Hi all, I hope you've been well!

I'm still on art hiatus, but my arms are a little better already. I still have rest pains, but considerably less than before.
Instead of drawing/ painting I wanted to do some sculpting, but only a day after my last journal I took in a small dog who quickly needed a new home, so he's taken up most of my time until now.

His actual name is Batman, but I call him Bats. My sister pointed out that now we have Batman and Robin with us I never realized, because we always call the other dog only Rob.
Bats is now 10 months old and a Chihuahua x Papillon mix. I'm already his third owner now, but he's definitely going to stay here. He's such a sweet and well behaved dog, and he's a fast and willing learner. And to top it off he looks every little bit as cute as he is inside:


He was quite distrustful of new people and wasn't trained much when I got him. When I first saw him he was sitting under a chair and watching us from a save distance, although I could see a liiittle bit of curiosity. Apparently his former environment was a little too changing and unpredictable for his sensitive nature, so he became rather inhibited overall and also formed a habit of barking at new people. I thought it would take me ages to get him to open up when I brought the trembling thing home.
Luckily he must have felt something in my room, because once he was there it didn't even take him 2 minutes to visibly relax and he started to explore the room and play with his toys, something he didn't do much before according to the first owner. It was really stunning.

One of the first things I did was taking him to a vet, and I went home with a nice hole in my bank account. He had fleas and preputial inflammation, and I'll most likely have to bring him back to have some persistent baby teeth removed and to have him neutered, because one of his testicles still didn't come down which can cause problems when he gets older. Apart from that his digestion can't handle every type of dog food, so I'm feeding him some really good (and really expensive) stuff, but he loves it and can digest it properly.

Since he wasn't accustomed to go outside I slowly started to go for walks with him, and he loves it so much despite the cold weather! At first he barked at every person he saw, but with some treats he quickly learned that they weren't dangerous at all. Going for walks also did much good for his housebreaking. He was using the cat toilets before (and rather messily at that - not a good combi with carpeting), but rarely does now. He's also beginning to call when he needs to go out.
Over the weeks he got to know the rest of the family and learned to like them (the women faster than my dad, as he's not so comfortable around men).
I also train(ed) him to do some silly tricks like kissing, giving both paws, putting his nose to my thumb or dancing, which is almost ridiculously easy. The more serious/ complex stuff takes longer, but he can sit, lay down and mostly comes immediately when I call him. He's also getting better with the dogs we meet on our walks, and doesn't bark at them every time anymore.
On walks he was sometimes afraid to go on and just stopped and refused to go on, but even this was quickly managed with some encouragement and a generous treat after he bravely managed.

All in all, I now have a happy, active, well behaved, willing and quite normal young companion instead of the inhibited, anxious puppy I thought I was getting, and I'm super glad he likes to be here and enjoys his new family.

Now I'm curious to know, did any of you have similar/ other unforgettable experiences with your pets? Please share if you like, I'd love to read them!

~ Josefine