Last night.

His bald spot.















Colbert likes to hide under dog beds, especially in corners. That whole ostrich with his head in the sand mentality.
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Yesterday, Colbert went to the vets to be neutered, I was expecting a drugged up, relaxed, and groggy Colbert, much like Buela was back in March. However, he was quite alert, which of course makes sense because his neutering was less traumatic than a hysterectomy. I will let D tell the story about what happened at bed time:

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So the little guy is slowly coming out of his shell. When he's downstairs with the rest of us and we're watching TV he'll constantly travel back and forth between his two favorite safe spots. He doesn't hang out under the dining table much anymore. I think it's him showing his desire the be with the group but not fully ready yet, so this is as close as he can manage.

When I'm on the floor playing with the other dogs he'll come up and join as long as I ignore him. When I say his name or reach out my hand at him, he retreats.

Last night had a strange turn. So it's common for Buela to walk all over us while in bed and often lick our faces until we wake up, so that was my first thought as I awoke to something crawling around my head. But it turned out to be Colbert, and he was burrowing under my pillow. His standard position to take whenever he lies down is to bury his nose under something or in a corner. Because of that he's rubbed off a little patch of hair on his snout. So he was under my pillow, then decided to move over to W's, then back to mine, then on top of W's, then tried to go in reverse on top of mine, until I finally picked him up and placed him beside the bed and the night stand. I took a pillow and laid it on top of him so that he'd have his face buried. And that's how I found him when I got out of bed.

Hopefully this shows that his rehabilitation will progress faster and in abrupt advances rather than imperceptibly slow.

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A question from D's Dad: so does he ever just let you pet him for a while? or does he always move away? how about eye contact?


He avoids eye contact when I kneel down to approach him as he frantically looks around for an escape route. He lets us touch him in that he tolerates it, but I don't know if he's enjoying it( he gets terribly tense and his body will be rock hard- W). Whenever we're petting him it's when he's cornered or while we're holding him, so if he had a way out, he'd take it. Which makes him visiting us while we were sleeping last night all the more unexplainable.

He was panting vigorously the whole time as though we were forcing him into a stressful situation, but nothing made him get on the bed and he even left the bed and then got back up. His behavior is well beyond my interpretive skills. (His body wasn't tense last night when I petted him, he was just hiding under pillows -W) If Cesar (Milan) didn't get already get a torrent of emails, I'd ask him about it.

So many methods I read about online of other people's feral or abused dogs that they've helped are not applicable to Colbert. Those stories I read are of either a domesticated dog who was abused or of taming a feral dog who has never been abused. Colbert is both abused and feral, so it's a doubled level of difficulty. At least he's showing improvement and he gets along well with the other dogs.