Cobalt: Progress!

Yesterday was Cobalt's first day with us away at work. We've started to work out a bit of a toilet schedule for her -- her favourite times seem to be about 10 am and 2 am. Which is a little awkward.

Our plan, for the moment, is to feed her and take her out to the back yard in the morning, then leave her in her pen with a potty-pad until I return at lunch. This takes care of the 10 am -- it's not ideal, since we want to get her away from using the pads, but it's better than her messing her crate.

I fed her at lunch and took her out again (no results), but this time put her in her crate until we got back from work. We figured that'd be safe given her schedule-to-date.

Taking her out after work and after dinner didn't produce any breakthroughs on the potty front, but she has made progress in one area: she's figured out the back porch stairs! After work, L headed back to the house and Cobalt followed. She managed to get up about three steps before getting confused and falling back down again. But by the third time out that evening, she was taking the stairs without trouble -- and this morning, she signaled that she wanted to go in by running up the stairs and waiting by the door, without us leading her.

After dinner -- and her first successful run up the stairs -- we sat her on the bed and settled in to watch TV. Unfortunately, we haven't yet figured out how to tell the difference between exploratory sniffing and sniffing around for a good toilet spot. So the duvet cover ended up in the wash. She's fast!

But we have made progress -- her 1am and after-breakfast visits to the yard produced results, and earned her extensive hot dog rewards. So we're getting there.

Today, the big event is the trip to the vet. This should be interesting.