Growing in Trust and Confidence

When we first adopted Macho, I expected him to take a long time to come around. But the more time we spend with him, the more social he becomes.

I think Macho grows significantly over the weekend when we are home all day rather than at when we are at work for part of the day. Over this weekend, he came out of his cage, laid in the living room in his bed, and came up to us while we were hanging out on the couch. He comes out of his cage when we have guests, and although you can tell he is nervous, he will eat queso out of their hands. I think this is a huge step!

The cutest thing happened yesterday. Nick's roommate bought her dog a big raw hide bone. Macho was laying in his cage, and after only smelling the bone, he got up and came over to smell it. Five minutes later, I was in the kitchen and heard a little noise. I looked over, and Macho had stolen the bone from Dora and had it in front of him. Dora came a little later to take it back and left it in the living room. I went to sit back down in the living room, and the next thing I know, Macho came prancing over, grabbed the huge bone in his little month and ran away with it! It was so cute to see this bone in his month that is obviously too big for him. When Dora came to take it back for the second time, Macho stole it again and put it in his bed this time. Of course, I had to go to the store to buy Macho the same bone. I'm going to give it to him tonight. Hopefully he is as excited as he was last night.

I'm still trying to get Macho on a leash, but it's really not working too well. I'm hoping to try more this weekend. I get nervous because he gets very scared when we make him face his fears because sometimes he will be afraid of you for a couple days. But he always turns around and trusts you after some time. He was very afraid of me for a couple days after I clipped his nails. He did great, the noise of the clippers scared him, but other than that he was brave. But when I tried to do his left paws, he got scared again. I still have not been able to clip them, so hopefully that is something I can get to soon!

I just have to tell myself that it will take some time for him to truly trust us. I know one day he will, and I can't wait for it. I just want to cuddle him and be able to pet him while he is outside of his cage. But I know when that day comes, all of our patience will be worth it, and the reward of adopting this little guy will be better than we could have ever imagined.

A Macho Introduction

Macho: The Beginning
From the moment I saw Macho's picture in the newspaper, I knew I had to adopt him. His photo was next to a story about a local situation I was somewhat familiar with. Although I knew that adopting a dog, especially one that was neglected and lived in horrible conditions, is a huge decision, I had almost made up my mind. I called the animal shelter, and he was still available for adoption. Excited and nervous, I made an appointment to meet this little guy that stole my heart. Meeting Macho was not all I expected. He stayed in the back of his cage, would not show any interest in us, and shook with fear the entire time. Needless to say, it broke my heart, and I knew then that I wanted to take him home. After a lot of deliberation, and a lot of tears, Nick and I decided that we wanted to give him a loving home.

Bringing Macho Home

Again, excited and nervous, we brought Macho home on January 5th. My excitement wore off after about 10 minutes when it finally sank in that this dog is terrified of us and his new home. For days he did not come out of his cage even though the door was left open for him. When he did come out, he would only stay out for a minute or two and would just sniff furniture or climb on it. He will eat cheese, or queso as we call it, and treats from our hands. After a couple days, he let us pet him while he layed in the cage. Day-by-day, these little progressions happened more often.

One Month Later

Macho comes out of his cage all the time now! I get excited when we come home from work because he is at the front of his cage ready to come out. I know it's probably because he has to go to the bathroom, but it still makes me happy that he doesn't like to spend all his time in the cage. He also has not gone to the bathroom in his bed/cage for weeks now. We take his bed out of the cage while we are home, and he likes to lay in the living room where he can see what we're doing. He is also very curious of what we are doing when we leave the room. He will come into the bedroom when we are both in there, and just this past weekend he jumped onto the bed and laid with us! He trusts us more and more each day, but is still not used to us petting or touching him while he is outside of his cage. I still have not picked him up or held him, but Nick has picked him up a couple times. He definitely does not like it. Now I am trying to get him to go on a leash. After hooking it on his collar and letting him walk around the living room a couple times, he is now terrified of it. Whenever I even pick up the leash, he runs away from me. I really think it will be good for him to get on a leash and go outside, but right now he is not having it. He hasn't been outside since we brought him home, so this is something I look forward to working with him on.

Pictures

Hanging out in the papasan

One ear always down :)

Getting really close to us!

More comfortable in his new home