On being able to touch Dash and Dot

We are a bit more than 2 weeks into our Dash and Dot socialization project, complete with the Prozac and the coming inside to eat and all. They are now very willing to come downstairs into the main part of the house, so long as it's clear that their escape route is clear. They're eating from bowls on the living room floor, and they've even learned how fun it is to lick peanut butter off a spoon. A spoonful of peanut butter is a great place to hide a pill, so this is a very good thing. I think they may even be willing to approach a stranger, should that stranger have a spoonful of peanut butter on him/her. Or just be smeared with peanut butter.

The hard part is going back upstairs after the meals. Roxie doesn't want to go back up there, she clearly wants to stay downstairs and join the family. She's even learned to jump up on the couch and curl up as if she's always been a couch dog. So, we have to make it look like lots of fun to go back into the room, and then we need to stay with her up there for a while and give her a belly scritch.

Yesterday, while I was dutifully scritching the Roxie belly post-prandially, Dash and Dot decided to get into the fray by licking Roxie's face and generally enjoying a good tussle. So, I just reached over from Roxie's belly to Dottie's, fully expecting D to panic and stand up to shake it off. But she didn't. She let me pet her tummy, and her neck and her ears - pretty soon everyone else had walked away and I was still petting her. It took a while, but eventually she decided that this was weird, and she should leave. But it felt like a kind of a breakthrough.

And then this morning, I had sneakily put up the puppy gate in the hallway (thus blocking their escape route) while D&D (and Roxie) were still licking their peanut butter spoons. Dash and Dot got scared, and I just sat with my back at the gate and acted bored so that they would calm down and eat their kibble. John was sitting on the couch acting bored, and Roxie climbed up there with him, and also acted bored.

Dash and Dot were pretty fixated on trying to peer over the gate and stuff, so while they were distracted I took the opportunity to pet Dottie's chest and neck; she didn't even seem to notice. Dash was right there too - he let me pet him as well. As long as they were concentrating on something else, they didn't seem to mind.

So, we still have to be sneaky about it, but technically we're now able to actually touch them. Which is really good - and as the Prozac begins to kick in over the next week or so, maybe we'll start seeing more progress!

Meanwhile, Roxie's been in and out of the yard quite a bit - but she's always been around when I call her to get her tick fever medicine. And we were able to get her back to the vet to get her sutures removed from her near-spay experience. She's hanging out with Haku when she's outside, so I'll be shocked if she's not pregnant by the time we can get to the actual spay - but at least we're able to get her medicine to her on schedule, and she still thinks she's our dog.

She's a very, very, very lovable girl.