It’s been too long since I posted.

First of all, two weeks ago Zoe and I drove into upperstate New York to visit with friends from the BC Rescue. Zoe crammed herself into the very small wedge-like area underneath one of the folded-down backseats and refused to move. I left her there for a while when we went out to eat.

When we got back from brunch I brought her into my friend’s house while we worked on a fundraising project. Zoe did pretty well, honestly. We were there for hours, and she spent the first half of that underneath the kitchen table by my feet. My friend’s dog was a little perplexed by this, as he kept walking up to her with a toy in his mouth, squeaking it provocatively. Zoe wanted nothing to do with him or his toy. He was positively crushed. (I played tug with him to make up for it!) It’s not really that Zoe’s afraid of other dogs - she honestly couldn’t really care less if he was there or not.

My friend also has two cats who hate dogs. She asked me first how Zoe is with cats. I told her - Zoe loves cats. But if they dont’ want to play with her then she leaves them alone. The first time she saw one of the cats she stood about 5 feet back and whined a bit. I think she knew right off the bad that this was not a friendly cat, but she still wanted to go up and say hi. A few hours into our visit the other cat poked his head around the corner down the hallway. I guess it started Zoe and she had no idea what it was - all you could see was a shadowy blob with glowing eyes - because she suddenly got to her feet and started growling in a very threatening way. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard her make a sound like that! I asked her what the heck was the matter and she seemed to make sense of it all. Soon as she realized it was a cat she started whining again. (The cat wasn’t very amused by it all.)

So we ended up being there all day, and Zoe did really really well. By the end of the day her tail was up. My friend had a bunch of stinky dog treats and Zoe decided she wasn’t all that scary if she gave out free treats. By the end of the day she was actually running over to her! Her tail was up in a relaxed manner even, just walking around sniffing things.

There was a very unfortunate pee accident on the floor though. :sigh: And that was totally my fault, as I didn’t realize how long we’d been there for.

All in all I think it was a positive experience. I’m not so certain Zoe would agree - she survived, but I’m pretty sure if asked to repeat it she would still vote for “No.” (Not like she has a choice in that!)