What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

[JudyN]

Delta's worst habit (only bad habit, really!) is splashing in the water bowl. I think he likes to sleep on wet tile? He'll take a drink of water, then either start digging in the water bowl or just splash a foot in there, drag the water around a bit, and lay down in it. Any ideas how to prevent him, other than watching him like a hawk at the bowl?

I think we're going to need videos of the behaviour to assess it properly

[Nettle]

I don't suppose it is of the slightest comfort to say that most of mine play in their water bowls as puppies. Of the new litter, the one the breeder kept sits in the bowl to drink from it. (all the others are homed now )

I just put towels round the bowl.

[Erica]

Judy, I'll try to get a good video later! I took one of his first encounter with the legal splash bowl but he just stood on the edge and dumped it all out.

Nettle, that is actually pretty comforting. As long as he eventually grows out of it/moves the behavior to an acceptable outlet! The puppy the breeder kept sounds entertaining at the very least!

I took him on his first official walk this morning. There's a trail behind our house that's really only ever used by the people who live along it (...okay, just us and our backdoor neighbor) and some horseback riders come along it for the big tree fallen across it - it makes a good jump. It used to be more travelled, but new people moved in halfway down it and built a fence across it. :/ Inconsiderate, but legal. I guess it's lucky now because it means the trail is probably pretty safe to take him on.

Anyways, he did wonderfully - walked nicely on leash, sniffed and investigated and when we got back he went straight to sleep. That was the goal, really, as I have cramps today and just wanted to sit down with a heating pad (though the walk and cool air did me good).

As promised, snood picture:


Once he's more used to it and will tolerate it when he's not actively eating, I'll try to get better pictures.

And a picture from the walk - we stepped onto the edge of the graveyard, but didn't go too far in.

[Nettle]

Lucky chap to have specially knitted snood, when I would have just cut the toe off an old sock and made him a balaclava

[gwd]

I don't suppose it is of the slightest comfort to say that most of mine play in their water bowls as puppies. Of the new litter, the one the breeder kept sits in the bowl to drink from it. (all the others are homed now )

I just put towels round the bowl.

^^^^this^^^^
I did have one setter that caused me to change things up a bit. I used to have stainless steel buckets for water........ but she seemed to think that the from the bottom of the bucket must be tastier so she'd submerge her head up to her eyebrows for a drink. I got tired of her face and ears always being wet so I went to a ceramic bowl that wasn't as deep and I just had to keep a closer eye on it to make sure it was full.

[bendog]

OH has done it again

I came back from walking the big girls to find that he had left dog food defrosting in a bin on top of one of the chest freezers. The terrier (small terrier) had located and raided, and has eaten two and a half breasts of lamb She is trying to sleep it off but is too bulky to curl up.

Fortunately we all have a sense of humour! And it isn't a disaster - we have other food for them. But I suspect a terrier may not be geting much tonight.

Sounds familiar!
Sash got a whole bag of apples the other day off the counter when I was out. She was as round as an apple by time I found her, having eaten at least 6
But no ill effects.
She has a stomach of steel that one.

[Erica]

It reminds me of how Ami's owners complain about him getting tissue boxes and destroying them multiple times a week...the kicker is the boxes he's getting are in a room nobody uses! so there's no point to having them there at all.

Did somebody say balaclava?

[gwd]

Lucky chap to have specially knitted snood, when I would have just cut the toe off an old sock and made him a balaclava

We did the toe off the sock with my gang when they were little ......now of course it is way to small to work. Now they have proper snoops. There is nothing worse than petting a dog with crunchy ears.

[Ari_RR]

I am missing something here.... What is this snood thing for? Somehow makes ears not crunchy??

[gwd]

I am missing something here.... What is this snood thing for? Somehow makes ears not crunchy??

When you have a coated breed........ and VERY long ears, they drag their ears in their food. This results in food encrusted coat that is crunchy to pet and also breaks off. Not to mention it's not very hygienic.

I also put snoods on the dogs when they have a bully stick as I've had them chew part of their coat and we try and preserve every hair!

[emmabeth]

ahhhhhhhhhhh owners of smooth wipe clean hounds do not understand... with mrs Foot long frilly ears here and of course mr floofy face, we know all about crunchy ears (and of course, crispy beards but I don't think a snood would work for that.....)

I may have knitted a hoodie bobble hat for a friends hound. Maaaaaybe... of course id never put such a thing on any of my hounds... nono never...


This week we have been revisiting wombles food impatience (ie, mums got food, therefore I shall make a VERY BIG NOISE until the food is gone, or I get some). Two sessions and hes back to pointedly parking his bum on his special mat and being silent - imagine if I actually trained him more!

[MPbandmom]

Love the Snood Erica. I also think I am glad my two don't need such things.

