Nervous - Enchanté's first party

Nervous - Enchanté's first party

Enchanté is the "new puppy". I brought her home in July. She is 10 months old now. Well, I am having my first biggish party since she has joined the gang. I am having 13 (give or take) folks over on Sunday for appetizers, cocktails and to play games. It is a game party.

Gigi is an old hand at parties and me entertaining. Anisette has shown that she can handle a crowd at the house too. Enchanté has had smaller groups here . . . maybe 4-6 people. And one of those times showed herself to be an opportunistic food snatcher!!!

I am a little nervous about her. I want her to get use to how to behave at these things. All of the party folks have been warned that she will be here. I won't put the dogs in the back yard or in the bedroom while guests are here. I've never done that previously and it isn't what I want to do for this.

I have friends coming who are dog people and I know will help me keep an eye on Enchanté. I have things set up so she can't rush to greet folks at the door and inadvertently get out.

She is very curious about what I eat and drink and tries to sniff my glass, etc. So I am a wee bit nervous of her trying to get to drinks on the coffee table.

Any thoughts or advice? Well, besides the obvious of putting her in another location. I won't do that. Does anybody else let their pupsters join in their parties? There is a threshold # of folks where I would probably take them to Doggy Day Care and board them. But a game party with 13 people, is something that I would choose to keep them here.

I've only had a couple of party experiences with my girls. Nyah loves everyone and does fine, althought she is still prone to jumping up.

Basically I just monitored them and when they looked too stressed, I removed them. Especially Schatze. She was totally freaked.

I'd say start her off and she how she does with your first few guests. If you see signs of distress, remove her. It'll help that your other girls are pros, they will help keep her from getting too stressed as well.

Well, all went without a hitch. In the beginning Enchante did try to get herself a little bit of cocktail or appetizers. But with enough of us watching her, she realized it wasn't going to happen. And as more people came, she stopped being so excited. If that makes sense . . . like her excitement saturation point was achieved.

I meant to feed them something before the party because I figured that would help prevent Enchante from trying to be a food hound. But then time got away from me and I forgot.

The pupsters were exhausted from the party too.

Interestingly enough, Anisette, the middle pupster was the one who got a little overwhelmed. One of my good friends. Who loves her and who Anisette loves, wanted to hold her. So I picked her up and gave her to her. Then a couple of minutes later, my friend said I should take her back. That Anisette was shaking. When I took her back, I didn't feel her shaking at all. So maybe she was just a little overwhelmed, but was fine when she was back with me.

I don't have a problem with the food thing because Milo doesn't care about food and Benji is too frightened of guests to get close enough to try to grab anything.

I would (if I was in your situation) try to just train her the coffee table is a no-no without guests. Like put food on the table and repeatedly ask her to "leave it"

She knows that it is a no-no. But she thinks when guests are over she has a shot. Which in this case, would have been true . . . if I hadn't had helpers to keep an eye on her. I think if she is bigger she would be a counter surfer. She is very interested in food.

But you are right in that, I should step up my work on the leave it command. And put her in different situations with it.

With a few more parties where some of the guests can remind her to "leave it" i'm sure she'll get the hang of it and realize she can't use you being distracted as a way to score snacks...sounds like you're doing fine.