Sometimes I wish all my dogs could have greetings like Beckett, who is civilized and loving to every living thing even if they aren't so kind in return. Beckett never barks, never jumps up, he just siddles on up for some love or minds his distance. Forty people could arrive on our property and once and he wouldn't kick up a fuss. He would most politely invite them all in and tour them around.
Lemon on the other hand is a right tosser -sometimes I just want to nail her once so hard she never thinks of being a jackass again with me in sight.
So anyway Jinks and I were training in the yard, while Lemon toddles around in the front acre, probably trying to figure out how to get the lid off the cat food bin. Anyway, we're pretty darn rural so although we have a fair few vehicles go by, it's a rare occurance to get a PERSON walk by our place. Today... a person went by.
So of course I'm in the back field doing a great training session with the fear-stage puppy who thinks every new thing is suddenly out to get her, and Lemon starts a roaring fuss in the front acre or so. I have too much distance between her and I to call off her idiotic territorial "BARK BARK GROWL BARK BARK"now that it's started and not enough speed to stop Jinks who is now barreling to Lemon's aid, although back a good 15 feet from her (I'll bark at it from afar she says). So, corral the puppy into a down CHECK! Good puppy, stay there. "Yes mam, I think I will, you deal with that scary jogger up there."
Now to deal with that idiotic chihuahua.
I feel like a mother. You love your kids dearly, but sometimes you just want to smack them over a head with a canoe paddle. Of course we're 10-13 seconds in now and the jogger is nearly our property with her headphones on so doesn't notice a thing (thank god), but Lemon is now going past her invisible line. When she's an idiot, she's not going to do it halfway. She's almost going into ankle-biter mode. She's literally within kicking range of the jogger.
Usually once I'm within 10-15 feet of her the commands can come into play. Not today. Dog evaded pressure, threw off mean mum recall and ignored her down from a distance command. PLUS, when I finally did get to her, she knew she was in deep shit and pulled the "I won't let you touch me" move. So, I'm sure I blew a bit of a gasket and all I had was my chuck-it stick I brought in from the field. The jogger moves on and Lemon's still evading and barking her stupid little head off. So... I throw the chuck-it stick at her. HARD.
SMASH. (Better aim than I thought) I think she was more stunned by the fact I threw a chuck-it stick at her than by it hurting her at all. So, take momentary laspe in thought and scoop dog up, release Jinks from her down which remarkably she's still holding, and go inside to where Lemon is going to remain her time-out crate for a long, long time.
Somehow I see a citronella collar in my future!
Teenagers!!!
Meanwhile, Beckett was still in the back field going "I'm just going to hang out here. It's safer this way." Dude knows whose boss. I'd take another Beckett in a heartbeat... a Lemon, I can only handle one.
Fostering dogs in Victoria, BC. Giving them lifeskills, cushy pillows, structure, confidence and copious snuggles. From chihuahuas to Rottis, to huskies and anything in between, amusing stories, mostly useless dog tips, and cute dog pictures abound.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Happy Belated Family Day
BC's first Family Day was also Vibo's adoption day, so for family day he got to go home with his new family :) He will be a spoiled boy with lots of exercise and plenty of time at the dog park. He's going to get a new name in the next couple of days too. His family will let me know what they decide on :) While he was here we mostly called him "Bieber" (Vibo turned to "Beebo" which then turned to "Bieber").
Here is Vibo getting ready to leave with his new family!
And a picture update from Bogey who has his own blog (too cool!) I get to see the little squirt at daycare sometimes and he's getting so big. Still an awesome pawsome puppy, great temperament and good manners.
And an update picture from Suzie.
We're fosterless until the weekend and going to try to enjoy it. Still, the house feels empty with only our dogs. One day (in the very far future :( ) I'll stop renting and have a place I won't feel bad having more than 3 of my own. But there's lots to do with Jinks in the meantime :) Definitely not time to expand the family again!!
Here is Vibo getting ready to leave with his new family!
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| You might need a bigger couch in the future! |
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| Suzie on the boat. |
Monday, February 11, 2013
Lazy, or Just Used to the Routine
The last week we've moved Jinks off puppy food and onto adult food, and in the same week (not due to the food) she's started to go through that annoying fear stage all dogs go through somewhere between 6 months -12 months depending on size and breed. Although she was doing really well with strangers before, we're back in the 'where'd he come from' department. The key is to "work" through it. With food and commands and enough of a distance she can quickly work her brain through the scary. After all, you can't think 'fear' and 'food' at the same time. Fear goes back to flight or fight. Dogs in this emotional state are very hard if not impossible to feed. If your dog can still accept food, you know they haven't hit the threshold and you can start to increase it. Anyway, she's doing well, we're just in for a month or two of those dreaded "teen" years.
