MERRY CHRISTMAS

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

from Rocco the dog

and family

Baby life

Baby G arrived in late September.
Rocco spent a very exciting weekend with friend, hanging out with his pack of dogs.

There was also a baby there which helped prepare him for our son's arrival. 

Life with a newborn during a Michigan winter is almost as boring as winter when mom has morning(all day) sickness

At least he has a tasty new pack member to sniff and lick

So far Rocco is doing very well with the baby. He is very respectful, and seems to understand. As with any new change he is nervous so we are working hard on counter conditioning and positive associations. 

Rocco is used to the camera always pointing at him.

 photo bomb

Dog Class

Your never too pregnant to train your dog
(Photo's from September 2013)

After the initial morning sickness, Rocco's training and socialization and my work with rescue dogs resumed to normal, if not above normal levels.

37 weeks pregnant, tired and hot!

But look at Rocco's cool calm approach in the social group

Most of the dogs in these pictures were available for adoption through a local rescue group that I work with called Better Life Canine Center. Some of the dogs are attending group with their owners to help improve their social skills.

38 weeks and thirsty

39 weeks

These pictures were taken during a weekly pack walk and socialization group sponsored by the rescue.

All dogs adopted through the rescue receive training for life.

40 weeks and ready to pop!

Happy Birthday Rocco

Rocco turned two years old today.

Today for his birthday he got a cheeseburger,

He does not get people food

 (apart from chicken and rice occasionally when his tummy is upset, which will probably be tonight huh?)

Front Yard Play

 A good friend of ours visited recently and let Rocco play with a dog toy we found in her car. It is a rope and a rubber toy all in one. Rocco LOVED it. We are going to have to find one somewhere.

Although it looks like he is ripping pregnant K's arm off in the photo, he released and laid down when asked. Then so did she.
Silly puppy

  

Rocco did cutesy tootsie tricks to earn the toy back.

 Lazy dog, all pooped out and we haven't even begun our social walk yet!

Waiting for baby...

A and I are not the only ones who are ready for our son to arrive. Rocco is waiting very patiently. 

Apple Balls

Cleaned out the freezer the other day. We often freeze fruit as it starts to go bad to cut up later to stuff dog bones, or be used for other things. Rocco benefited  from our freezer purge with a frozen apple ball.

 I often pick the seeds out because I have heard terrible stories of dogs eating the seeds and getting sick. I have not seen any evidence that these claims are realistic.

Has anyone else heard of apples causing problems with dogs?

Family Preparations

We are working hard as a family to prepare for the new arrival.
We are practising leaving toys around the house that are not for Rocco to chew on. Although he does not seem to find it to be a lot of fun, he is taking it well and doing a fantastic job ignoring things that are not for him. Lucky for us he has never been a chewer and has never chewed up anything of ours (apart from a few cat toy casualties, but in all fairness they do look like dog toys).

Little dog is also preparing for the babies arrival. She is sharpening her awareness of falling objects from up above as well as perfecting her ball fetching skills in preparation.

 

Nah I'm just kidding. Little Dog doesn't fetch.

or chase balls, or toys of any kind.

She is too classy and refined for such dog like behaviours.

She gave the ball a sniff though.

Tick Season

Spring has sprung here in Michigan!

A took Rocco out to do his business today, they were outside for less than 15 minutes.
Upon their return I ran a hand along Rocco's back and found the first tick of the season. Lucky for us it had not bit him yet and was just walking around on him looking for the right spot.

 As an experiment we tried to smash it in every was possible, which is not possible. In the end we drowned it in alcohol and administered flea/tick preventative to all four animals.

Moving

After a long break I am here to say that we moved. We now live in a bigger brighter house than our previous rental complete with woods and a lake. We deeply miss our old neighbours and the part of town we lived in, but we are excited for new adventures here.

Rocco's Boring Life

Well a lot has changed in our household since Rocco's blog was last updated with his winter gear.

We are happy to announce that we are expecting our first child around September 20th, 2013. As of today I have cleared the first trimester and I expect to be back on my feet like a semi normal person in the coming weeks. Unfortunately the last month and a half or so has been miserable. I have been plagued with  day long vomiting, nausea and fatigue. I have barely been able to eat, drink or stand on my own two feet.

