Day 2 - Back to structure

Ideal night

I have to say, last night was pretty much as good as I could imagine. My fear was that she would be intimidated in my bedroom in the dark and would whine a lot, forcing me to take her outside, just in case.
The reality was the opposite. Coming to my bedroom was a bit strange– a new environment, but when I put her in her crate, she quickly settled. After it was lights out, I put on a podcast for 15 minutes, so that it wouldn't be dark and quiet all of a sudden.
I went to bed at around 21:00, and, as expected, had trouble falling asleep. Expecting her to let loose with the howling with every movement she made. Eventually I fell in a light sleep until I heard her stir at around 12:00. I took her outside, she had a wee and we headed straight back in. The next time I felt she was uncomfortable was at 3:00. Took her out again, and she had a wee and a poo. I was happy with this, since the chance of an accident in the crate would now be minimal.
I woke up around 6:00. Tera was already awake, and was relaxing a bit. I took her out, but she wouldn't go to the toilet. Since she started to lick the raindrops off the grass, I was convinced that was because she was thirsty. I stopped giving her access to water at 19:00 the day before. After a few minutes outside, we went back inside. I put her in her crate and started to slowly wake up myself. After I got dressed, I prepared her breakfast downstairs and made myself a cup of tea while she was snoozing again. No crying whatsoever.

Scary times.. for me

After breakfast, I took her out again– those are my rules. I waited until 8:00 to take her downstairs and feed her, so I could wake up myself and start my day. During the toilet break, we got approached by a man with a BIG dog, something like an XL Bully. It's head was big enough to eat Tera in one bite, no joke. The meeting went wonderful, some sniffs were exchanged and they went on their way. The big dog, well behaved. The only one that was a bit apprehensive about it was me. One of my biggest fears is having a meeting go south this early in her life, potentially creating fear-based reactivity, or just fear of dogs.
It is not my intention to let her meet and play with lots of new dogs that I don't know and trust– not only does this potentially reduce my value to her, but the risk is just too high.
An unrelated thing that Tera does outside, is that she immediately starts to explore, seemingly losing interest in me. This forces me to either walk with her wherever she wants, which is not ideal, since I am the pack leader. The other option is to block her using the lead– also not something I'd like to introduce yet. I will however, go forward with blocking her with the lead, since this does establish leadership.

Sleepyhead

Something that I have learned about Tera already is that she is very laid back. Crate training has gone so well, that she goes into her crate of her own accord to relax and sleep. After three and a half hours, after asking the breeder for advice, I decided to wake her up for her meal, since I don't want to skip them. Afterwards we went for a toilet break again where we met another smaller dog. Another great introduction. When we came back home, I managed to get some training in. I decided to try to teach her name. This went rather well. She quickly understood that looking at me resulted in a click and a treat. I even used her name a few times with her looking up to me. I couldn't get a lot of reps in today, she was too distracted.

Gremlin

After waking up again, we ran into the one dog I hoped not to run into for a while; a small pug-like gremlin that is reactive to everything; pretty much barking and lunging at everything that moves. They were nowhere near each other (the other side of the street), but the gremlin started lunging and barking at Tera...and she responded in kind. Partly due to being startled at the cojones of this little lady, and partly reflex, I gave her her very first official correction. Not what I wanted to do on the second day. Due to her size and age, I did not go as intense as was likely needed, but I hope she got the message somehow. I will not dish out a 7-8/10 correction on an 8 week old pup. Especially not in public. She was so built up by this that no food lure worked anymore; trust me, I tried.
My feelings on this all are mixed. I am partly happy this 'meeting' was over with, since I was not looking forward to this eventuality. I would rather have this happen in a few weeks, when her obedience was better. Some things are out of control and you have to go with the flow. The patch of grass across my house is a very busy area for dogs.
Other feelings are that that of pride– since my 8 week old lady stood up for herself and did not get scared– and some low-key dread. These are seeds I don't want sown. I will make sure nothing comes from it, but I do not like it. As I mentioned before, I knew this encounter was going to happen sooner rather than later. Now I know and will act accordingly next time– if possible by just avoiding this critter.
The encounter did not affect her at all, after going to me for comfort for a bit she continued sniffing as if nothing happened. Back home she was more active than before on her place bed... until she clearly wanted to get off (but did not, since she already knows she is not allowed to), I picked her up, put her on the ground, and she dove into the crate again for a snooze.

The true Tera

During the day, possibly after sleeping off all the stress, I am getting to see the real Tera more and more. She loves being with me, but when she is tired, she goes to her crate and plops down. She is not the biggest fan of being outside, for some reason. They have been outside at the breeders during the day, but I get the impression that she gets cold and wants to go inside. In the afternoon she started to get energetic and tried to bounce around. Since being inside means calm, and I don't really have an outside where she can bounce around, I tried to play a bit with her, and when she got too hyper, put her on the place bed with some chew toys. Tomorrow I will take a look at cleaning the back garden a bit, so she cannot do any damage there and can actually run around going crazy without a possibility of escape.
I also need to figure out a way to play with her; she wants to interact and play with me, but can only express that through mouthing and jumping. She doesn't have the biggest toy-drive as of now.

Manners

Manners are going quite well– there are some things that need attention, though. Turns out she is quite destructive; she likes to try to rip her toys apart. This is no issue for chew toys, since they are made for that– bedding however, is not. I had to remove her custom towel from the place bed, since she was trying– and partly succeeding– to tear it to shreds. I don't want to keep interrupting her, so I set her up for success this way. The bedding in her crate is safe, though.
Another thing I found myself doing, was that I was petting her too much. It is extremely difficult not to, but I might amp her up this way, reward her for that state etc.
I want her to adore me, but this is done through leadership, since leadership is love. She will get tons of praise and scratches, but not just because she is too damn cute.
Mouthing and jumping will have to be addressed more, as mentioned in the previous section.
What I want to start training, is the 'me = awesome' game. Come to me = scratches or food rewards. Since she is so disengaged with me outside, with little to no checking in at all, this might help with the Gremlin, for example.

Document

I am already thanking myself for setting up this blog to document the journey. Without typing everything out, I might not have been in the mental state that I am now. Writing this blog– even if nobody will ever read this– has helped me greatly at sorting my thoughts. I would probably all have worked out fine, but with a worse mental state.
This is something I would advise everyone to do, even if you never publish it publicly. Not only will this hopefully be a good laugh in a few years, but also help you greatly like it is helping me.