My name is Ruthie!

Ruthie, formerly sister, is more shy and definitely Leary of men, but she took to my mom and one of my girlfriends pretty quickly! She's less wound up around the dogs and hasn't had a direct encounter with a cat and doesn't seem to care about The Yardbirds. They both get walked every day and they're very wound up at first but after about 5 to 10 minutes I'm trying to sniff every trail that's ever existed, they calm down a little. I do sometimes use head halters on them to keep them from pulling and once they calm down and I get them out in the road I can get them to heel pretty well. When they're in the grass they're pretty focused on trying to follow every trail. They're very quiet in their kennels and can stay in there for hours at a time without a peep, unless I have the other one out on a walk and the one that's left behind will fuss for a little bit but then they calm down. They're slightly protective of their toy box towards other dogs, but not aggressive and I have not noticed any food aggression at all. They do very well in the car and recently I've been running a few errands with them to get them used to being in the car to get them out on little adventures and they have not bothered anything. They're still under their original names at the vet but I did mention to Dr Terry that I changed their names and she liked their new names better LOL. Rudy's joints are not formed properly so she walks kind of hunkered down and she is on joint supplement as well as the j/d diet. She seems to have gained strength as I've been consistent with the walks, because when we first started all this she would start limping or she overdid it she would be kind of lethargic and sad but I haven't noticed any of that in a long time. She did have a stint of being really stoved up after I boarded them for a week when we were out of town for my stepson's wedding and I talked to Mandy about adding cots to their run and I always take their own bedding. When they have to stay for a week in January I'm going to have them try to give her an actual little walk every day to try to keep her from getting so stiff. She has pain meds if she needs them but I generally don't have to give them but after that week boarding I had to give them for a few days after she got home and that was the first part of October and I haven't had to give any since. She also had a urine sample with struvite crystals this summer, but Dr Boyer said it wasn't significant and we did have her on c/d diet for a while but I was concerned she would gain weight on that so they changed her to the j/d.