Angel, Day 4: Pilgrim’s Progress
I just had a golden afternoon with Angel. She’d been given some quiet time in her crate. But she scratched at the crate door, so I gated off the kitchen to give her a quiet zone with open access to her crate. After an hour or so, she was stretching up to look over the gate. So I diapered her (itself a nice cuddle opportunity) and then took down the gate. This led to a period of exploration, with the thrilling development that her tail was curled up over her back for the very first time!
Then she asked to come up on the couch. So I picked her up. It’s really a futon, and we had left it folded down so the three dogs would have lots of room. In this case, Angel had a whole corner to curl up in all by herself, while I gave Paris some much-needed petting. After a while, though, Angel came up and nudged me for petting! That was incredibly sweet. And it was extraordinarily satisfying to respond to her various requests, because I knew that no one else in her whole life had ever cared what she wanted. The other big development today was that Angel actually took a treat from my hand. She’s still not sure she wants to repeat the experiment, but it’s progress!