Cheney is a very small, three year old Rat Terrier with Issues who was adopted by my friend when he was about one and a half years old. A couple of months ago, my friend was bemoaning the fact that she would never go on vacation again because she wouldn’t ask a critter sitter to take care of Cheney. My friend is our backup for whoever takes care of our critters when we travel, so I told her he could come stay here. He is also Orion’s best friend, at least when Orion is visiting his house.
Since we were worried about how Cheney would get on, she brought him out for several trial runs. The first time he was worried, but at least not catatonic. (If Cheney was a person, I would say he had some sort of severe anxiety disorder.) During the second, longer trial a few days ago when my friend left for a few hours, he was still worried but actually showed signs of interacting with me, the environment and the other dogs. So yesterday I went to pick up Cheney so he could stay for a few days.
It is going quite well. Yesterday, I was gating dogs into various groups inside the house so they wouldn’t be in a critical mass while they adjusted. I also put Cheney in his crate a few times when he seemed overloaded. After the first few hours, Lody, the old Collie, decided he could be safely ignored. Lightning, the Sheltie, seems to like him. Lily seems to like him. And Orion thinks it is terrific, though I’ve had to put Rion in time out when he gets too boisterous for the other dogs.