[akhitt]

For anyone who doesn't remember, we've adopted an unsocialized, un-everything four year old female who is not currently living with us- yet. We've made what I think is great progress. She sits, waits, walks on a leash without dislocating my shoulder (thank you, Halti!). She ignores children on rollerblades and bikes while on our walks and tries to be friendly to the people who cross to the other side of the street when they see us coming. We did have one brief altercation with a fire hydrant, but she quickly decided it was a friend and rolled all over it. (Strange, but true!) She and my five year old son are still not best buds, but he needs more big dog socializing. She tries to get him to take her ball to throw it, but he's nervous still. We are making progress there, too, and he has been crowned "Best Tummy Rubber" and "Right Hand Man", the latter because she insists on walking beside him on our walks when he's with us, both a couple feet ahead of me. He's getting more comfortable as he figures out that "she likes me, Mom!" and that she's not the large nippy puppy that my sister-in-law's Golden (who was sent away to training camp and who's owners have no idea how to use the training they paid so much for!)
Our next big step is riding in the car. We've done it once, for a short distance, and she was *very* nervous about it. It took 15 minutes to get her into the back of the mini-SUV we drive, rewarding her with tiny cheese bits everytime she made a move closer to being up and inside, which isn't the problem. I'm happy to spend all the time I need to make her comfortable and confident. Then she clutched her "baby", a green caterpillar we bought her, the whole time. We thought she'd be more comfortable with her familiar baby with her, but she was obviously very freaked out and continued to be for a few minutes after we got home. Any tips on making the ride more fun? There are no windows that open back there, and I don't want her in the back seat near my son until she's comfortable with the car. This is our last big step before "Spay Day", June 4th, and it's very important to me that she's comfortable and confident with the entire process...being on the leash, riding in the car, going into the office to meet new people (our trial run should be next week, I hope.)I just don't want it to be a horrible experience for her. And, am I being *too* over-protective of her? My father keeps telling me to "throw her in the car, drag her to vet, get it over with!" Tell me, I can take it! Thanks, Amanda