12/17/07 - Farah is doing great.  She was so good on the ride home.  Did not cry at all.  She seems to have acclimated herself to our family well.  She likes to play hard and  poops herself out.  It was fun to see her in the snow, we had to make paths for her all over the yard so she could go out to play and bathroom.  She is a crazy dog.  We love her more and more every day.  I bought her a nice leopard velvet bed, and all new toys, no she is not spoiled.  She had a few accidents but mostly due to my not being on top of things.  She is a creature of comfort, loves to cuddle.  She wakes up in morning, goes outside then runs upstairs onto my bed and we snuggle for a while.  She seems to have attached herself to me and Kirstie as far as her needs go.  She is really into chewing and teething,  my hands are a mess.  We will send some updated pictures to you after the holidays.

12/8/07 - Farah is on her way with her new forever family.  A bittersweet moment for us, as it always is
 with our fosters.  She was VERY happy and excited to meet her new family.  We're very happy to say
 she had a wonderful last evening with us.  It snowed yesterday and she LOVED and I mean LOVED
 playing in the snow - it made for a nice night.   We wish her and her new family some wonderfully fun
 new adventures.

11/30/07 - Farah is pending adoption
I can’t believe another week has flown by for Farah.  Her nighttime crankiness is under control.  A simple, firm “no” puts her on track.  Plus we’ve realized she is teething something fierce and her gums/teeth are just so uncomfortable.  We bought her a good nubby bone and are keeping some nice hard toys nearby for her to gnaw on which is helping immensely
She is really loving running around the back yard.  During the day we let her off leash and she has a blast!  She really loves running around with our 6 year old and it’s a great way for both of them to burn off their energy without tiring the grown-ups.  Our yard is too big and too dark at night to do this – so she is on leash at night time even though the yard is fenced in.
She’s had some more access to our cat, whom amazingly is still with us.  We turned our backs for a minute and Farah did great.  Coors was on top of the back of the couch and Farah apparently jumped on the couch to greet her.  This happened while we were out of the room for a minute.  No growls or anything!  We don’t want them having unsupervised access as our cat is quite old and frail and even in play, Farah could do some damage.  And our cat does have claws – so we wouldn’t want Farah getting any clawed whacks either!
Everything else is moving along well.  Her housetraining is coming along.  If she’s behind a babygate or in her crate she will signal us with a bark that she has to “go”.  If she’s out in the open, we have to keep an eye on her.  She won’t always signal, but we will see her circling and sniffing which is our cue.  We’re working on bell training.  Our resident boxer rings bells hanging on the door to let us know when he has to go, so we’ll work on Farah doing the same thing.
She’s great in the car and really loves people!  She is quite active all day, but really loves to snuggle up with her humans at night-time before bed.  I can see her graduating out of being crated at night in no-time flat.  If she was ours and not a foster, we’d be trying this ourselves.

11/23/07 - What a great Thanksgiving Farah has had!  She is enjoying having company throughout the day due to
 Foster Mom being off from work since Wednesday.  And she did quite well with our out of the ordinary schedule on T-Day.  Farah had her vet visit earlier this week and is now UTD on her shots.  The vet pronounced her in great health!  She weighed in at a whopping 22 lbs.  Over doubling her weight since she came here.
She is so ready for her forever home to welcome her with open arms.  We forgot to give you some great updates on her schedule.  She is now staying in her crate, overnight, for between 9 and 10 hours!  On few occasions I couldn't get home for lunch and she did a-okay with being in her crate for 7 hours during the day.  Although I really prefer her to have a break 1/2 way through, just to stretch those active puppy legs with an outdoor potty break/short walk.
She plays better by herself in the morning and afternoon with a good toy.  In the evening she really wants you to interact with her.  However, she tends to get a little "nipping" in with her night-time play. And we've figured out why.  When she starts nipping too much during play, we put her in her crate - and she doesn't bark, whimper or cry about it...she immediately settles in for the night. As this has become a nightly ritual, we're equating her nightime nippiness to a baby/toddler getting cranky when they are due for bedtime.  It's actually become a good signal for us to know when she is done for the night or needs a daytime "nap".
She is listening to commands from our 6 year old son quite well now.  We only have to intervene once in a while.  She is getting better at greeting us on all fours.  We can't believe how much she is growing and maturing and can't wait for her to find her forever home so they can enjoy her as much as we are.

