New Dog

So... I'm supposed to be saving up $$$. We need to do repairs, and basically remodel our condo: the floors are a wreck, the windows need to be replaced, the bathroom is something of a joke. We don't have a stove or a full-sized fridge. I also have student loans to pay off, we should be saving for baby's college, etc. 

But instead of being sensible with money 

I got us another dog: 

a Standard Poodle that needed to be re-homed. 

We found her on Craig's List Indianapolis and picked her up after visiting friends in Indiana. They named her Cinderella and called her Cindy. We weren't crazy about that, and I don't approve of giving animals human names anyway, so Lily named her after another Standard Poodle she liked, Briska. 

She's supposedly pure-bred, but we're still waiting to get the papers; I have my doubts about it. She definitely has a good poodle form in the body and coat, her muzzle is a little robust for a poodle though. She's mostly cream colored - her owners wanted an apricot dog, but she lightened from her apricot color to cream with pink-ish apricot markings on the head, belly and butt, which is a little weird. We're talking about maybe dying her pink all over in the summer time. Her markings are odd, which would make her less desirable but are ultimately irrelevant - to us anyway. (Her owners were a load of "gingers" and were disappointed that she didn't come out all red-haired like them.) 

More iffy is the fact that she's not yet 2 years old and has already had a litter of pups. I didn't get the whole story there - the story that was offered seemed somewhat false, so I didn't bother to dig on it, not having time or energy to decode a knot of lies. In addition to the undesirable markings and robust muzzle she has a funny shape to one eyelid; basically only an irresponsible person would breed her, and really, only an irresponsible breeder would sell her without a spay agreement. So, she may well be pure-bred, she's not particularly well-bred, if you get my meaning. Hopefully her health and temperament are sound. We'll see eh?

The important thing is that after half a week she seems to be showing better poodle character - playful, gentle, and focused on the baby. 

We definitely have training issues to deal with: basically she was not trained at all but left to wander aimlessly around the house and yard, exhibiting unchecked dominance behaviors which undermine her confidence. She seems to have no pre-existing clue what "sit", "down", "come here" or even "No" mean. Yikes.  Her owners thought she was timid, but I think she was just insecure as untrained dogs will tend to be. She doesn't seem skittish at all, which is good. For a while I thought maybe she was a bit stupid (poodles are typically intelligent) but now I think that was just training neglect showing. Today she went down for her morning frisk-about the without difficulty, walked and ran in "heel" position with Lily off-leash, was focused on her, and very responsive to verbal correction. 

So far so good!  :)