We are so besotted with Lucy, our recent beagle/basset adoptee. She had some training before us (she sits beautifully) but is now SO responsive with positive reinforcement based training. She's a smart dog and the star of the class; I'm a proud parent who is happy to hear other people also think that her "kid" is sweet and quick to learn.

We have done pretty well in the past few weeks adapting to her coming to work on days when I'm not in meetings (most days.) 90% of the time she is mellow and quiet. She REALLY loves other dogs; unfortunately she is a little over-eager and playful, so we are working on rewarding her for waiting and letting other dogs come to her, and she's starting to learn to back off from other dogs who aren't a fan of her enthusiasm. There are some dogs at our apartment that play well with her, and I think we are going to start looking into a small dog play group at our training school.

The biggest struggle has been attention barking at work-barking to attract play is the only time she gets vocal (and thankfully it's rate.) At home we can simply walk out of the room and the barking stops, which is what our instructor wants us to do. At work, I'm in a room with other people and therefore I can't walk out easily, and need to put a stop to the barking more quickly. I'm wary of getting into the negative reinforcement/escalation cycle by scolding her or spraying with water bottles; not what we want. I try to reward her when she *is* being quiet, which is a lot of the time; short spurts of games or clicker training and walks throughout the day, puzzle toys with her kibble in it, chew toys. But if she starts to bark it's hard to de-escalate and frustrating as I don't want to annoy/distract coworkers. She's starting to view her bed/mat as a calm space and gets rewarded when she sits or lays down on it, so that's a start. Most days go ok at work; she's much more happy and tired when we get home.

I do think there's a bit of trauma from being left at the shelter. She is already very attached to B. and I; she likes being around other people but we have seen her get quite anxious when one of us leaves and she's in an unfamiliar place. At home and at the office she's fine (though not thrilled about being left alone) if we need to leave her; but in unfamiliar places, she gets very upset (shutting down and becoming super reserved for a while, or anxiously trying to see where we have gone) like she fears being left somewhere new and us not coming back.
We have a vacation planned without her in November, so before then, we will need to carefully get her used to whoever will watch her, making sure she knows it's a safe place and that we will come back.

These photos show various sides of our sweet, playful pup. We love her so. I can't describe how great it is to have a dog in our lives again.