11/13/07 - Farah has been having a great week.  She is growing in leaps and bounds.  Only periodically does she challenge our leadership and has learned quickly that it doesn’t get her far.  She is an extremely athletic and agile girl.  She would be great for obstacle course competitions.  She loves trying to climb our son’s slide…she makes it halfway up and then slides back down.  Her leaps and jumps look effortless, almost like she is just gliding through the air.
She really is remarkable.  And you ask yourself, so why haven’t we decided not to keep her for ourselves?  It is because we know 2 dogs in our house is the limit.  And Farah has reminded us how rewarding fostering is.  Most dogs have one idiosyncrasy or another.  And we love having the opportunity to work with these fur-kids and get them turned around and ready to be adopted into a forever family.  If we adopted Farah, we wouldn’t be able to do that again for quite a long time.
She is so playful.  As long as she has a toy that interests her, she can play by herself for an extended period of time – leaving you time to get what you need done. She really enjoys having one long exercise session outside every day.   A couple of shorter ones would also work too.
She loves people and is so excited to greet them.  We are teaching her that it is proper manners to meet others with all FOUR paws on the ground.  And we’ve discovered that she thinks a little cream cheese is the best tasting thing on earth!
We don’t think she’s going to be with us too much longer.  She’s come a long way in the month she has been with us, maturing into a beautiful young lady boxer!  But not without some wonderful, funny, playful boxer puppy antics!

11/6/07 - Wow!  What a great time we are having now.  Farah has really turned around!  It took a couple of weeks of daily diligence and not wavering in our leadership roles.  But Farah finally knows her place in the pack and she is adjusting beautifully.  It took numerous time-outs in her crate for her to realize what is and what is not acceptable behavior.  She is doing great with our six year old son.  She no longer sees him as an interactive chew or play toy.  She is even listening to his commands!
She does have her playful puppy antics moments -- a little nip at some feet passing by -- but a firm, loud and deep "no" or "off" does the trick.  She even knows what "time-out" means.  If we say it when she's getting a little too hyper, she immediately sits to attention. 
And on another positive note, she no longer needs numerous outdoor puppy energy burn sessions.  She just goes in and out for potty breaks throughout the day and one good energy burn, usually in the evening does the trick.  She just needs one good long walk, run, or playtime in our fenced in yard to suffice.  She has gotten very good and burning her energy constructively indoors through indoor play with her toys.  She's great at playing by herself, but really enjoys it if one of us plays with her.  If she starts getting too hyper with interactive play, you just need to tone down the play session or stop for a few for her to regain control.  Her favorite toys are empty water or gator-aid bottles!  They make a lot of noise when she pushes them around on our hardwood floors!
She is really becoming the lady we knew she could be.  She still needs strong leadership to keep on this positive track and will greatly benefit from professional training - both for you and for her.  She was a diamond in the rough, and we are really starting to see her shine!

11/1/07 – Farah is a true puppy…she has her own ideas about how things should be done, but responds equally as enthusiastically to being shown the ‘right’ way to do things. We have been making lots of progress with her over the past week.  We no longer are spraying everything under the sun with bitter apple.  She is no longer attacking foster mom and dad’s feet – she periodically does puppy play and goes to nip them – but a firm immediate “no” is doing the trick.  She still challenges authority, but is learning it gets her nowhere fast.  If we didn’t know better we’d think she had a bit of bull in her—stubborn girl! An occasional time-out in her crate seems to be the best remedy in calming her down when she gets overly excited or headstrong.
When our son runs or plays, she seems to think that he is an interactive chew toy.  Farah can easily get ‘wound up’ and just like a child, hasn’t learned to calm herself down yet. Our son is doing better at reprimanding her and correcting her, but due to his age she pays no attention to him and foster mom or dad needs to help him out.  We know she really loves the little kids, but she just is having trouble learning proper behavior around them and will need 100% “grown up” supervision when she is with them until training is done. 
Her energy burns are lessening.  She needs a good hour in the morning (indoor interactive play works well).  A good 10/15 minute walk on lunch.  And then some periodic indoor and outdoor energy sessions from early afternoon to bedtime that last long enough to burn the energy off.  These sessions need to be long enough to tire her out.  She behaves best when she has constructive, targeted play time.  Farah is the kind of dog who will be required to take obedience classes as much for her owners as for her.…these kinds of classes would really help her focus her energy and mind, ‘cause she is one smart cookie!

