Starbucks therapy

It's been one whole month since Olive arrived and she's been getting more grounded every day, so it was time to up the ante a bit with a visit to the outside world. At Starbucks, she would encounter the usual urban chaos: street traffic, rumbling trucks, strangers, metal chair feet scraping across the cement. It would be a telling exercise.

When she first came to us after her 18 months-long stint in isolation, she was a walking stress machine: fearful, flinchy and tail-tucked, not unlike some of our more sensitive Vick dogs who needed months and even years to learn how to handle daily life and recoup their confidence. (Olive's back story) This exercise would give us a good view into what kind of work we'd have ahead to get her ready for adoption.

Well, if you heard a big sigh of relief yesterday coming from Oakland, that would be us.


The visit was perfectly uneventful - perfectly normal. Olive was fine during the car ride, delighted to be out, happy to beg our sandwiches - and finally, she got a little bored. Bored!

My latte never tasted so good.



There's more work ahead, but Olive is telling us that she's ready for it. Yahoo!