WANTED: ONE VET SURGERY TO TRAIN MILLIE IN!

Here is Millie in her 'down stay' which she is so good at! She learns so fast, I'm constantly bursting with pride! She has also learned "speak" and "touch" but I am having no joy in getting her to tug or play outside still.

I thought maybe getting her around other dogs might bring this playfulness out, so over the last couple of weeks I've been taking her to the dog run every day to try and slowly introduce her to other dogs and to socialise her. I still only put her in there though when I see the dogs are in a calm mood, but now we spend at least 45 minutes a day there and her confidence has really grown. She's not as nervous about dogs sniffing her, and will approach dogs tail wagging and even give chase some times. But she doesn't play yet, and she absolutely will not let them mount her. If a dog tries to, Millie lets out a very scary growl and snarl (similar to the one she gave the vet when he tried to lift her tail a few weeks back).

But plans for socialisation are now on hold. Poor little Millie went into heat this week - the second time in two months.. Her hormones are not in good shape.

I took her to see a different vet yesterday who is female and works above a pet store so I thought the new environment might set a different mood for Millie and we'd talked before on the phone about how Millie reacted in the vets last time so the vet said she would only just stroke Millie and see if she could feel anything. Despite me and the vet being very calm and positive about the whole situation, Millie sensed something was awry unfortunately and it took only a touch by the vet on her upper back for her to turn around and attempt to nip. That's very unlike Millie who lets complete strangers stroke her when we go walking.

These vet trips are getting increasingly worse, and I am worried about how she will react when it's time to get her spayed, and with these hormonal problems, I'm going to get her spayed in six weeks.... if only I could find a vet's surgery that I could hire to take her to every day up to then to desensitize her in the meantime!! I'm going to ask around..