homeward bound
On March 5th when we came to collect Ziggy and bring her home to Fredericton, we were grateful to have had such a nice, long visit with you and the puppies the evening before. We appreciated the advice you gave us to make sure we did all the right things in the first formative weeks.
spin the wheel
Ziggy is a peach of a puppy. Tiny and tender and tentative at first, she has really blossomed over the last weeks. She’s as smart as a whip. We’ve not only been intrigued by watching her explore the world with her nose, eyes, and dexterous paws, but also entertained by her billy goat jumping around the yard, her playfulness, and her ability to figure things out, such as how to spin the wheel on the upside-down wheelbarrow mostly buried in the snow.
She has been completely house trained for several weeks and even stands by the door and barks if needed. She sleeps soundly through the night in her bedroom crate and soundly during the afternoon in her front hall crate. She was a star puppy on her first vet visit and has garnered attention from one and all for her sweet temperament and adorableness.
Ziggy has had positive interactions with little and big dogs, different puppies, two cats, neighbouring families and many different people ranging from a 2-year old boy to a 98-year old woman, a woman in a wheelchair, tattooed and pierced teenagers with multi-coloured hair, and a busy 7 year old boy riding his bike and doing handstands off a Pilates ball. Gervais, our bearded and sunglasses-wearing mailman who wears a hat and carries two bulging bags of mail, now knows Ziggy and calls her by name, pets her, scratches her behind the ears, and cannot believe that she is as calm as she is at such a young age .
On the wooden walking bridge across the St. John River, Ziggy has been fine and has handled the varied busyness of the bridge: joggers, cyclists, walkers, strollers, kids on scooters, children, seniors, and other dogs. She met an entire busload of pre-schoolers in snowsuits one day in the park and then sat on the bridge by the frozen pond, watching and listening and smelling as the screeching kids played in the snow. She’s able to go up and down just a few steps (not a whole flight yet), and has ridden on an elevator and has gone through automatic doors and was not freaked out by the clanking of a train of grocery carts while meeting new people outside the Superstore. She’s completely relaxed in the car and seems to enjoy looking out the window.
Ziggy at the University of New Brunswick
We’ve recently had a visit to the library where I work and Ziggy had her first unofficial session as a therapy dog; bringing joy to staff members and a whole host of stressed out students who said, after meeting her, that they could now continue studying for their exams. We are going to have a quick visit with our groomer Yvette next week so they can meet. Soon we will go visit my friend Andree who lives in a retirement home.
I’d like Ziggy to be a therapy dog to visit seniors, and so far she is looking like she’ll be a good fit! People cannot believe how calm she is for puppy. She is still very sweet and getting more confident every day. She comes right away when I whistle and she stays close. In Pet Smart while all the other dogs are going wild, she lies down and puts her head on my foot or Mark’s foot.
Friends and family across North America and Europe are enamored with Ziggy’s photos and want to meet her in dog. We may take a road trip this summer to Ontario so that the original Sieglinde Nicholson in Toronto can meet her namesake, Sieglinde Lavinia (Ziggy Lulu).
Patti, Mark & Ziggy Lulu
