I was extremely distracted this morning with watching the Olympic eventing showjumping (oh my god what a finish) but we’ll talk about my thoughts on all that tomorrow. Since I’m now crunched for time today I figured we’d do a quick Mina update on how she’s been settling in!

She’s been with me for two weeks now, and really she’s settled in quite well. She’s got some quirks, for sure, but she’s a super super sweet dog that really just wants more than anything else to be loved. She hasn’t done anything truly wrong at all – no accidents in the house, no attempted escapes, no chewing, etc. Mina does get a little overstimulated sometimes still and her ability to listen sort of goes out the window, but that’s fair. She’s been an apartment dog her whole life and coming to a farm is quite literally a whole new world.

At first she was quite horrified by the horses (she can see them out the living room window) and the neighbor’s cows (she can see them from the porch) but she doesn’t bark at them anymore, she mostly just watches them. She learned pretty quickly that she’s not allowed to duck under our yard’s fence to go into the horse pastures, thank goodness. One on one she’s definitely intimidated by them, but shows zero inclination to want to chase them or be aggressive, she mostly just goes to her default behavior when she’s worried or excited – flopping over onto her back. If she wants to stay wary of them, that’s fine by me, because a few of these horses will for sure chase her if she gets too bold.

She’s already earned a nickname, Beans, which I use much more frequently than her actual name. It started at Mina, morphed to Meens, then to Meens Beans, and now it’s pretty much just Beans or Jelly Beans or Jumping Beans (although I was astonished to find out just how many different types of beans I could think of, once I started listing them off at her one day). That’s how you know they’re officially part of the family I guess, when you rarely use their real name anymore.

When I go down to the barn in the morning to ride she dutifully sits on the couch and stares out the window, watching us do all the morning chores and rides from afar. When I walk back to the house I can see her through the window, nose pressed up against it. That whole window is just constantly covered in noseprints, it’s pretty cute. She doesn’t panic when I leave though, which is definitely nice. I was a little worried how she’d be about that having had a shelter experience times two. She just dutifully goes to the couch to wait, though.

She’s a pretty energetic and active dog too, she likes to go outside every few hours and chase her ball around or run zoomies around the yard, or go down to the barn with me to feed or throw hay. Her recall has gotten a lot better already, she does come when I call her (usually the first time but not always) and is better about not zooming ahead quite so much. That’s a work in progress, but I’m definitely not worried about her trying to bolt or escape. She’s more likely to chase me down than vice versa.

Really she’s proving to be a great dog so far, and having her here has definitely helped me cope with the back to back losses of Stewie and Quinn. She makes me laugh every day, that’s for sure.