Silver_Sliver

Hello Everyone,

I recently adopted a dog, and am seeking some advice. She is a 2-year-old collie mix, and comes from a shelter. Her first owners were abusive and had her tied to a trailer, so a family on vacation saw her and bought her to get her away from them. They brought her to the shelter near me to be rehomed - she was with a foster family for about 2 months before I took her. So you can see she's had a tumultuous life so far, and a fairly rough one. Despite this, she's very affectionate and eager-to-please (almost too much - she is still very clingy after 4 days). I fully expected this, knowing her past history, so I want to make sure that I encourage good behaviour early on and weed out the problem stuff.

I am at home with her all day, and we've been going for numerous walks in the countryside - so far she's been pretty good on her lead. The only problems have been when a loose dog approached us and she kept trying to hide behind me (it was not being aggressive, merely playful and probably detected her recent heat). She does tend to pull on the lead a bit when she gets a good smell, as most dogs do.

The only problem is this. I went out this morning for a doctor's appointment; I was gone 1.5 hours total. When I left the house, I closed the doors to the bedrooms & bathroom, knowing she might get nervous her first time alone, and I didn't want her to destroy any of my clothes or chew on anything dangerous like my laptop cord. She had the kitchen & hallway to herself, with her water bowl and blankets that she likes to lie on. When I came back, she was sitting on the chair snuggling a rubber boot, and the entire floor was COVERED in crumbled bread. She dragged a homemade loaf of soda bread off the counter and totally destroyed it all over her blankets and the floor, and left about half of it wedged in a corner.

Since the incident had long passed, I didn't want to discipline her, as I did not think she would be able to make the connection to the bread - considering her history of abuse, I'm uncertain how to even discipline her if I am present for bad behaviour, without scaring her. She is still extremely frightened of loud male voices (my neighbour speaks very loudly, and when he comes over to chat she runs away and hides). I would never hit an animal anyway, so I guess I'm just wondering if any of you dog owners have advice on how to discourage negative behaviour like this after it has happened OR while it is happening. Obviously I'll know better than to leave any food out whatsoever from now on - it never occurred to me that she'd want bread, let alone bread in a tin at the back of the counter! It would seem to me that this behaviour might indicate nervousness at being left alone, rather than just hunger as she was fed a large breakfast immediately before I left.

Sorry for the length of this - any help is much appreciated!

I'm throwing a dinner party on Saturday night with a very complicated menu (6 courses, all requiring some degree of last minute prep). I would like to keep the panic to a minimum, so I'm making the soup, pasta sauce, and salad dressing the day before. I would like to also do part of the appetizer ahead of time. For that I'm doing vol-au-vents filled with mushrooms in a white sauce.

By white sauce I mean one made with equal parts butter & flour for the roux, then broth instead of milk to turn it into white sauce (I've tried this one before and it's delicious). After that I add cream & sherry for flavour.

Will this be safe in the fridge for a day, or will that ruin the texture? Thanks in advance everyone :)

I have a balcony off my bedroom, and there are brick walls on two of the sides. I'd like to suspend a hammock between the two - is this possible? I feel like the brick wouldn't take the weight, especially of a two-person hammock.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!