Sadly for Rocco my sickness has meant lots of cuddling, bone chewing and short 20 minute walks for him. His modern life has become a boring one. He is used to long luxurious 1-2 hour long walks, adventurous romps through the woods, assisting and attending dog class, and lots of interesting trips. During the month of February he was lucky if he got to go outside before A got home from work. Needless to say, our dog is a little out of balance right now.

Rocco is so bored he is cuddling with the little dog

Mid February we invested in our own treadmill which helped a lot with exercising Rocco. Unfortunately it drops black residue on the wood floor and our grey and white cat is now dark grey and light grey. He looks quite dirty.

Now that I am starting to come out of the first trimester my energy is returning. I'm making bad personal decisions to restore balance in my dogs life. Today I woke up and threw on my new roller blades and did my best to run him for a few hours. We have also busted out the bikes again so he can run along side our bikes. I don't believe rollerblading or bike riding is recommended during pregnancy so please keep my safety and my dogs sanity in your thoughts.

Winter Bull

I never imagined I would put clothes on my larger breed dogs. Sadly I was forced to face reality when Rocco began shivering on our walks.

I tried to save money by cutting one of my old sweatshirts for him, but he looked like McHammer so we ditched that.

I hoped to find him a used sweatshirt at a thirft store, but before I did that I found this adorable hand made sweater at a pet store. I was shocked to see the price tag was 58$!!! Lucky for us the lady surprised us by saying, "oh those were just marked down to 10$". We are now the proud owners of a fancy locally made dog sweater.
Poofball hood and all.

My sweet man, A also found this sweatshirt at a thrift store the other day so how Rocco is all set for winter. This blue sweatshirt is now his 'rough and tumble' hoodie for dog play.

We are ready for winter in Michigan.
Now if the snow would just show up!

A Bone to Pick

The pack and I have encountered many different types of dog bones in our day. We often choose to use raw bones, however Rocco has had a raw hide bone since he moved in around July.

I am not a big supporter of raw hide bones for various reasons, so I was not too upset when I realized Rocco had no interest in chewing the rawhide bones. He would just pick them up, hide them, and then grab a raw bone to chew on. Any time I would find his hidden bone he would take it and hide it somewhere else. He did the same thing with the one we kept at my parents house. Whenever we would visit my parents house (every few months), he would find it bone, show it off, and then hide it in a new place.

I never really knew why he chose not to chew up the rawhides. He had no problem chewing up other bones or treats, it was just the rawhide that he would hide. One day earlier this week the mystery was solved.





I was in the living room with the LD





I stumbled upon the hidden raw hide. I threw it on the couch next to the Little Dog and to my surprise she began to 'chew' on it. I say 'chew' because Little Dog is an old elder-shit with less than six teeth. She has never shown any interest in chewing on anything much less a bone.

When Rocco came in the room he was curious about what little dog was doing.  

  He slowly laid down beside her to get a peek at the action

 

It did not take long for Little Dog to tire out from bone chewing and walk away. 

I expected Rocco to grab the bone and hide it again. Instead, to my amazement, he started chewing on it!

 This is when I realized that the only reason Rocco hid the bone before and didn't chew it up is because he didn't know!!! The human pack members were shocked. What kind of dog doesn't know what to do with a raw hide? What one year old pit bull is confused by a rawhide bone and has to rely on a 12 year old shitzu with no teeth to demonstrate?

 That's my dog. Needless to say he demolished that raw hide in several minutes and now completely understands its purpose. Silly puppy.

.

Mud Puppy

Rocco is now in a young adult dog stage and decided to test boundaries and limitations. He is now back to being on a long lead at all times until he re-establishes better understandings of his boundaries.  He doesn't really seem to care.

In our neck of the woods it was in the 60's today. Although it was wonderful, its also unusual weather for January in Michigan. The temperature rise caused the snow to melt and our back yard is now full of mud. The dogs liked it.

This is Duke

Duke is a good dog!

   

                  Duke is our housemate and Rocco's BFF

We live in a lovely duplex with a lovely yard.Though it is currently full of mud.

There is a large fenced in garden that the dogs often run around. We refer to it as "the track".

They have a great time running around The Track, however the corners are kick-offs for their speed and often are torn up and muddy. And so are our dogs.

