What does a Dippy do?

Our search for a small female demo dog ended with an adoptable little mutt we named Dipsy.

 If I had to guess her breed I would say some sort of Australian Shepard, maybe beagle but who really knows. Maybe some sheeba, or something too? Here, take a look and you decide. She is close to full grown, weighs less than 20lbs and has a docked tail.

 

Here she is with foster dog Minnie, before we brought Minnie to her forever home.

Regardless of breed, she is a sweet, unassuming little thing. Although we weren't looking to replace our Little Dog, Dip does has some similar characteristics which really makes LD's passing that much easier to live with.

Fostering good dogs

A few months before LD passed away, we began looking for a smaller female dog to adopt. We wanted someone large enough to play with Rocco, but small enough to sit in the back seat of our sedan with him and a car seat.

We began our hunt for the next female demo dog feeling rather optimistic. I has my eyes out for a beagle mix, though not always the easiest to train they often have a solid social foundation which is my biggest criteria. Also Rocco's BFF is a beagle mix named Sally who I love. I did a lot of talking with my rescue and training friends. We looked at few dogs, though none of the dogs were really what we were looking for. One of the rescues I worked with emailed me about a 9 month old beagle mix named Minnie that needed a foster home as she was being returned to the rescue. We agreed to take her that Saturday.

When I picked her up the first words out of my house was "You are NOT a beagle mix.." and sure enough, there isn't a thing about her that says beagle. What we took on instead appears to me a Corgi/Dutch Shepard of some kind. It is hard to say of course what she is, but her temperament screams high drive working dog!

She turned out to be a charming dog, very motivated and eager to please. Unfortunately she was not meant to be our dog, this we knew pretty quickly. Minnie she was adopted by a wonderful lady in the UP. She is living a charmed rural life, running in the woods on the beaches of Lake Superior. We really couldn't of asked for a better adoptive home for her.
Not long after Minnie arrived with us we got word of another dog that needed placement. We went to meet this dog before agreeing to foster her, and it was instant love. There will be a follow up post on Dipsy soon.

Our perfect Little Dog

I can not comprehend how quickly time flies. I don't have the same time for myself, blogs or dogs as I used to.  A lot has happened since this past fall. I'm terribly sorry to post that our sweet Little Dog passed away this spring. She was proximity 15 years old.

This is the only photo i currently have on my phone.  It's from last stunner when the groomer shaved off all her fur.  She looked very silly

. Our

A dear friend got us this great sketch of LD to hang on the wall.  We hung it in the living room and G says Hi to it everyday. I think G handled LDs passing pretty well. For being around 18 months at the time, he really seemed to understand. 

Earning his keep

It has been a long time coming but Rocco is finally calm and social enough to work for his keep.

His joins me at work almost everyday to help socialize, exercise and analyze client dogs. From his body language I am able to discern a lot about the other dogs. Having a calm and social dog around really is a great tool for helping other dogs find the same peace.

Rocco has even come as far as to play with many new client dogs, including some that were too reactive or nervous 6 months ago. Pictures to follow soon.

New house, new friends.

We moved again, this time for the better. We are out of the country and back into the small city life. The dogs have a fenced in yard for the first time which is wonderful but comes with its own set of challenges. Rocco is sharpening his skills by working hard to ignore the dogs and people as they pass by our yard.

Today a good friend helped us work on some training in the yard. Rocco was rewarded by a nice romp around with a small schnauzer mix named Lucy. They played like old friends, and even shared a stick together.

Rocco is a completely different dog than a year ago. It's amazing what a little structure and exercise will do for even the most neurotic dogs.

working dog

We are now past pregnancy and baby G is nearly 8 months old. I have returned to work and Rocco's life has taken a wonderfully modern turn.

After a year and a half of hard work and socilization he is finally ready to get to work. He spends his week days walking, playing and sniffing with client dogs and his weekends sunbathing and baby licking.

He is still nervous around some new dogs, but everyday is an improvement

Sharing

Rocco is very good at sharing with his cat friend Rudy

And Little Dog

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.

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