Crystal

Eve and Virginia, I just wanted to let you know how things are going here with Crystal. We are really happy with her. She has not had one accident in the house and she loves to run along the fence with the neighbor’s Dog (Coco). When she runs, she looks like a bunny hopping or a fox bounding through snow, it’s fun to watch her get so much exercise. She’s been really good with the kids, too. We really like that she doesn’t bark, that’s pretty nice. The only problem we’ve had is that she does try to escape through the front door and even in the back yard, and she did successfully escape yesterday morning and Chris had to track her down through about six neighbors’ yards. So now we supervise her in the yard (and put up a bigger baby-gate on the side where she jumped) until we come up with a solution to the areas she could potentially get out. We’re thinking major construction on the side of the deck to build an actual gate and raise the height of it all the way along where she could jump. I don’t think if she ran away again she would stay gone long but I don’t want her to get hit by a car or anything. I think that it’s also a game/entertainment for her to get out and have us chase her, find a dog to play with, etc, so it’s understandable. When she’s done with the antibiotics, I’m going to attempt to train her to do some simple things: sit, stay, and maybe come. It will take 30-45 minute training sessions for a long time, but I’m looking forward to her learning some things. I’m sure she’ll advance at least a little because she’s still under 5 years old. She also tries to get human food by jumping up on people, so I would like to train her to stop that. So all in all we’re doing great. For myself, it feels like I’ve always had her. She also reminds me so much of the golden retriever my Dad had so many years ago. We are all very happy to have her and she seems very happy to be here. I also went out and purchased a new dog collar and leash for her, so any time I can mail the ones you left here back to you so you can use them for other dogs if you’d like. I would just need your address or the address of the place I should send it. Just let me know. Thanks again for making the trip all the way up here to St. Joseph, we really love this dog. Sincerely, Valerie Thompson