy ran after it, straining against the leash and led us to another half dozen stray cats. They kept their distance as Lucy carefully walked around them, spending the next half hour trying to play with them. As we followed Lucy around, more and more cats appeared, and at one point we turned around and found another dozen cats following us! When we felt like we had just stepped into a scene from the Twilight Zone, we finally decided to drag Lucy away, at one point we were surrounded by almost 20 cats! But if Lucy had it her way, we would have been there all night.

This weekend we brought Lucy with us to a friends bbq. In usual fashion, she was excited to go on a car ride, then fell asleep as soon as we started driving. On arrival, everyone fell in love with Lucy, including my friends dog, Chaaya. However, the first few hours of Chaaya and Lucy meeting turned out to be more aggressive than expected. With Chaaya nagging Lucy to play, Lucy spent a great deal of effort ignoring Chaaya. After some aggressive barking and an almost fight, we were worried that Lucy doesn't work well with other dogs. We kept the two apart for the rest of the night and to our surprise, when everyone else had left and we were getting ready to leave, Lucy and Chaaya suddenly started playing! We were so thrilled and are hoping this wasn't just a one time good encounter.

Yesterday we discovered just how good of a dog and housebroken Lucy is. We decided to cord proof and chew proof a bedroom and left her in there with a few toys for the day instead of her crate. We got home later than expected, thinking she may have had a potty accident and/or chewed on the desk. But when we got home, we were so happy to see that the only thing she managed to find and chew on was an old ink pen!

Lucy's a great dog, not to mention a cuddle bug. If given the chance, she'll come lay on her back right next to you and just beg to be petted. You couldn't ask for a better dog!

Curious Lucy!

Lucy has got to be the most curious dog ever. We walked her down to the pet store and what should've been a 10 minute walk, turned into a 2 hour excursion. If there was something to be sniffed, Lucy sniffed it. If there was something to look at, Lucy stared it down. And if there was a nook or cranny for her to crawl through, Lucy tried to crawl through it!

We weren't at the pet store more than 10 minutes before she found the rescue cats up for adoption. Separated by glass, Lucy spent the majority of her time at the store watching the cats do their thing.

After a few more toy purchases (another attempt at distracting her from cords), we headed home when she "did her business" for the second time in the day...we were so thrilled as she'd only been going once a day, making us think that maybe something could be wrong.

Once at home, Lucy immediately ran to her favorite spot -- the closet. We coaxed her out with her new rubber toy, but it wasn't long before she she ran back to the closet and this time crawled under the lowest shelf. We're beginning to think she likes dark, enclosed spaces. If she's not in the closet, she's in her kennel, under the coffee table or trying to get under the futon.

As we experienced another casualty with yet another cord, she finally ran into her kennel and for the rest of the night, is laying peacefully with her new toy.

3 Days Later...

After a weekend of getting to know each other, Elena underwent a name change to Lucy.

After only one night in a new place, Lucy quickly warmed up to us and convinced us to let her sleep Friday night with her crate door open. She was so good that night, we thought we could continue the trend through Saturday night as well.

When we got up Sunday morning, we discovered that Lucy is quite the chewer, having chewed extensively through a very long cord!

After a second cord bit the dust and a third almost joined, all right under our own nose, we decided our current dog toy chest was not making the cut, and it was time to make a trip to Petsmart and see if we couldn't find some toys of her very own to keep her busy.

For Lucy's first trip ever to the pet store, she was intrigued by the birds and turtles, sniffed around for every morsel of food she could find in the store and tried to play with all the dogs she saw! However, we were foster parents on a mission -- to find toys that she could chew up instead of our cords! After an hour in the store, we found success! She finally found a squeaky hippopotomaus that she carried around the store. After some consultation about the best food type for her, we happily made her toy purchase and headed home.

We introduced her to our balcony when we got home and when she wasn't laying around outside in the sun, she was laying around in her kennel, just enjoying the laziness of the days.

Since she's become very fond of our cords, we decided to keep her crated on Sunday night and took her for a very long walk before work. We're starting to get into a routine, that she seems very agreeable to.

Feeding time, walks and trips to the car are all exciting times for all of us, especially the trip to the park this evening for a friendly game of softball (she watched and played with all the people!).

The more Lucy warms up to us, the more she smiles -- and what a great smile she has! Take a look at her pictures and you'll see what a joy she is to have around!

Good Morning!

Elena and her new foster parents survived their first night together. Though nervous and shy, she did extremely well on her first walk with us, and even showed us how smart she was by directing herself to our car and jumped up, indicating she wanted in. Once home, she warmed up to us a little when we gave her some toys to play with. After a slight bath, and the removal of tons of dirt, she devoured her food. We set up her crate, and put in some blankets and toys, and she went straight into the crate and began arranging the blankets to her liking. Without any prompting from us and without even having to close the crate door, she fell promptly asleep.

This morning, she greeted us with an enthusiastic thumping of her tail. After a quick potty walk, she once again devoured her food, a half serving of dry food and a half serving of wet food. Then she spent the morning sniffing around, getting to know her new digs.

So far, foster parents and Elena are settling into each other and will hopefully be making appearances to find a permanent home in the next couple weeks.

Elena Comes Up From The Shelter - A Life Saved

Elena is a beautiful 3 yr old, 50 lb "lemon" hound - ie, she's mostly white with pretty red markings.


Elena, through no fault of her own ended up at a high kill shelter in rural VA. She was already living on borrowed time when we finally found a foster for her - the wonderful Eric and Caroline.


Elena is coming up to live with Eric and Caroline in Bethesda, MD while she searches for her forever home. Please stop by to read tails of Elena as we get to know her.