2/11/07 - Noelle has been adopted

2/9/07 - Noelle is pending adoption

1/25/07 - Noelle is fitting in at our house better each day. She’s such a typical puppy in some ways – she has boundless energy for playing with our dogs, fetching, taking walks or just tearing around the backyard at full speed.  Noelle has learned how to play nicely with the other dogs and responds very well to corrections from them when she oversteps her bounds (literally oversteps, she occasionally gets over excited and will step on someone sleeping, she apologizes very nicely when they snark).  She’s good with the kids that live in my house who are 7 and 10 years old and, as with most boxer pups, she might be a little much for smaller children.  She’s not a bad girl but with the running and the jumping that can go on she could and almost certainly would knock a smaller child down.  If you’re ok with that she’d be good in your house!

Noelle is 99.9% housebroken.  I leave that last .1% in there because she will not ask to go out in any kind of an obvious manner.  She’ll pace and go to the door but if the humans don’t catch it they may find themselves stepping in a puddle.   We haven’t had an accident in a long time because we’re watchful for her signals and she’s grateful not to be put in a position where she can’t get outside.

Noelle continues to amaze us as to how well she does with NOT putting her mouth on things that don’t belong to her.  She’s very advanced for her age ;-).  She loves toys of all sorts, especially if she can tempt a human into a game of fetch.  If she can’t get you to play with one toy she’ll go looking for another that you might like better.  We had a particularly amusing scene the other night at our house.  One of her toys, made out of tennis ball material but shaped like a giant childs jack, ended up resting against Satchels chin on the dog bed.  She paced and stared and worried about how to get that toy without disturbing the big dog.  Finally she went and found another one, a squeaky spider.  Since I was fascinated by the amount of respect she was showing our boy after a few tosses I pitched it onto the bed with him as well.  You could almost audibly hear her sigh!  She knew it wasn’t worth retrieving her toy if it meant he’d be upset.  So she paced and stared and tried a couple of different angles then went off and found a ball.   Dogs never cease to amaze me!

I’m shocked this little girl hasn’t found a home yet.  I’m sure her family is out there, I would think they’ve been waiting for her for a while to come along!

12/31/06 - Noelle has pleasantly surprised us at every turn since she arrived in our home.  We were concerned with reports we'd heard about her being aggressive with other dogs but when she arrived here it was very apparent that she was not aggressive but unsure.  After several days of working with her alone and in a group with out other dogs we find that Miss Noelle is very fine with them!  She started out feeling like she had to prove herself to fit in but instead learned that we'd take care of her and there was nothing to worry about.  Noelle now fits in well with our two boxers, one male, one female and sleeps, plays and eats with them during the times we're around to supervise.  I'm sure she will do just fine with another dog in the house she goes to!  Noelle seems to be re-learning how to interact with other dogs and I wonder if she's had much contact with others of her own species since she left her mother and any siblings she might have had.  Each day she figures out just a little more what appropriate interaction is and how to play with another dog.

Playing with people is not an issue.  Noelle will play fetch for hours with any toy of your choosing, she has manners when it comes to her food too.  Noelle knew how to sit for her dinner when she came to us, I wonder if she had to shake too.  She's knocked one or two food bowls out of our hands trying to give us her paw as we're putting her dinner down.  Fortunately, that's stopped, the clean up was a pain!  She has lots of good manners - she keeps her feet to herself and is very gentle with her mouth.  We're still working on housebreaking but if that's our only problem, I'll take it!

The last bit of reporting we have to do on Noelle is that - surprise, surprise!  She's already been spayed.  On our trip to the doctor we found a scar and, actually, a suture still in her belly that suggests to the vet she's all set and the vet was willing to sign a spay certificate for us.  Noelle had her vaccines and a negative heartworm result so once we get her fecal sample results back on Tuesday she will have a clean bill of health.

I have some nice pictures of our Noelle baby that I will send along as soon as I'm on a compatible computer - she is one cutie pie!  You'll love her as soon as you meet her!