Category: dogs

I made a strategic error when I got home last night:  I was so tired myself I didn’t wake Rion and play with him for a while.  He had been sleeping on Jack quietly, so I took him outside and then put him in his crate, and went to sleep myself not long after.  Rion must have been tired his first night here, because last night he woke me every sixty to ninety minutes after midnight. Then I compounded the error by giving him one of his new toys, and Rion evidently decided “Wow:  this place rocks at night.”  On the other hand, watching him pounce and kill his little plush hippo toy was worth the price of admission.

Rion seems totally at home now. Like any properly adjusted puppy, he views everything as a potential toy.  The puppy toys I brought home yesterday are nice, but nothing beats a human being.  The Collie has potential too:  if he could just figure out how to get her to cooperate.

We have the house set up in zones.  The small puppy proof zone is the master bathroom.  The associated bedroom is puppy safe:  he could damage stuff, but is unlikely to get hurt doing so.  The remainder of the ground floor on this side of the French doors should be puppy safe after today, except for my office.  We are not even going to attempt to puppy safe the area on the other side of the French doors.  He still cries when he doesn’t have Jack or me in sight, but is more apt to wander off exploring on his own for a while before realizing he can’t see us.

The biggest surprise is how cheerful Rion is about going outside.  I am sure he doesn’t understand “walkies” yet, but he is enthusiastic about following me to the mudroom door.  This morning he was frolicking about in 14F and seemed quite comfortable, at least for the five minutes I was willing to keep him outside.  So far walkies consist of going the length of the dog run to the gate to the horse field.

He can now jump down from the bed, and is quite indignant that he can’t get back up under his own steam. I started brushing him with a puppy brush, but it wasn’t doing the job, so I’ve been using a tiny wire brush which he thinks is a game. 

Rion, our Miniature Schnauzer puppy spent a relatively quiet night. I, on the other hand, was too jazzed to sleep more than a few hours. Although he is really too small, he somehow manages to get up the stairs out of our sunken living room. He flows up them, rather than climbing them. I am trying to avoid the temptation to carry him everywhere: he needs the exercise, even though he is very cuddly when I lift him. I also need to get him some smaller toys: all our existing dog toys are bigger than he is. So are my Crocs, though he is perfectly willing to try to chew on them, especially if my feet are in them. He seems to have the appropriate instincts about not soiling in his crate, and let me know emphatically that he needed out about 11:30 pm last night. So far, the one thing that seems to worry him is doors slamming. He must not have heard that noise where he lived with his litter mates.

Yesterday, Jack commented that our elderly Collie, Lody, no longer seemed to hear him call when he was ready to leave the horse field after feeding horses in the morning.  While we feed, we allow Lody to wander around the horse field.  Trust me, you don’t want to know why she likes to accompany us.

I responded that she still seems to hear me, though I have to pitch my voice a little higher than my normal speaking tone.  I suggested he try pitching his voice higher when he wanted Lody’s attention. 

So this morning, I heard Jack coo in a squeaky falsetto:  “Lody wanna go feed horses?”  It must have worked, because then I heard Jack coo “Good girl, good girl!” in the same high tone. I don’t think I had ever heard Jack’s falsetto before, though in theory I guess I knew he had one.

It was scary.

The Furry Golden Horde, the fond nickname I gave to Jack’s sister’s Golden Retriever and Sheltie years ago, are visiting again.  At least when Lily and Lightning are here I have dogs who wag their tails and prance toward the door when I ask if they want to go outside.  Lody, our elderly Collie, cringes as though she expects to be hit or kicked when I asked this question.  And no, I have never kicked or struck her since I have known her, though I have fallen over her a few times.  Lody just hates to go outside, unless I announce that we are going to go feed horses.

But today I agree about not wanting to go outside.  It is a cold rainy day, and even the horses spent part of the time under cover. The weather doesn’t seem to bother Lily and Lightning, though. 

According to this graphical representation of dog ages, Lody’s twelve calendar years is equivalent to a human age of eighty-four.

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Our Storm Early Warning System (SEWS) was telling me that there was a storm nearby for a while, but she seems to have settled down now.

In June, I wrote about Lody and Mowers. Yesterday, that post received a comment from a woman named Julie who suspects she has one of Lody’s puppies.  The dates are right, since Lody had one litter shortly before she came to live here around six years ago.  Lody went back to her breeder when her elderly owner could no longer care for her.  Her breeder started looking for a home for Lody since Lody didn’t care for being one of a large number of dogs.  I found out about Ch Wild Winds Lody through a friend of the breeder’s, and took her on a week’s trial to make sure she would get along with our other dog, Dudley.  Lody marched in, looked around, and decided she was home, even though Dudley needed a little work.

I knew Lody, our elderly Smooth Collie, hates lawn mowers, but she still surprised me this afternoon. I was cutting the weeds in the dog run. I leave the dogs inside the house when I do this, but forgot and left open the door to the mudroom which has a dog door leading to the dog run. I saw this tri-color streak and I had barely stopped the lawn mower when Lody attacked it, biting one of the tires. She stopped attacking when I cut off the motor. Lody is usually such a laid-back dog that it made her behavior even more surprising. After I put her back in the house she kept barking until I finished.