Emma settled in with us again just as if she had never left and I was pleased to see she still remembered her harness and how to walk nicely on a lead. She also still walked well off lead, although occasionally she got distracted by an interesting scent and would disappear off, but she always came back. In order to nip this habit in the bud I started taking tasty pieces of sausage on our walks so as to make myself more appealing when I called her to come back and thereby swing matters in my favour when I had to compete with other exciting distractions, that to her might have been more interesting than returning to me. She had obviously got more confident as she had got a bit older and was a bit less clingy than she had previously been when out walking.
I also taught her to sit and shake hands with the aid of the tasty sausage bits. She got the idea of sitting quite quickly but the handshake is still a work in progress.
We tried to get her as socialized as possible and with that in mind we took her into town on a couple of occasions so she could see a larger concentration of people and a bit more hustle and bustle. The first time she went into town she was naturally nervous and a bit on edge with the traffic and noise, but on the whole she did very well. We sat in a café for a drink and she settled down under our chairs and waited patiently for us to finish even though a noisy thunderstorm struck while we were there. The second time we took her she was far more relaxed and very happy to walk down the high street while we ran a few errands, once again sitting very well at the café while we had lunch. She was very good in the car and would relax on the back seat very happily. We could also leave her in the car if we had to run errands where it would not be practical for her to come along and she would just snooze until we got back.
I took Emma back to the vet for some more vaccinations, flea and worm tablets and while I was there I asked the vet to help us try to find a home for her. They took some photos and promised to ask around. I also contacted a couple of my friends in Cyprus who were involved in rescuing and re-homing dogs with a view to trying to find a forever home for Emma. One of my friends, Robert, who does wonderful work caring for and re-homing street dogs, came round and took a video of Emma which he posted on Facebook. This was really kind of him as he has countless rescue dogs of his own, which he is trying to home, but he knows a lot of people and has quite a lot of success finding good homes for stray dogs.