Senna the office dog!

So there it went. Holiday over. Three weeks just flew by. Since Senna's regular "daycare" (Tuomo's mum) is currently travelling through Europe Senna came with Tuomo to work Thursday and Friday of this week. And a good little toimistokoira (that's office dog in Finnish) she was! Apparently she charmed everyone by being such a calm and well-behaved little girl. Her basket was put into Tuomo's office along with some chews, toys and her water bowl and there she was happily sleeping for the best part of the day, not complaining when Tuomo had to leave her alone in the room for periods of time at all. She's also a lot better in the car nowadays. She now sits by our feet on the passenger's side and feels happy there, sleeping most of the journey.

We started leaving her alone for periods of time in the evening some time ago when she was tired and fed and she was so good about it from the start, apparently feeling secure in the knowledge that we would return. In the beginning left her alone for very short periods, standing outside the front door listening for whining, but nothing. Not a squeak. Now we have started leaving her when she's fully awake as well with the same result. When we return we usually wake her up, so I guess she sleeps through it. Maybe it has been really easy since she was a very independent little girl from the start, not wanting to sleep in our bedroom in her basket, preferring to be on her own in the living room. Generally she's a very confident little pup.

This week I took her on her first bus journey! That was very exciting! We were going to have picnic in the sun with some work mates of mine outside our office. She was really good all the time, being more curious than anything, sniffing around wildly wanting to say hi to all the passengers on the bus. And a lot of people were of course "ooooing and aaaaing" when they saw her:) I held her in my arms the whole trip and she settled down after a while. The picnic was even more exciting. For the first time in her life she met a group of 20 people all wanting to say hi to her! Needless to say she was very excited about all the new friends and their nice food:) I made sure to eat beforehand since I imagined I'd have my hands full trying to stop her from stealing everyone's food and giving everyone a complete facial wash:) I brought her chews and a toy and after what seemed like forever she finally settled in my lap after some persuasion. Needless to say she was already dropping off on the journey back and when we got home she went straight to sleep and didn't wake up until a good few hours later:) Zzzzzzzzz.

Housebreaking training is going well! She now realises that the lift and the landing is NOT part of outside so she holds it until we go through the doors downstairs. Not thinking about the fact that she now knows to do her stuff outside I opened the balcony door yesterday only to see Senna run out to relieve herself on the balcony:) Of course her logic is sound, it IS strictly speaking outside, and that's where you do your stuff:) Clever girl. Silly me:)

This week I have discovered that no fewer than 3 of my colleagues have recently got puppies as well! In addition to Senna there's one Newfie puppy, one Cocker spaniel and one Schnauzer! We are seriously thinking about campaigning for puppy day-care at work:)