Lelia (now Nessa)

From the very fist night she came home with me I knew this girl was special, I don't know if it was her tiny cute little peanut face or the fact that she was absolutely terrified of everything that just broke my heart.  Or maybe it was the fact that she attached herself to Finnegan (our male boxer) instantly.  Or maybe it was the fact that Finnegan was actually so accepting of her from the very start.  Finnegan is normally a total jerk with the new foster dogs for the first week or two but he never was with Lelia.  They are very cute together.  So I finally flunked fostering 101 - I knew it would happen eventually.

Lelia does have a new name now; she needed a good Irish name to go with her brother Finnegan, so her new name is Nessa. Nessa just fit into our home so easily, it was like it was meant to be; I knew straight away that she belonged here.  She is very good, and well behaved, it took about a week to housebreak her, her only bad habits now are counter surfing and chewing things, but because she is so short she can't actually reach anything on the counter and she now has lots of chew toys so she hasn't chewed the phone, remote control, electric cords or my slippers for a couple of weeks now.  She is just so happy to not have to spend 22 hours a day in her crate and to actually get love, attention and exercise. She just loves to be with us, or wrestling with Finnegan and charging around the yard with him at 100 mph. Even though she is about half the size of Finnegan she loves to play as hard as he does.  Sometimes I cringe just watching them play so rough but they are having a blast, and when Finnegan has had enough she is happy entertaining herself with toys, especially ones she can chew on.

At home she is now very confident and has really started to come out of her shell but outside of our home she is incredibly shy and nervous.  It's very apparent that Nessa was not used to being handled a lot, and is very head shy.  She runs at the sight of a broom or similar shaped objects.  Going to new places like the vet's office or the pet store initially was a nightmare for poor Nessa but she is doing much better now.  Initially going for walks was stressful also as she was terrified of so many things but she is doing much better now and is always much braver when Finnegan comes with us.  

Nessa was not much of a snuggler when we first adopted her but she is used to it now and loves to be next to you in bed or on the couch. Nessa has done several levels of obedience training now and even passed her CGC (Canine Good Citizen) test in May 2004, attending classes has been huge for building her confidence and getting her used to being around strange dogs that normally terrify her.  We have now moved on to doing Agility Classes and although it has taken Nessa a bit longer than some of the other dogs to get the hang of things due to the fact that she is so nervous she is really starting to shine at Agility now, and the hyper dogs that scared her so much she wanted to eat them when we first started classes now she plays with them.