Annual checkups for all critters yesterday. The cat decided to turn the tables on the vet and get a sample of her blood. The cat was not appreciative of the vet removing the last couple of mats (and a new one I had just discovered the night before, but not worked on any yet). Nor the vet clipping her nails. I think she got one hind foot done when the cat said that is that, now you're going to get it. She didn't even want the vet to touch her to put her back in the carrier and I was kind of stuck on the opposite side of things. The cat was actually more tolerant of the vet removing the mats than she tends to be of me removing them from those areas.

Sirius was next. She was muzzled so the vet fared better there, but had a heck of a time trying to get Sirius positioned in such a manner that the vet could examine her in a less threatening manner. After the vet finished her check up of Sirius, Sirius sat and gave her best "I'm a good girl and I deserve treats" smile to me.

Sky was last. I saved the best for last. Sky of course thought the vet was as cool as could be.

After the vet visit, we went to the battlefield to meet up with a member of the sammy club who brought a couple of her sammys to join us for a walk. I decided to go up the narrow path that I had said I should avoid, figuring it was a quiet weekday. Well, it was. Just before we headed up the trail, two sets of dog walkers with 2 dogs each came down the trail. They were larger dogs, more Sky sized. The first couple passed without too much trouble, but the second two were red dogs, maybe vizlas (sp). Did I mention, my dogs now HATE red dogs? Sky did fairly well with their passing. Sirius went absolutely ballistic. Poor OH had one heck of a time keeping a grip on her and it had a negative impact on his back. He did manage to finish the walk, but has been spending a lot of time in bed since then. I'm not certain what is is that she does, or he does that causes the back problems when she goes off. I think I perhaps need to make a double ended lead for him that works for his height. Our regular double ended lead is too short when one end is hooked to her collar and the other end is hooked to her harness. For a while I added the short "extra" lead from Sky's leash, but I needed that back for her to start picking up DSA trail dog titling miles. In it's place, he is using a straight 6' marine dog rope lead. This seems to serve him better than the other arrangement, except when she goes off full tilt. Then I think he ends up bending over and trying to catch her muzzle or collar and my suspicion is that the bending while hanging onto a 40 pound dog that is throwing her weight around with all of her strength is what does his back in.

Other than those two sets of dog walkers, I think we saw one other person and we walked just over 2 miles.

Speaking of Red Dogs....AriRR if you do fb, you should look into the Hiking with Dogs group. There were pictures posted there the other day of a gorgeous RR family hiking in some spectacular scenery.

[Swanny1790]

I love the idea of snoods for long-eared dogs. I can see it turning into part of the pre-feeding ritual and dogs getting all atwitter with job at the mere sight of the snood. "I'm getting dressed for dinner" sort of thing.

I got home from work a bit late yesterday. I'm not sure what the delay was, the weather on both sides of the mountains was pretty decent. Nonetheless, I got back to town with just enough time for Trish and I to grab a bite of lunch before taking Chetan in for her pre-whelping X-ray. We wanted a good idea how many puppies to expect, and to know whether or not we might have to deal with an emergency C-section because of an overly large puppy. That's never been a problem in the Hedlund Husky line, but I think it prudent to do anyway.

So, here is our first view of Chetan's litter. Wanna play "Count the Puppies"?



So far Chetan is doing really well. She's maintaining good body condition, neither too heavy nor too thin. She's staying active and Trish reports no significant changes in her behavior at all. Her sister, Animosh, on the other hand, has been off her feed the past week or so for no easily discernible reason. Ani is living in the opposite side of the kennel so I doubt it's related to Chetan's condition in any way.

As always, I have too much to do and too little time in which to do it. I have to fly off this afternoon to Kentucky, for a week of work related training. I'll be able to visit our consulting behaviorist while I'm there, and I'm looking forward to that. When I return things will be a flurry of motion around here. I still have to collect enough straw to get through the winter (it's in very short supply up here this year), need to do some work on Chetan's pen in preparation of her litter, need to take a sled to my favorite builder for some pre-season work (it needs a new bed and we need the sled when doing tourist runs for our local tour operator), and we need to get the training season started with the four-wheeler.

Oh, did you count puppies? Our vet saw eight.

[ClareMarsh]

The cat decided to turn the tables on the vet and get a sample of her blood.

Everything is completely back to normal here and Ted and Ella are both very pleased to be back to being able to play together. The time separated hasn't refined Ella's playing technique any though. She still does lab style body slams, bounces off Ted into a stunt roll and then takes off at high speed

I have no idea how many Swanny, I think I might be able to see 9, but what the heck do I know. It does seem she's going to have a lot of mouths to feed though

[gwd]

I get nine skulls. ...........she's got them packed in there like little sardines!

It's so cool (pun inadvertent) as I remember a day when 'pupsicles' were a rarity. In the 80's, using the fresh chilled or frozen stuff generally meant a miss for the b*tch.

And you're absolutely right swanny. The dogs can't wait to stick their heads into their snoods. .........we actually call it putting on their dinner hat!