Also, did you know that although on average a dog ages 7 years to our one, that in the first two years it is more close to by one your dog is about 15 years old (depending on size), and around two when they mellow out some more, it's more like 20-25 or so? That's why by three you're winning. Dogs age faster when they are young, slow down for the bulk of their lifespan, and then in the later years age faster again. So you can imagine how many 'stages' of perception they go through in the first year. All of them, at one point or another start noticing there's a big world out there and that's scary.
Heck, when I realized I was just a little speck in the world I was a little fearful too!
Anyway, possible growth spurt, food change and fear period all tied together I might have the laziest 9 month old border collie pup on the planet. With only an hour of exercise yesterday, a few short (1-2 minute) training sessions, and she crawled back into her crate with the door open until 4pm! Then she was up, had a little walk and a chew on her nylabone and came to agility. She is doing awesome by the way, nervous and skitty to do something the first time but once she catches on you can't stop her. Anyway, after agility she came right inside and jumped up on the couch where she was zonked out for a half an hour until she starts whining. Her head had rolled off the couch but she was too lazy or too tired to do anything about it. So Kathleen, being my spoiling sister, picked Jinks up off the couch and tucked her into her kennel. A BC who needs a transport service to get off the couch!!
Today was similiar, although I think now that it's supposed to be the work-week she's going back to routine. Usual routine for most of the week is that she goes out with everyone for the morning pee break, has a little run in the field, and comes back to bed, has her breakfast and sleeps for 4-5 hours in her crate (my version of time away from me, as it's quite possible down the road she would need to be comfortable by herself for this long). At noon she comes to work with me or if Jerrad is home, she goes for a hike with Jerrad and then out to Canadian Tire for an hour to work on her socialization with strange/new people. When we or I get home there's a few little training sessions for her to have supper by hand, then she can do whatever for a few hours, and by about 9:30 she puts herself t bed.
So here's hoping when I take her out for her noon-time walk -since it's family day there's no work for us!- that she isn't quite as lazy. She isn't lethargic so I'm not worried that way, she's just turning into a lazy bones.
Memo to self: next time, a few years down the road, get a bit more 'collie'. Heck, most of the time she isn't even as much energy as what Beckett was at 3 years old!! He would have tired her out no problem back in his day, run circles around her too.
In foster news, Sunshine went home yesterday. This afternoon Vibo will be going home too :) We'll be fosterless until next weekend when a TG pup is scheduled for arrival. Who it will be I'm not quite sure, but chances are it won't be verified until the bus is actually leaving :P
Updates from new homes soon,
Emily
Also, did you know that although on average a dog ages 7 years to our one, that in the first two years it is more close to by one your dog is about 15 years old (depending on size), and around two when they mellow out some more, it's more like 20-25 or so? That's why by three you're winning. Dogs age faster when they are young, slow down for the bulk of their lifespan, and then in the later years age faster again. So you can imagine how many 'stages' of perception they go through in the first year. All of them, at one point or another start noticing there's a big world out there and that's scary.
Heck, when I realized I was just a little speck in the world I was a little fearful too!
Anyway, possible growth spurt, food change and fear period all tied together I might have the laziest 9 month old border collie pup on the planet. With only an hour of exercise yesterday, a few short (1-2 minute) training sessions, and she crawled back into her crate with the door open until 4pm! Then she was up, had a little walk and a chew on her nylabone and came to agility. She is doing awesome by the way, nervous and skitty to do something the first time but once she catches on you can't stop her. Anyway, after agility she came right inside and jumped up on the couch where she was zonked out for a half an hour until she starts whining. Her head had rolled off the couch but she was too lazy or too tired to do anything about it. So Kathleen, being my spoiling sister, picked Jinks up off the couch and tucked her into her kennel. A BC who needs a transport service to get off the couch!!
Today was similiar, although I think now that it's supposed to be the work-week she's going back to routine. Usual routine for most of the week is that she goes out with everyone for the morning pee break, has a little run in the field, and comes back to bed, has her breakfast and sleeps for 4-5 hours in her crate (my version of time away from me, as it's quite possible down the road she would need to be comfortable by herself for this long). At noon she comes to work with me or if Jerrad is home, she goes for a hike with Jerrad and then out to Canadian Tire for an hour to work on her socialization with strange/new people. When we or I get home there's a few little training sessions for her to have supper by hand, then she can do whatever for a few hours, and by about 9:30 she puts herself t bed.
