My fourth dog, my friend.

 I never thought that any dog would ever touch my heart the way that Langston has touched mine.  Noodles is quickly working her way into the deep, hidden walls of my heart.  She has been a wonderful friend, companion, and a distraction walking into my life the day after finding out that Langston's cancer had moved into his lungs.

 We adopted Noodles from a friend.  He had a few dogs and Noodles had not seemed to fit into the dynamic of his pack.  We baby-sat Noodles last winter and realized that she did fit in well with our dogs, but we did not even consider her becoming a member of our pack.  That summer we found out about Langston's bone cancer.  Grief stricken, we approached our neighbor and asked what he thought about us adopting Noodles.  We asked him to think it over, and we wold revisit the topic at a later date.  In early January, everything with Noodles just fell into place.  Our friend was in need of some relief and we were in need of a major distraction after learning Langston's cancer had spread.

Noodles moved in on January 4th, and we immediately had a few issues to work through: kitty food, kitty poop, and tasty recyclables were all irresistible.  Issues not much different then those of our other lady of the house.  Halle has never been able to turn away kitty food or kitty poop.  After a few days of "no's" and constant reminders to ourselves to wash out recyclables, these problems faded.  Noodles quickly learned that some things were ok, others were not.  We still have to make sure the room to the cat box is properly secured.  Not just for Noodles, but for all the Toostie Roll fans in our home.

The next new adventure for Noodles was food.  I try at least four nights out of the week to have a home-cooked dinner for the dogs and they usually get yogurt in their kibble for breakfast.  The first night of real food, Noodles looked at her bowl as if I was trying to poison her.  She, like most pups, was used to kibble.  After trying breakfast with yogurt and real food dinners, I quickly had created a picky monster.  She started refusing plain kibble after a week.  Thankfully, she has changed this habit.  We also have a routine for feeding at our house.  Our dogs eat half their meal in the morning and the remainder in the evening, they wait to be given the command to begin eating and then they have 10-15 minutes to eat before the food is removed.  Like all our other rituals, Noodles quickly adjusted and has fit in better than I could have imagined with the rest of the pack.  Very smart, girl.

After giving Noodles time to adjust to the initial move-in, new food, new pack members, and her new daily routines, we began basic obedience training. Noodles had not appeared to have had any formal training before we adopted her.  She was well socialized and very friendly with people and animals, especially cats.  I have been certified in training dogs and thoroughly enjoyed my training sessions with Halle.  I was very excited to start training again with Noodles.  Joshua and I both started with basic commands: sit, down, stay, come.  After a few days of training, I was stricken with the training bug.  I searched the internet for a book on training that I had lost.  "Training your Dog. The Step-by-Step manual" by Joachim Volhard and Gail Tamases Fisher, a helpful guide on how to break down training sessions.  I realized that I had grown disorganized in a basic obedience training lessons.  The book arrived and lessons began.  Noodles is very intelligent and adores training sessions.  We train her constantly throughout a day and try to have at least one formal training session a day.  She has mastered the basic commands and we are beginning whistle training, follow, crawl, stand and rise.

 So, why all the crazy training?  We use training for bonding, attention, fun and distraction.  Also, Noodles is a runner.  She plagued her old owner with running away.  We hope through constant training that we can break her of this habit.  We have Noodles sit calmly and wait until we release her before she can go outside, though she is always leashed.  She has progressed so much since her initial days as our dog and we are hoping to take her to a dog park this summer for off-leash training and enroll her in agility training.

 Noodles like many things in life, has proven me wrong.  When finding out about Langston, I told Joshua I would never be able to love another dog with the same compassion that I do for Langston.  I have been graced with Noodles for less than two months and she is quickly moving into the same category as my favorite buddy.  Thankfully, Langston loves her as much as I do, and even allows her to cuddle with us during our special time in the morning.  The other dogs go downstairs and Langston and I sit and meditate for a few minutes.  Noodles, from day one, joined these meditations.  She is a special lady and I look forward to growing memories and experiences with this wonderful dog.