Journey works the crowd

Some scenes from an upcoming Ben Stiller movie are being filmed in our neighborhood this week, so last night on our walk we (Journey, Finn, my son and me) headed on over to the "set". The film crew had a group of about 20 neighbors huddled together on a driveway from where we could watch Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn film an outside scene. There was a LOT of waiting in-between takes and long periods of "quiet on the set". Journey was amazing in this setting. He was totally calm and just meandered through the group of people, introducing himself and familiarizing himself with all the sights and smells. Journey and Finn received lots of affection and stroking and never tired of the attention. People really liked Journey and wanted to know if he was a rescue from the tracks. Many people commented on how sweet and calm he was. I heard more than one person say, "I thought they [racing greyhounds] would be hyper." This is probably a fairly common misconception. We spent nearly an hour in this group of people, before we continued on our walk, without incident. I think Journey is going to make a great family dog.

If you read yesterday's post, thought you might like to see Journey enjoying his kong in his crate. This was an afternoon treat while I needed him to be in his crate so I could be free to do house cleaning.



This next video was taken just after Finn and Journey had some outside time and were playing in the front room while I typed this nearby. Journey really wants Finn to play with him!

Getting some freedom in the house

We've been experimenting with giving Journey off-lead, supervised time in the house. He is curious and interested in checking out everything in a room, and is surprisingly good about not mouthing or chewing on things. We have a toy basket filled with stuffies for Journey and Finn and he seems to understand that these are the acceptable things to play with. When he occasionally does grab a "no-no", he responds very well and quickly to correction. He likes to play with stuffies, especially the ones that make noise. Finn has a bunny that is HIS, and Journey has been very good about respecting that. Journey's favorites seem to be the horse and duck. We've been introducing him to stuffed kongs in his crate and it only took him a couple of days to be able to nearly clean out his kong each time! I love this way of giving a treat and helping to alleviate boredom. I just finished stuffing some kongs with cream of celery soup, yogurt, and mashed up meatballs. They should be ready for Journey and Finn this afternoon : )

Here are a couple of videos of Journey playing with horse and just learning to relax on a bed in the family room. "Learning to relax on a bed", might seem pretty intuitive, but remember, just a few short weeks ago, all he knew was track life and living in a crate surrounded by lots and lots of other greyhounds. Everything is still so NEW.

Our first week with Journey

Our first week as Journey's foster family has been fun and interesting. We first had to teach him all about stairs! At first, we literally had to place each paw in position, one at a time (that's four paw moves per stair!). But Journey is a brave boy and he is now a pro at going up and down the deck and carpeted stairs to the basement. The hardwood stairs up to the bedrooms are still a challenge, but he is getting it and gets better all the time. Journey was also leery of the hardwood flooring in the house at first, but once he figured out that going slowly was better than trying to run (presumably to get off the scary floor faster) he is conquering that fear too. Our greyhound, Finn, and Journey are getting along fine. Journey would love for Finn to play with him and he has shown us a really silly and fun side of his personality, trying to get Finn to be silly too. Today is Journey's first day to be off-lead in the fenced backyard (now he's all healed up from his neutering last week). He loves to be outside and seems fascinated by every sight, sound and smell! Here are two videos we took today; one shows how well he is doing on the deck stairs.