Ten weeks on and Chicco has finally begun acting like a happy young
dog. Sunday the whole family (11 of us) gathered at a cousin's house
for a bayram (holiday) dinner and because I still can't leave Chicco
alone for extended periods of time he accompanied me. He was very well
behaved, remaining in mostly a sit-stay position by my side the whole
time and not begging anything from the table. Very good performance
overall. We returned home towards midnight and as soon as we were
inside the house it was like a dam broke or something: he began racing
wildly and joyfully back and forth between the living room and the
bedroom: up onto the couch or armchair, down onto the floor, into the
bedroom, up onto the bed, back to the living room, repeat. He kept
this up for about ten minutes and then he did something he's never
done in the ten weeks he's been with me: he went to a little basket
that we keep his chewed bones in and picked out a toy-a kind of soft
spiky rubber ball that used to belong to Bal?m and I held onto for a
nephew and niece's dog that I sometimes take care of when they're
away-and began tossing it around and pouncing on it. He'd never showed
this kind of behavior before, never showed any sort of interest in
play or indeed in any object that wasn't edible. This gave me an idea
so I got out an old sock of mine whose toe was close to developing a
hole, tied it in a knot and initiated the pull-toy game. He took to it immediately. After making sure he understood the game, I tossed the
sock and he raced after it, picked it up, and began shaking it
vigorously like a terrier killing a rat. After a few tries he learned
to bring the sock back to me so I could toss it again. Repeat. We kept
this up for close to half an hour. We both slept very soundly that
night.

I'm not sure why this happened. Perhaps he's finally got over the
trauma of being abandoned.

--
Bob
St Francis would have done better to preach to the cats

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