it’s a fuzzy fuzzy world…

We finally got enough snow to take pictures, instead of just the little dustings we had earlier in the winter. Since this was Petey’s first real snow, I naturally had to take pictures. The shot of Petey play-bowing at a stick may be one of my favorite pics of him so far… it completely captures his personality and his boundless enthusiasm for play.

So I’m spending some quality time with Petey this evening, where he’s the only dog loose in the main part of the house with me, and I discovered some interesting things.

First… he’s firmly convinced, from months of playing fetch with Nick, that fetch should be a contact sport, in which I’m the quarterback, Nick is the wide receiver who goes out for the long pass, and Petey is the defensive tackle who body blocks Nick, causes a fumble and steals the ball. The first time I threw his hedgehog for him tonight, he just stared at Nick (who was in the crate) and looked thoroughly confused about not having a receiver to block. He did get the hang of it pretty quickly, but it’s clear that I need to do a lot more one-on-one work w/ Mr. Pete on retrieving.

Second… he’s really used to having a playmate to keep him occupied. That can be me, or it can be Nick, and in the absence of either of us, he creates his own fun. I came up from downstairs just in time to see Petey vault onto the dining room table (which is bar-height… so substantially taller than your average table), where he proceeded to come nose-to-nose with a very startled Fiddler, who quickly gave way to allow Petey unimpeded access to the cat food*.

Good grief.

This is going to require a whole new level of puppy-proofing!

* Yes, the cat food is on the dining room table. I usually eat in the living room. The cats’ food bowl is on the dining room table to keep it out of reach (until now) of the dogs.

Wow… has it really been 10 months since my last post here? Oops. A lot has happened in that time… I got involved with my local volunteer fire department back in May, which has taken up a lot of my time. Trevor (foster dog from previous post) was with me ’til September, when he moved to another foster home after I broke my leg. He’s now been adopted and has his very own forever family, and I’m out of the fostering game for a little while, because (bringing us neatly to the reason for this post) I added a new puppy to the pack in August, and his dad is also living with me for awhile.

Petey thought the comfy dog bed provided by the MuseCon hotel was an excellent place for a puppy nap.

I hadn’t really planned on getting a puppy “right now,” but when one of my favorite Toller males was bred and I had a shot at the “most Nick-like” puppy in the litter, I really couldn’t resist. I drove up north of Toronto to spend some time with the litter and promptly fell in love. I never name puppies ’til I meet them, but I’d been thinking about possible names before I went to Canada… and while I was there… and on the way home. I kept trying out possibilities and finally it all came together.

See, the naming of dogs is an interesting game. Frequently, the breeder wants their kennel name in the registered name. And sometimes there’s a theme. In this case, both applied, so I knew I needed a name that related in some way to Newfoundland (where the breeder, Kristina’s, grandmother was from) and I needed to include “Florence Grove” (the kennel name). I don’t have a kennel name, since I don’t breed, but I’ve used “SwampWater” in all my boys’ names, so I was hoping to continue that trend. Of course, AKC only allows 30 letters, and I was using up most of them with Florence Grove and SwampWater. Hmmm… and I still needed to tie all this to Newfoundland.

So I did my homework on Newfoundland, looking for things that could tie into a swampy name, and that were short, since I was almost out of letters. Somewhere along the way, I encountered pirates and started looking at pirate names, then my friend Amy pointed out that pirates hang out in coves, and everything fell together. The registered name became “Florence Grove SwampWater Cove” (there’d've been an “‘s” after “Grove” if I hadn’t been out of space) and the working idea for a call name was something related to famous Newfoundland pirate turned folk hero, Peter Easton. “Easton” was my original choice, but after I hung out with him for awhile, it was clear that Easton was entirely too serious for this puppy, so he became “Pete” or, more often, “Petey.”

Papa Nick really preferred my bed over the dog bed.

Along the way, we decided that papa Nick was going to come visit the States for awhile in search of his AKC championship (he has his Canadian championship, and a five-point major in the AKC from before he moved to Canada), so when I headed home, I had little fluffball Pete and his dad. We spent exactly three days at home before loading up in the car again and heading off to MuseCon, a small sci-fi convention in Chicago, focused on music and art and other forms of creativity. What better place to do some puppy socialization, right? A dog-friendly hotel, and a convention full of people who I knew and knew were puppy-safe. So we piled me, Petey in his crate, my friend Jen, her daughter Maddie (in a car seat) and Nick (sharing the back seat with Maddie) all in my Beetle and we headed off to Chicago. It was quite possibly the best puppy adventure ever. Petey had a grand time, being passed from person to person, dancing on marble floors with little girls, and utterly charming the burly off-duty Chicago cop who was working security for the hotel when we went out for our 2 a.m. potty break. The dogs even got convention badges of their very own, which they wore any time we were out-and-about in the hotel.

