Missy is adopted!

Missy has been adopted by a wonderful, dog savvy, competitive agility family. She is going to have a new doggy sister, Mia, who already competes in agility. Her new home is fabulous and she will get to go running with her new dad and for long walks with her new mom. She has a great new name, Piper.

Missy's morning walk

We walk the dogs every morning and every evening.

Our minimum loop is 1.5 miles. We also have a 2 and a 3.5 mile loop that goes around a lake. They love the routine and we need the exercise.

The dogs love to sniff in the rocks as there are critters hidden in there.

But soon it is off to find more smells.

There are many things to see and sniff on a dog walk.

Missy has found a munchable weed.

Munch, munch, munch.

When you have long fur and it is black it is important to conserve energy and stay cool.

Missy is very new to walking and loves to stop and look at things. It is important for her to get out often and see as many new things as she can.

Missy plays with our new foster

Missy is excellent with other dogs. She got introduced to our new foster today and the two of them had a ball chasing each other around and wrestling in the yard.



















A quick rest.

For both dogs.

Then it was back to play again.

But a little less racing and more wrestling this time.





This afternoon were playing rainy day games by tossing food on the carpet and all the dogs have to sniff around to find it since the carpet is dark and has a pattern where it blends in. It keeps them occupied as they keep sniffing to find every last piece. With the new foster were also tossing food in all the crates. Some times it falls down in the crevices so they are all dedicated to looking for that also.

Hail, hail, everywhere

We had a big hail storm here. All the dogs enjoyed racing around in the hail and getting soaking wet.

Fun, fun, fun

Missy loves to lay under our chaise lounger.

Some straps dangle to tempt her.

Oops, foster mom caught me.

She is bummed that she isn't allowed to play with them.

But a toy will do.

Inside, another toy keeps her attention.


After a fun romp in the yard all the dogs settle on the deck with squeaky toys. Sunshine and Missy were playing tug of war with one for a while but I didn't have the camera handy.

Lounging after a dog walk

Missy and Sunshine enjoy keeping me company after this morning's dog walk.

Playing with people

My husband has been tasked with playing with Missy to teach her to play appropriately with people.

Being a puppy she tends to want to play with people like they are puppies. Tonight I asked him how much improvement he felt she had made since she came to us. He said she had 'significant' improvement and all though she still tried to mouth him a bit he said she pretty much knows she shouldn't and isn't even trying very hard anymore. Here are some pics. of them playing. We always keep a toy nearby to give her toys to munch on instead of people.



She has a ways to go but were pleased with the progress.

Missy goes shopping and shows off her new manners

We took Missy over to our local pet store Muttz. They are a great healthy food pet store.

Missy, just like any puppy needs socialization, which means exposing her to lots of different places and people.

Since there is a golf course behind the store we first stopped to watch the golfers.

Then it was inside to meet the friendly employees. At first Missy was a little wary but as soon as the ladies said sweet things to her she was putty in their hands. They gave her lots of pets and treats.

Then Missy did a little shopping of her own.

Then another lady came in and Missy barked at her. However, she was a dog savvy person, came up while saying hi to her and squatted down. Missy hurled herself into her lap all wiggles and wanting to be petted. The lady was equally smitten and said if she didn't have 3 French Bulldogs of her own then she'd take her.

By the time we left the store Missy was relaxed and happy that she had found such a nice friendly and treat laden place.

I was so proud of her. She kept all 4 paws on the floor and did sits and downs for all the treats with no jumping for attention. The only time she tried to jump up was when the lady opened a bag of dog food to give her some. She just couldn't resist the sound of the crinkly bag being opened. Then she immediately did the prettiest sit. The lady even commented on how business like her sits were as she tried to elicit a treat. She did not try to put her paws on any of the counter tops and she did not mouth anyone at all. Not one person, not one time. The entire experience was a great success!

Dogs in the rain

I took pictures from the safety of the deck of the dogs enjoying the wet ground and probably earthworms.

Puppy Primer by Brenda Scidmore & Patricia McConnell

Sometimes you think you have enough knowledge to go it alone but you don't. I finally pulled out my books to determine what we were doing wrong on the house training front. Turns out when you give the dogs free run of the house you have to introduce the rooms one by one and use each room as a play place, eating place etc. so that the dog associated it with the living space. Dogs don't have the same map in their head of what constitutes a house as we do. That is where we messed up with the basement and the guest bedroom, we were giving her access to it but not using it as living space so in her mind she was not going in the living space. I refreshed myself on some other concepts in the Puppy Primer which I highly recommend to everyone.

http://www.amazon.com/Puppy-Primer-Patricia-B-McConnell/dp/1891767135

Patricia McConnell is one of my favorite trainers and I think I have all her books. I really like how she promotes a relationship with the dog as well as understanding the dogs body language and communicating through body language. However, just like with anything else there are certain things she advocates which I think are misguided. For instance I don't like startling the dog with something like a book flying out from the environment. I don't want a dog to be afraid of its environment. I've seen to many rescues who suffer from fears created by misguided advice. There are better ways to train a dog.

Another book that I'm going through is

Family Friendly Dog Training: A Six Week Program for You and Your Dog

by Patricia McConnell and Aimee Moore

Up from a nap and Blossom plays with Missy

Missy enjoyed a nice nap after her dog walk this morning. But then I decided to walk around the yard so of course she wanted to come. But it took a few moments for her to wake up.

Yawn.

Wonder what foster mom is interested in out here. Doesn't seem to be anything going on.

But then Blossom came out too and Missy actually got her to play!

They raced and raced around the bushes, yard and tunnel. In fact they were going so fast I couldn't get a picture with both of them in it.

So I picked the two best ones of Missy. Mostly my pics. were just empty screens or body parts since they were going by so fast.

Afterwards it was back inside and back to sleep.

The dogs are most active in the morning and evenings. They seem to prefer to nap during the afternoon.