Monday, September 7, 2009

Lori's Birthday at Mom's

A nice, but all too brief, celebration of Lori's birthday at Mom's on Sunday. Here's the birthday girl.


And here's the cake -decorated with orange mums of course!


Here she is with Caylie...


And with her boys...


And with everyone. See how happy a birthday it was?

Videos of Dingo Bat

Just couldn't keep calling her Puddin' - she didn't seem to mind. Kelly will be by to pick her up tomorrow...sure will miss her! But at least I'll have these videos. Thanks for the memories!











Saturday, September 5, 2009

Losing Nemo

Yeah, the title of this post is a take-off of the Disney movie. As some of you know, I had agreed to dogsit for Kelly while she went out of town over the Labor Day weekend. Kelly runs the Clear Lake All Breed Rescue and had 9 foster dogs needing a place to stay. We agreed to keep Nemo, a long-haired chihuahua, but unfortunately, Mr. Trip did not like Nemo at all.

Even after holding him for 15 minutes to give him a chance to settle down, as soon as I put him on the ground he ran straight at Nemo, pinned him on the ground, and attacked him. I broke it up and got bit in the process. Ouch!

After trying for another 10 minutes to give Trip & Nemo a chance to get along, with no success at all, Kelly decided to bring in another dog she had in her car who she was taking to another willing dog-sitter. Her name is Puddin' and although Kelly has her listed as a chihuahua on the web, I think she looks a lot more like a cross between a dingo, rat terrier, and chow. You'll see what I mean in the videos posted below.

Trip behaved like super demon dog when Puddin' came in as well, but when I let him down he charged her and she slapped him right on the snout with her front paw. Seemed to startle him and from then on he would growl, but he didn't try to attack her again. Of course, Tater & Porch Boy were thrilled to meet both Nemo and Puddin' and immediately began playing with them both.

After about 10 more minutes, Kelly & I agreed that it would be a lot safer to leave Puddin' with us rather than Nemo. Hence the title of this posting...

Puddin has a sister named Cookie who is also being fostered by Kelly, but I suppose Cookie went to someone else for the weekend. At first I was afraid Puddin was never going to warm up to me. She was very skittish and although she interacted well with all 3 dogs and the cats, she would run away from me & Gina. We put a large crate in the living room so she could have a safe place to sleep, but she didn't seem to want to go into it.

Gina went on to bed and I stayed up until nearly midnight trying to get her to let me pet her. She would have none of it. Then about 2AM I heard Trip growling and saw Puddin had come up onto the foot of the bed. I calmed Trip down and went back to sleep. On Friday morning as I was getting dressed for work, Puddin came up to me and put her paw on my thigh as if she wanted me to pick her up. I slowly reached under her chin to pet her and she didn't run away. Then I picked her up and held her for a couple minutes and she let me kiss her and pet her. I felt much better about leaving her uncrated, having the run of the house with the other dogs while we were at work.

When I got home, I went out in the back yard with all 4 dogs and played with them for a couple hours. Puddin now is well integrated into the pack and as you can see in the videos, has really warmed up to me as well.

Isn't she a pretty dog?


Although she seemed to like the harness, she didn't do so well on the leash when I walked her this morning.


She only went half a block and then started shaking like a leaf and steadfastly refused to move another inch forward. I had to pick her up and carry her back home.

Not sure why she freaked out. But she is totally at home in the back yard. Enjoying a bone here.


Decided I will post the videos tomorrow. I'm getting tired and have to go into the office before Lori's birthday party tomorrow afternoon. G'night!