Saturday and Sunday dog park
A friend has been trying to get a core group of dogs together on the weekends for play time. These times are not supervised by anyone other than the dogs’ owners. I like helping anyone interested in getting dogs together to play nicely so I agreed to post this on my website. Anyone in the Fox Valley IL area who is looking for a dog park can attend at these times and hopefully find other well mannered dogs there. I, however, have never been to this dog park and cannot speak to it’s facilities, but my friend said they are good and apparently there is a lake for them to swim in!
Update on puppy Poppy
Here is an update on Poppy, a pup from Chloe’s litter. We love getting these updates to pass along!
Poppy also just had her exam and vaccinations last week and she did well. She has grown a bit but is still seems to be the smallest one at 8.2 lbs although I think she has grown since. Like Jackson (formerly Jacob) — Poppy is getting a little more golden in her face and ears — at this point we have not noticed her stripe getting smaller and hope she keeps this as well.
Our biggest challenge has been the biting — but have since yesterday taken a different approach and it seems to be making all the difference. I watched a dog training video that talked about how this biting is the normal way puppies play with each other so we just need to redirect them. I kind of knew this but hearing this again helped me take a different approach. We were almost in a power struggle and I was getting her more riled up than redirecting her, but now instead of continually saying no and clapping my hands — If she bites my hand I say one ‘no bite’ and gently redirect her to her toy and continue to do this in a gentle manner. When she is biting on her toy I continually praise her and if she comes up and licks me instead of bites. I continually say good ‘kisses’ and she still gets a bit riled up at times or starts biting too hard but then I step out of her area for a bit or take her for a walk — and these times that she gets kind of crazy riled up seems to happen less and don’t last as long.
She seems to be fine with her crate and finally slept for 7 hours for the first time last night (11 – 6). She was getting up at 5. She has been to quite a few of my kids softball baseball games and is soooo good at these games (as long as we find her shade) — all the kids love having her there and she really seems to enjoy the kids as well — she is also making a lot of friends in our neighborhood!
Amber the escape artist
I have just learned that Amber (formerly Chloe), our foster mama prior to Daisy, has an interesting story to tell…I heard from her new owner, R-, that she is a bit of an escape artist. 5 days after her spay surgery, she was left alone as usual during the day but decided that she wanted to get out. She jumped the gate keeping her in her room in the house, OPENED a door to a bedroom, torn through a screen and JUMPED out a two story window!!! The story has a happy ending, though.
Amber chose her escape route well and landed on some bushes and was found running around the neighborhood by a neighbor. R- was understandable shaken but a vet check put her mind at ease, no harm was done. SO R- and I had a discussion about separation anxiety and I reiterated my belief that crating a dog, especially an adult dog, for under 5 hours at a time (Amber is alone for three hours, has an afternoon walk with a dog walker and is alone again for another three) IF she is given adequate exercise (a LONG walk) before and after is not cruel but in fact helpful for anxious dogs. Whew. I hope this helps and I’m sure R- would appreciate our support!! I feel certain that she will tackle this problem but it sure puts puppy mouthing into perspective doesn’t it??!! Yikes. Hang in there R-.
Puppies start to walk and open eyes
Well tonight (Monday) it was clear that these pups are out of the woods. And I am relieved. I noticed two days ago that some of them had little slits opening in their eye lids and today about half of them have their eyes almost completely open. We won’t be having photos for a week as the flash is harmful to their developing eye tissue. I may try on a sunny day to get some but not tonight. In addition to their eye development, they are starting to walk! It is only for a few steps, and they are very wobbly, but they are walking!! They seem to be right on schedule, so their bout of kennel cough didn’t set them back, developmentally, at all. In fact, as I watched them nurse tonight I was struck by how vigorous they all are. I think they are really hungry now, and I’ve noticed Daisy‘s food intake increasing (finally). Yes, it seems the consensus is for the name Daisy so Daisy it is. I may be supplementing their nursing sooner than I had planned…I usually wait until they can stand (duh) to introduce them to lapping formula from a bowl and that usually happens after week 3…but here we are at 2 weeks plus one day and already they seem ravenous. If Daisy can keep up, then I’ll let her.
I also gave them their first worming today and from about 1.5 pounds at day 3 they are up to 4 pounds!! Yeah. I am really proud of this group. Also, I cut toenails tonight. They were crazy long and really scratchy. You are welcome, Daisy.
8 Tiny Puppies Nursing
As promised at the tail end of Mama Dog Gets a Bath, here we have an amazing video of eight 12-day old pups nursing their mama. TURN UP THE SOUND to hear all of the precious puppy grunts and slurps!
See this video and many other CanineFostering.com videos on YouTube.
Mama dog gets a bath
Well, today was SO hot that I figured if I bathed Sandy? Daisy? Angie? (still haven’t found a name right for her) outside she wouldn’t mind the cold water and she’d dry off in a snap. Plus I figured she’d like the time outside. Boy was she freaked out by the water! It could be that it was spraying at her from the hose (I tried to be gentle but there isn’t that gentle a way for one to spray another with a hose) or that it was cold, or that she’s never had a bath or a hose bath before – I’m not sure which it is. But once she realized that all I was doing was hosing her down and that she couldn’t get away from me, she submitted. It sort of was humbling to me, how dogs let us submit our will on them rather easily. Now I know what I was doing was for her own good and she ultimately seemed to really enjoy being clean (you know how dogs do that rubbing thing on the carpet once they’re clean? She was rubbing herself along the garage door!!) but it sort of hit me how I could have been doing anything to her and she would eventually give in. How trusting, and how sad that so many people betray that trust. It just really hit me today for some reason.
But anyway, hopefully she will be ok with her next bath and hopefully I didn’t teach her to be deathly afraid of them…I think not as, like I said, she clearly got into it after a bit. And it is nice to have her clean!! Birth is a yucky business and that first week continues to be a bit yucky. Add to that her bout of whipworm and the poop that goes a long with that, and her pups crawling all over her and THEIR loose stool and… well, you get the picture. The dog needed a bath. Read the rest of this post »
