Maisy's New Ability to Recover from Stress

Recently, I found myself without a dog sitter. We have always left Maisy with a trusted family member (and Maisy adores them, so we know they're doing it right), but unfortunately, we had plans the same weekend they did! None of my friends can take Maisy for a variety of reasons (mostly because they all have crazy dogs, too), so we were stuck.

 Maisy loves Uncle Jim. Too bad he couldn't take her this time.

Then someone told me about A Dog Spot, a boarding facility about two hours away, run by some mutual friends of ours. They started A Dog Spot because they hated leaving their own "crazy" dogs with people, and I went to Clicker Expo with one of them, so I figured it would be okay.

Okay? It was amazing. They talked to me on the phone every day, telling me what Maisy was up to, and how much they loved her (well, how could they not?). When they noticed that Maisy winced every time the metal door shut, they padded it for her. They spent tons of one-on-one time with her. I was very pleased.

Maisy spent four days there, so I expected her to come home and be a bit stressed out. I took behavior logs since I'm still interested on how quickly she bounces back from stress, after all. And here's the absolutely awesome part: I wrote nothing down. Nothing for an entire week!

I am so, so excited. One of my huge goals for when I chose to put Maisy on medication was for her to be able to recover from stress quicker, and I'd say we've met that goal now. I also cannot say how pleased I was with the staff at A Dog Spot. Seriously, if you live in northern Iowa, southern Minnesota, or southwest Wisconsin- check them out.