So here's hoping when I take her out for her noon-time walk -since it's family day there's no work for us!- that she isn't quite as lazy. She isn't lethargic so I'm not worried that way, she's just turning into a lazy bones.
Memo to self: next time, a few years down the road, get a bit more 'collie'. Heck, most of the time she isn't even as much energy as what Beckett was at 3 years old!! He would have tired her out no problem back in his day, run circles around her too.
In foster news, Sunshine went home yesterday. This afternoon Vibo will be going home too :) We'll be fosterless until next weekend when a TG pup is scheduled for arrival. Who it will be I'm not quite sure, but chances are it won't be verified until the bus is actually leaving :P
Updates from new homes soon,
Emily
Friday, February 8, 2013
Temperment Testing!
In some cool news, on the weekend I get to temperment test a litter of 6, 6 week old shepherd mixes for a local rescue. There's four pre-approved adoptions, so I even get to help match families up. How cool is that! I'm pretty stoked.
In other news: Vibo had an awesome homecheck that hopefully will be his forever home :). Sunshine goes home on the weekend and everyone I seem to pick for the TG bus run seems to get adopted so who's coming is totally up in the air (like usual).
Jinks was instinct tested on sheep yesterday and was scared of them! We will instinct test her again at a year to see if the drive shows up but right now she's saying "No thank you! You can deal with those scary sheep and I'll just watch." As far as I know she's cattle-bred so there must be a little something. If there is, great, another sport for us, if not, we'll stick to agility and heck, it'll definitely save some money! I didn't get Jinks to be a pheonemal sports dog, I got her to get my feet wet in a bunch of different things. Plus, with her rock-steady dog skills she will make an awesome dog to work with reactive dogs, so in a way that is more useful than a high-drive sports prospect!
It's a really nice day out though, so we're off to the park. Last day for Sunny to get muddy as I want to clean her up for her new mum. She and Vibo have been rolling in the mud and neither or them are quite as good as Jinks about cleaning themselves off. Retrievers, they just like being dirty I guess.
Emily + Crew Out
In other news: Vibo had an awesome homecheck that hopefully will be his forever home :). Sunshine goes home on the weekend and everyone I seem to pick for the TG bus run seems to get adopted so who's coming is totally up in the air (like usual).
Jinks was instinct tested on sheep yesterday and was scared of them! We will instinct test her again at a year to see if the drive shows up but right now she's saying "No thank you! You can deal with those scary sheep and I'll just watch." As far as I know she's cattle-bred so there must be a little something. If there is, great, another sport for us, if not, we'll stick to agility and heck, it'll definitely save some money! I didn't get Jinks to be a pheonemal sports dog, I got her to get my feet wet in a bunch of different things. Plus, with her rock-steady dog skills she will make an awesome dog to work with reactive dogs, so in a way that is more useful than a high-drive sports prospect!
It's a really nice day out though, so we're off to the park. Last day for Sunny to get muddy as I want to clean her up for her new mum. She and Vibo have been rolling in the mud and neither or them are quite as good as Jinks about cleaning themselves off. Retrievers, they just like being dirty I guess.
Emily + Crew Out
Monday, February 4, 2013
Sunshine is Adopted
Who wouldn't want to adopt some Sunshine :)
She is spending the week with us and her new mum will pick her up on the weekend. For being three she's still got lots of vim and vigor. She's definitely no couch potato without a good hour of exercise in her. She successfully stayed home today with Beckett uncrated for 5 hours. No accidents, nothing teared apart. A little on the excited side to see us return though.
Happy to see you is fine, but I don't like to come home to excited dogs, it just makes a ritual out of leaving/coming home have much less of a neutral impact. I don't even greet my dogs until I've come in, walked up the stairs, done about two minutes of stuff like put my keys away, etc. Basically they don't even get acknolwedgement until I'm sat down. Keep things nice and sane, plus makes it normal. Leader leaves and nothing should change.
In other minor news, Beckett has randomly decided Jinks is now sexy. He points the very odd dog at daycare, once in a blue moon (which is pretty standard for most dogs). So, now sometimes we have a hump train here. Lemon humps Beckett who humps Jinks who just looks happy someone is paying attention to her. Unless it's Vibo -most of the time Jinks likes Vibo until he just gets annoying.
Like last night Jinks put herself to bed like usual (by about 9pm, 9:30 latest she either puts herself to bed if the bedroom door has been left open, or she starts pawing the door to the bedroom like "let me in!") but Vibo kept coming to bug her, even going so far as to open her crate door (I pretty much just leave it open at for a few hours until we go to bed and then I shut it). So, she did what sleepy, cranky girls do and laid him out a good one. Not to sound like the mean foster mum, but he kind of deserved it. I'm a right mean woman too when you bug me when I'm trying to sleep. Just ask Jerrad!
