sonny plays!

Last week, Rob was away from home so it was just me, Roxy, Buster, and Sonny.  I know that Sonny avoids all men so I was expecting him to be a little more daring this week, and I was more than right.

Sonny was literally a totally different dog than I knew before.  He was out of his 80% of the time, whereas previously he spent only about 20% of his time out of his crate.  He was running around and playing, hanging out on the couch, following me to the bedrooms, chasing me around playing, licking my face, walking across my lap, even laying down next to me on the couch, relaxed.

Prior to Rob leaving, Sonny had been opening up more in the mornings before I leave for work and at night time when I come home... times when he knows that Rob is sleeping or not home.  So I did expect that I'd see more activity from him, but I guess I was sort of surprised at how much more I saw.

He surprised me specifically with the amount of time he spent out of his crate and the significant amount of playing he did.  He had moments of acting like an "almost normal" dog.  He was picking up toys and running around with them, sometimes bringing a ball over to me to throw.  He was playing tug with Buster and the Kong Wubba, and he even engaged in tug with me for a while, which was very unexpected.  He was interacting with me constantly, and was so much more relaxed.  He spent a good amount of time exploring parts of the house he had previously been too scared to go near.

He also has an affinity for finding Rob's dirty socks and picking them up and carrying them to his crate.  If he can't find socks, though, he'll grab Rob's pants, shirts, or anything, really, and attempt to drag them to his crate. It's kind of funny because he's scared of him, but not scared of his smell.

He spent a good 20 minutes trying to get his ball out from underneath this stool, and this video is just a good showing of his puppy personality.  I can see it itching to come out.  The video is kind of dark, but you can definitely see him playing about and his tail wagging feverishly.

I am hoping that week gave him a little time to get his bearings, and now that Rob is back, he'll be a little bit more inclined to check things out.  Last night, Rob was laying on the couch with Buster chewing his ball between Rob's legs, and Sonny quickly came over and sniffed Buster's paw.  He literally sniffed for half a second, but it was closer than he had ever gotten to Rob before, so I know that's progress on some level.  I hope his confidence is continuing to build, and we'll see how the weeks progress.