Lila - Foster Dog #10

Lila is our 10th foster dog from Guide Dogs for the Blind.  Just look at that sweet face!  This was about 30 minutes before the time I usually feed her and she is giving me her best "I might just starve to death" look!  Hard to resist!

 We've had 2 retired guides, 2 medical career change dogs, 2 active guides who just needed to be boarded for a short time, and 3 training dogs who have gone on to be Guide Dogs.  Lila is a class ready dog, which means that she has all her training and is just waiting to be matched to a blind person.  However she was a very vocal critic of kennel life.  The staff reported that she barked constantly and chewed up her fleece bed.  If they put her in an X-pen, which is basically a little portable fence, and she could see another dog's fleece she would push the x-pen over close enough to steal the fleece and chew that up too! Very naughty little girl!  I think they had serious doubts about her and were reluctant to place her in class with a blind person.  But since she was very good at guide work the trainers decided to see how she would adapt to a home environment and sent her to us.

We've had her now for four weeks and I've never heard her bark even once.  She never chews her fleece and is just a great dog!  Looks like she will get to be a guide dog after all!

Lila is not perfect though!  She has quite the personality. If I'm not very observant when I'm reading or napping or watching TV, I look up to find her sharing the couch with me.  Very bad behavior for a guide dog!

We finally found a solution that makes her happy, while still keeping the rules.  I have a down comforter on the floor right by the couch.  She usually puts a paw on the couch to see if maybe the rules are different today but when I tell her NO she settles in on the comforter.

Chewing on this bone is one of the joys of her life.  I sometimes worry that she is going to break a tooth!

 She seems to prefer 'frog' position!  Yes she is flexible!

Sometimes the bone is like a pacifier!

The red bone is wonderful but the very best bone is her KONG.  It is hollow plastic that is supposed to be indestructible.  If it survives her, I will agree that it is.  When we leave her home alone we put her into her crate.  I usually put a little bit of peanut butter in the KONG and then tell her,"Kennel" and she races to get in.  I think she secretly wishes we'd leave her more often, if that meant more peanut butter kong time!

I don't know where she was raised so I'm not sure if this big snow we had was her first snow experience.  She acted like it was.  When I took her out the first time she just kept trying to dig down to the more familiar grass.  By about the 3rd time she decided it was pretty fun to run around in the white cold stuff and she loved going for walks!

And even made a cute new friend!

After the freezing rain turned the top of the snow crunchy, Lila discovered a new joy!  She absolutely loved eating the crunchy stuff off the top.  As we walked outside she stopped every few feet to take a bite.  I started breaking off big pieces and taking them in to put in her food bowl.  She acted like I had given her pieces of steak and always ate every single bit before it melted.  Doggy Snow Cones!

We love this sweetie and are so glad to get to play a small part in her life while she waits for her real life as a companion and guide to begin!  The person who gets her will be lucky!