Petey was so little when he first came home...

After a couple of weeks at home, Petey was settling in and learning house manners and general puppy stuff, and Nick was being the calm voice of doggy reason (and, I might add, an excellent role model). We’d made our first trip to meet my vet, visited the office (where he sprawled on the cool tile floor in the Mac Lab and accepted adulation from everybody who came in to visit) and then life took an unexpected turn… I went to a fire department training day, had a bit of an altercation with a firehose, and found myself with a broken ankle. Four days later, I was scheduled for surgery and all the dogs (my permanent three, visiting Nick, and foster Trevor) where whisked off to board with a friend who raises German Shorthaired Pointers. For most of the next six weeks, the dogs were in boarding and I was non-weight-bearing. I’m extremely thankful for the fact that Christy was able to take the dogs (there was no way I could deal with stairs and bouncy dogs on just one foot) and that she kept Petey well socialized. As much as I hated missing those weeks of his puppyhood, he came home a well adjusted, happy, snuggly boy, apparently none the worse for wear after his unexpected trip to camp.

And now, because this has gotten long and is threatening to turn into a novel-length post, I’ll stop. We’ll continue the saga in a later post!

Tomorrow marks the end of Trevor’s second week here at Reddog Central, and he’s come a long way in a very short time! Big improvements in housebreaking, crate training, knowing his name and the meaning of “No!” and, best of all, being able to play outside with both of my dogs! He’s been on doxycycline for eight days now, so three weeks more ’til he can start his heartworm treatment.

Trevor enjoys the run of the yard

Except for the very first day, he hasn’t tried to mark in the house, but he was tethered to me for all of the first week, so he had very little opportunity. I’ve now received Belly Bands that fit him, so he can have more freedom without me having to worry about the furniture, but I’m not sure they were necessary. He seems to have quickly realized that marking is Not Allowed in the house. He’s had no accidents in his crate after the first couple of days, either, which makes me very happy.

( This week's milestones... )

Next steps… leash manners, “sit,” “wait” and taking treats gently (those last two are related… to each other and to my bruised finger).

The vet called with the results of Trevor’s last test today. No intestinal parasites! Yippee! I knew the shelter had wormed him, but the wormer they use doesn’t kill whipworms, and finding out whether he was clear of those was the last barrier to him being able to have unsupervised play time in the yard with my guys.

( A tale of meds, and dogfood, and testosterone... )

So now I spend the next 30 days giving Trevor his antibiotics and trying to put some weight on him. Also, continuing to introduce him and Drummer. I tried yesterday… Trevor and Thunder were out in the backyard, and I took Drummer out on lead. They started off just sniffing, but then there was some generalized grumbling from both of them, so I wasn’t willing to turn them loose together quite yet. Boys. I swear. You could cut the testosterone with a knife.

It’s going to be an interesting few months, I can tell!

The new foster dog is settling in nicely, and I think he’s a Trevor. It came down to Trevor and Sparky in the end. He could be a Sparky… I think he’s got the personality for it… but I think Trevor works better for him learning things, since it’s vaguely close enough to the sound of Drummer and Thunder that calling any of the names in the backyard tends to get the whole pack moving (which is usually what I want if I’m calling them in from the yard, for instance). So he’s getting used to “The nice lady yells something that ends in “-er” and we all run back to the house.” Hey, it’s a start… I’ll take my training babysteps wherever I can get ‘em.

( Yesterday was busy )

Finally back home, poor Trevor was going a little stir crazy with nothing but leash walks, so I decided he could have some supervised time out in the yard with Thunder. The two of them played like puppies… it was so cute! Lots of play bowing and bouncing around. Trevor definitely has a good repertoire of doggy body language, and he doesn’t really show any effort to be alpha, so that bodes well for him and Drummer getting along (I may do that introduction this afternoon).

( Pictures and a Movie )

The shrieking you may hear in the background of the video is Drummer, who had to stay inside and miss all the fun. He was not a happy boy!