Day One

We got our first guests at around 2:00 today and let's just say it's been a rough day. Sheba is a chow/cattle dog mix or something like that, and she has six puppies around three weeks old. The problem is she's a little afraid of men, and so her adjustment to Ray has been rocky. She bonded to me almost immediately. So that's not a problem. But when Ray first walked by the room where we're keeping her and the puppies, she barked and did not want him near. After a few hours and some pieces of cheese, she was fine. She's let him walk her, and she has no aggression in the yard or the rest of the house. So a big part of it is protecting her puppies, I'm sure. But just now I was in here with her, we had the door closed while Ray was out of the room, and I told him to open it and just leave the gate up, and she got defensive when he was in the hall. I'm not sure if he did anything that she interpreted as a threat, or maybe she's just tired and overly stressed now that it's night. I don't know, but this first day has NOT been what I expected or hoped for. I am a mess right now. I just hope we didn't make a mistake by signing up to do this. I guess we'll see what the next twelve hours bring.