Here is an action shot.

At one point Rocco laid down on his belly in the mud and stretched out in it. No big deal, not like our house is clean anyway :)

  

He was towelled off when we went inside. This was mostly pointless, but he was a very good dog non the less.

Rocco and the Treadmill

Some of the rescues and trainers I have worked with have used treadmills to exercise their dogs. Unfortunately, we live in a teeny tiny apartment with four animals so moving a treadmill in was never an option. 

Lucky for us the house we are staying at has a treadmill.
Rocco first tried it out last week while we were here.

I started off by gently introducing him to the idea of the treadmill. I lead him onto it and praised him, give him treats. I also brought him in the room when the treadmill was turned on, encouraged him, gave him treats etc. He is a
confident dog who isn't bothered by very many things so really we had it easy. With a lot of dogs I would expect this process to be slow and gradual over a few hours, days or weeks. However, he was more than ready to go after less than an hour.

I also attached two leashes to the treadmill to keep him in place. He has two correction collars on, both of which are far too big for him. When he is moving at a good speed the collars are loose. If he is lagging behind they tighten a little and remind him to move faster. If they are too tight I slow down the treadmill a lot and speed it up more slowly. It took a few tried to get the leads attached in the perfect position.

 After he was okay with the idea of standing on the treadmill I leashed him in and turned it on. I pretended to walk next to him and encouraged him to keep going "Lets go", "good work", "keep going". The more excited I sounded the faster he walked and the more he got into it.

The first time we tried out the treadmill I kept it on low for 5 minutes and then I let him off. I praised and praised him.
NOTE: The following videos are all less than a minute long. They do not represent the amount of time Rocco spent on a treadmill.

The second time on the treadmill we started out slow and then increased to a medium speed where he was walking quickly. This time he stayed on for closer to 15 minutes. At the end of this he was not panting and was eager to get back on later in the day

The next time we went on the treadmill we did the usual warm up. I started him slow and then began to increase the elevation and speed as time went on. I made sure not to do it too quickly as to make him nervous about the change. This time we got up to a pretty good pace. He trotted along for nearly 30 minutes before I slowed him down for a cool off. 

 

The fourth time we did the treadmill Rocco ran it for 45 minutes. As with the other times, I started him off slow and increased elevation and speed as time went on. In the end he got up to a pretty fast trot. I didn't leave it at this speed for more than a few minutes because he does seem a little nervous about keeping up the pace, though I hope in time he will comfortable with the higher speed. After about 40 minutes into this run he began panting which he had not done with the other runs so this made me very happy

. 

 I always provide

Rocco with a few minutes of "cool down" before turning off the treadmill so his muscles and brain can slow down without an abrupt stop. I also encourage stretching, but I can only do so much about that.

Running on a treadmill made him very tired. Although he exercised for less time than he would on an average day, I think the speed at which he trotted and the level of mental energy he had to use on the treadmill contributed to his exhaustion.

**It is not recommended that you leave pets unsupervised while using a treadmill**

Petit Chiens

We are spending the week with some Petit chien friends while their family is out of town

  There are three Bichon-Poodle mixes in the house.

Little dog loves hanging out with her little dog friends!

 Rocco find the whole thing a little bit boring. Little dogs aren't really a lot of fun.

 These dogs and their humans live in the most beautiful house with the most spectacular view of a local lake. It is especially beautiful when its frozen and glistening with ice and snow.

  

Pierre is the youngest and cutest of the Bichon-poodles.

Pierre smiles when you smile at him.

It is hard to take a picture of this.


                                                             

Jacques is Pierre's father. He is extremely sweet and follows us from room to room. He can be a little ornery at times, but overall he is a sweet old man.

Mimi is the momma of the house. 

She spends most of her time on the couch watching for trespassers. 

Rocco and his small dog friends. Mimi was not interested in joining the gang for this photo. 

*NOTE: Rocco is not normally allowed on bed, but he was invited to join the little dogs for this photo.

 Little Dog joins Mimi on guard from time to time.

 

LD isn't much of a barker so playing guard dog isn't really her thing.

She gets bored with this quickly and either sleeps or goes to her room. 

Puppy love

They also have pretty fish