10/25/07 - We wanted to let everyone know that we have decided to not adopt Farah.  She is a typical boxer puppy, which means that she is high-energy girl. She needs an owner or family that is ready to direct that energy and sometimes-stubbornness in the right direction! And yes…Farah is a highly energetic bounding boxer puppy!!  She needs to be exercised well with good, long exercise sessions throughout the day.  Outdoors works best to get all that excess energy out of her system.  She needs at least 4 good energy burns a day – in the morning, at lunch, mid-afternoon and again late evening.  Preferably 5 if you can squeeze in another one.  I’m not kidding when I say between mid afternoon and bedtime she needs to burn energy for a good 2-3 of those hours. She has learned sit and it’s progressing nicely with come and off.  She is crate-trained – YAY!  She whimpers for a few minutes if she’s not ready to go in, but settles down quickly. House training is coming along – as with any puppy she needs to go out after she eats, drinks, wakes-up, comes out of her crate, has had playtime.  Basically, if she hasn’t gone out in the past 30 minutes – take her out anyway!  She has a very sweet disposition, when she is not looking to get into mischief.  She is a leaper – so babygates can’t be solely relied on for keeping her safe and secure.  She is fearless and bold!  Stayed tuned for more updates.

10/17/07 - Farah is past that initial stage of being uncertain of her surroundings and her true personality is now shining through.  She is a spitfire, full of energy.  We have learned that baby gates must be push proof.  As small as she is, she uses all of her force to bust them down!!  The newest saying in our house is that "it's time for an energy burn".  She has lots of puppy energy and needs to expend it throughout the day inside and out.  I think we tire out first!!  She is not making any accidents in her crate - YAY!  And she can make it for about 7 hours overnight in her crate, but no more than that yet.  She is a big chewer!  We need to keep her almost constantly engaged with something she can chew on during her waking hours.  She will try to find something if something isn't readily available - this goes for DVD covers, shoes, furniture and even feet - walking feet or just sitting there feet!  Bitter Apple is becoming our best friend! She is a sweet heart!  Loves human contact.  She knows sit and come.  And she's great at going potty outdoors.  A few accidents have happened in the house, but that's because she still has to learn how to signal she has to go.  That will come with time.   She is your typical boxer puppy; lots of love, lots of energy and need lots of guidance!

10/12/07 - Farah is a very sweet girl!  Her owners were heartbroken to give her up, but were putting her needs first.  They knew that apartment living in Manhattan wasn't the best situation for a Bouncing Baby Boxer.  Farah is doing wonderfully and is definitely an "I want to be with you and attached to you boxer".  Presently she is on my lap with her chin resting on the keyboard!  We have been giving her limited access to our 7 year old Boxer Max, but they are doing well with initial intro's.  Farah just wants to play and box with Max; and Max is restraining himself quite well - I think he realizes that he is 9x her size!  She has seen our cat but we are keeping them apart for the sake of our cat, Coors, as sadly Coors is in her final days of her life and we want to keep her remaining time as stress-free as possible. But I don't see any problem with Farah being with cats. Farah is doing great on the house-breaking front.  I've never seen such a young pup do so well in this area! We'll keep you posted on this amazing girl and her antics and adventures.  She is foster to adopt, so we are evaluating how well she will do in our household with our lifestyle and how well our Max will do with her.  We know she enjoys having another dog around, so we'll see if Max can tolerate no longer being an only child. In the meantime, she's being given lots of TLC in our home, and is being treated no differently than any other fur kid in our household...which means she's being spoiled rotten!