So then he tried to play with Lemon -quite rudely, he's picked it up from playing with so many big dogs at daycare, after being in Taiwan so long and only have small elderly dogs in his foster home-. And then she laid him out good and then he moped for awhile. Ah, teenage boys. SOMEONE has to put them in their place. It is good he is learning to be a big dog though, with big dog friends and lots of life experiences. He's a nice guy, he's just a teenage boy.
His applicant is a good applicant, just not for a young dog that doesn't have any foundations in anything. I hope they decide to adopt an older dog though, there's lots of mature (3+) dogs that would love to have a family with them.
Onwards to finding Vibo his forever home.
Emily Out
She is spending the week with us and her new mum will pick her up on the weekend. For being three she's still got lots of vim and vigor. She's definitely no couch potato without a good hour of exercise in her. She successfully stayed home today with Beckett uncrated for 5 hours. No accidents, nothing teared apart. A little on the excited side to see us return though.
Happy to see you is fine, but I don't like to come home to excited dogs, it just makes a ritual out of leaving/coming home have much less of a neutral impact. I don't even greet my dogs until I've come in, walked up the stairs, done about two minutes of stuff like put my keys away, etc. Basically they don't even get acknolwedgement until I'm sat down. Keep things nice and sane, plus makes it normal. Leader leaves and nothing should change.
In other minor news, Beckett has randomly decided Jinks is now sexy. He points the very odd dog at daycare, once in a blue moon (which is pretty standard for most dogs). So, now sometimes we have a hump train here. Lemon humps Beckett who humps Jinks who just looks happy someone is paying attention to her. Unless it's Vibo -most of the time Jinks likes Vibo until he just gets annoying.
Like last night Jinks put herself to bed like usual (by about 9pm, 9:30 latest she either puts herself to bed if the bedroom door has been left open, or she starts pawing the door to the bedroom like "let me in!") but Vibo kept coming to bug her, even going so far as to open her crate door (I pretty much just leave it open at for a few hours until we go to bed and then I shut it). So, she did what sleepy, cranky girls do and laid him out a good one. Not to sound like the mean foster mum, but he kind of deserved it. I'm a right mean woman too when you bug me when I'm trying to sleep. Just ask Jerrad!
So then he tried to play with Lemon -quite rudely, he's picked it up from playing with so many big dogs at daycare, after being in Taiwan so long and only have small elderly dogs in his foster home-. And then she laid him out good and then he moped for awhile. Ah, teenage boys. SOMEONE has to put them in their place. It is good he is learning to be a big dog though, with big dog friends and lots of life experiences. He's a nice guy, he's just a teenage boy.
His applicant is a good applicant, just not for a young dog that doesn't have any foundations in anything. I hope they decide to adopt an older dog though, there's lots of mature (3+) dogs that would love to have a family with them.
Onwards to finding Vibo his forever home.
Emily Out
Saturday, February 2, 2013
A Great Homecheck for Sunshine + Some Extra Tidbits
I might be counting my chickens (bad karma), but I believe Sunny Sunshine has found her forever home in Nanaimo. What a great homecheck we had! Sunny was soooo impressed by the plenthora of available toys. She's a toy-a-holic. She showed a little bit of guarding with Vibo tonight -the first I've seen beyond the smallest of growls and lifted-lip-, but after I tossed all the toys into a different room she changed her tune when they came back out in half an hour. Toy withdrawal. MUST HAVE TOYS.
Vibo has an application but I've sent back a couple of clarification questions. After seeing a lot of applications I find there are 'big red flags' that mean "nope, ain't gonna work", but there are several orange flags that really could mean from one extreme to the other and anywhere in between. Little flags that could spell disaster, OR could be an awesome family that didn't express what they wanted to quite as clearly as I needed. I like to give the benefit of the doubt and instead of dismissing them right away, I just ask for them to describe it to me. It gets tricky because you have to lay out all the options and not make it sound obvious which one you WANT them to pick. It's happened before that people just tell you what you want to hear so you will adopt them the dog. I guess judge of character is also a practiced principle!
So we shall see what gets e-mailed back. Except for the two little orange flags the rest of the application looks promising. It's still early yet though, I just posted him yesterday so there might be a flood of apps on the horizon.
We have Frankie from TG here tonight and she gets to hop on a plane to her forever home tomorrow. For being labelled feral, she quite happily jumped up on me and my computer and gave me a great big face wash. ----Why is it that I keep getting 'feral' dogs do that?? First Suzie, now Frankie. She's a cute little thing though, pretty darn friendly. Not much taller than Lemon but more solid. She hasn't paid attention to the other dogs as of yet, but everyone headed for bed just before she got here for 9:30. Vibo decided try to put himself to bed with Jinks tonight and was given such a dirty look he fled for his own crate instead. He's a funny guy and going to make some family very happy for sure.
Long day tomorrow, but looking forward to late afternoon when I get to curl up on the couch with my Lemon and my Jinks (who turns cuddly ONLY after a good run in the mud).
News soon,
Emily
Vibo has an application but I've sent back a couple of clarification questions. After seeing a lot of applications I find there are 'big red flags' that mean "nope, ain't gonna work", but there are several orange flags that really could mean from one extreme to the other and anywhere in between. Little flags that could spell disaster, OR could be an awesome family that didn't express what they wanted to quite as clearly as I needed. I like to give the benefit of the doubt and instead of dismissing them right away, I just ask for them to describe it to me. It gets tricky because you have to lay out all the options and not make it sound obvious which one you WANT them to pick. It's happened before that people just tell you what you want to hear so you will adopt them the dog. I guess judge of character is also a practiced principle!
So we shall see what gets e-mailed back. Except for the two little orange flags the rest of the application looks promising. It's still early yet though, I just posted him yesterday so there might be a flood of apps on the horizon.
We have Frankie from TG here tonight and she gets to hop on a plane to her forever home tomorrow. For being labelled feral, she quite happily jumped up on me and my computer and gave me a great big face wash. ----Why is it that I keep getting 'feral' dogs do that?? First Suzie, now Frankie. She's a cute little thing though, pretty darn friendly. Not much taller than Lemon but more solid. She hasn't paid attention to the other dogs as of yet, but everyone headed for bed just before she got here for 9:30. Vibo decided try to put himself to bed with Jinks tonight and was given such a dirty look he fled for his own crate instead. He's a funny guy and going to make some family very happy for sure.
Long day tomorrow, but looking forward to late afternoon when I get to curl up on the couch with my Lemon and my Jinks (who turns cuddly ONLY after a good run in the mud).
News soon,
Emily
Friday, February 1, 2013
Golden Pictures
The goldies have settled in well over the last two days. They've both been good off-leash at the baseball diamond, enough so that Sunshine has earned off-leash privileges on the farm. Vibo not so much as he likes to play keep-away with the toys! They've slept the nights away in their crates and have been good for approximately three hours while we're away. No accidents yet either, but for Vibo that might be more of a case of good monitoring than actually understanding.
Vibo is IN LOVE with Jinks -follows her everywhere like a little blond shadow-. He is medium energy but needs to build some muscle so by about 40 minutes into the hour of the fetch-a-thon he's dragging himself back and forth, determined to still run. We're making sure he gets lots of rest time too. He fusses for a couple of minutes when you put him in the crate but within ten minutes tops you look in and he's gone and starting to snore. He's just a fussy toddler who needs to be told he's tired.
Sunshine is toy-addicted, especially stuffies and likes to hang on the couch. She has a bad habit of wanting to get fed from our plates -annoyingly so. A big mooch!! We have a homecheck for her tomorrow in Nanaimo.
But, more to the point, here are a bunch of pictures from today!
Updates after her homecheck.
Emily Out
Vibo is IN LOVE with Jinks -follows her everywhere like a little blond shadow-. He is medium energy but needs to build some muscle so by about 40 minutes into the hour of the fetch-a-thon he's dragging himself back and forth, determined to still run. We're making sure he gets lots of rest time too. He fusses for a couple of minutes when you put him in the crate but within ten minutes tops you look in and he's gone and starting to snore. He's just a fussy toddler who needs to be told he's tired.
Sunshine is toy-addicted, especially stuffies and likes to hang on the couch. She has a bad habit of wanting to get fed from our plates -annoyingly so. A big mooch!! We have a homecheck for her tomorrow in Nanaimo.
But, more to the point, here are a bunch of pictures from today!
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| Vibo and Jinks playing tug in the field. |
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| Vibo -he's smaller than he looks! Only 35 pounds -border collie size-. |
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| Sunshine running with Jinks and boarding dog Abbey Nagy. |
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| Happy Vibo. |
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| Vibo gets Jinks' bum!! |
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| Happy Sunshine |
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| Golden Face |
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| Muddy Retriever |
Emily Out
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