General Dog Chat Part II

[BiteyShark]

A place for nattering about our canine friends.

Old or new, feel free to come and chat any time

BiteyDog is only allowed on the spare bed so DH and I have started watching tv in the spare room for a few hours before bedtime just so we can get some cuddles from BiteyDog

Yeahhhh dog cuddles are awesome. But I already fight for bed space with TropicMan and TropicGirl....and the beast needs her goofy legs straight for ultimate relaxation

Speaking of goofy legs, did anyone else's adolescent dog have back legs longer than the front? And did they even out with growth? She's not very wonky, but now I've noticed, I can't un-notice....she's about 8-9 months old

SquirrelDog sticks his head right into my armpit, so his eyes are covered, and then sort of sighs, like ‘oh, it’s OK, I’m safe under here’.

God knows why he wants to be under there, and also obviously the rest of him is clearly visible. Idiot dog.

Wolfie dog can't sleep in my bed as she shouldn't be going up and down stairs. (Their growth plates are vulnerable until they are fully grown.) We should install a lift!

You need a bungalow Wolfie

I knew we should never have given BiteyDog apple as I can never eat one now without him trying to mug me

Bitey!
It has crossed my mind!

Squirrel, that sounds tickly! Cute though

Indy tries to mug me of apples and bananas.

BiteyDog spat out banana in disgust. I can't however go into the fridge without a nose appearing trying to get at a carrot

We have woken up to BiteyDog the puppy. At one point he wanted nothing to do with toys but as he's got older he seems a bit more interested in them again. Just watching him on his back rolling about trying to chomp one of his toys and he seems so happy.

At 5am he did get up and cough/vomit water up but seems ok now and he ate all his breakfast.

At nearly 2,PestDog has never lost interest in toys.

So much so that he woke me up at 5am this morning whining because his favourite ball had rolled under the wardrobe and he couldn't get it back

Indy is suddenly interested in his toys again which is great as it gives our sofa a break from being chewed.

Bluepuppy LOVES his toys. His favourites ones are a huge crocodile and flamingo that are both nearly as long as he is

It's such a rarity here that it's so nice to see him playing like he did as a puppy.

He has been helping me today whilst gardening. I keep telling him we pay extra to the council for a garden waste bin that he really doesn't have to try and eat all the weeds I pull up

I need a rant about steppedog he was a little bugger this morning.
So, 2 minutes walk from our house is a green grassy/park sort of area with trees and a footpath running through. It is the first stop on every single walk, we let him off the lead, he does 2-3 poos (handy bin just there) and we walk through the park and off down the footpath. He knows this patch so well, and knows perfetcly well how to behave there, it is the single most familliar place outside of our house and garden.

The trees are full of squirrels, and sometimes he sits under a tree and barks a few times, I walk on and he abandones the trees and follows.

This morning, I let him off the lead and he ran to the squirrel tree, and barked and barked and barked, and wouldn't stop, just went nuts at the squirrels. I couldn't call him, couldn't catch him, couldn't trick him into following. I tried walking off and he didn't follow, I tried being nice and up beat Come!!! and being very firm, and NOTHING would make him leave those trees. If I approached him, he circled round the tree the other way.
There are houses overlooking this area and one lady came and stood at her window and watched with a frown as I tried to get him.
It wouldn't have been so bad except he barked and barked and barked (he actually rarely barks at all normally)
When he FINALLY allowed me to corner him, he came towards me and lay down flat on the floor with his head on his paws. I have only seen he do that once before, when he was chasing one of our chickens that had got out, and I was going nuts trying to stop him.

But as soon as the lead was on, he bounced up ears up, tail wagging, looking up into the trees for more squirrels.

20 minutes I was chasing him round those bloody trees.
Instead of going straight to the woods, I mad ehim do 20 minutes strict lead training on pavements first. And I was so cross we did the whole 20 minutes without one treat, just me being firm and grumpy. (he walked beautifully though, knackered probably)

When we were in the woods, I called him to Come, about every 5 minutes and he came every single time.

mortified.

Oh steppe rant away. It's so hard so stay calm when they are pushing your buttons isn't it and why is it always with an audience

Oh God, that sounds so familiar. SquirrelDog once spent a whole hour long ‘really reliable recall’ class (outdoors, in a fenced run) running in circles, dragging me to the fence line, standing on his hind legs, barking and barking and barking. We all gathered close to a picnic table to listen to the instructor. He jumped up on the table (to get a better vantage point) and had to be lifted off.(whereupon he promptly jumped right back on.) Everyone else was happily playing ‘find it’ games and letting their dogs off on a long line. Mine wouldn’t even look at me. I felt like such a failure.

Yesterday was a button pushing day here for us too. Indy decided he was going to chew the new sofa and cushions and nothing would distract him. I ended up caging him for the school run which I never do as I like to let him have free time in the lounge. Ordered some anti chew stuff on Amazon so I'm hoping that helps.

I think I am too shattered to rant about BiteyDog. He didn't get his usual runs last week as his paw pad is still healing so he's been full of energy at 3am!!!!

I think they deliberately lull you into a false security before behaving like total fuckwits. I can swap a sore paw and chewing for chewing a sore paw.

No thanks on the swap Wolfie His paw pad isn't bothering him at the moment but I can still see pink flesh as the black bit hasn't regenerated yet. Think that is why he is being a pain in the arse as he would be happy running about all day

Oh crap, it must be steppedog in the doghouse day.

dh took him for a 5 km run at lunchtime, so he should have been flat out asleep all afternoon, but no.

dd has added to ducks to our chicken run, with a small duckpond. But we have had a lovely large fishpond in the garden, and the female duck it turns out is an escape artist, and despite us blocking every conceivable hole, she still manages to get out, and then hides in the plants on the fishpond so I don't notice. Steppedog goes out for a wee and starts barked, queue me running out and catching him, then returning duck to the run.

Today duck got out, I didn't notice, steppedog goes out for a wee, and DOESN'T bark, just goes for duck. dd2 looks out of back door to see steppedog with duck in his mouth, shaking the living daylights out of duck.

We run screaming down the garden, dog lets go of duck, I corner dog, dd2 takes him in, (to be fair once he is caught he doesn't resist, just goes inside) I rescue duck. Duck has lost loads of feathers and has a gash on one side. After a check over and clean up we put her in her nest box. She hasn't (yet) died of shock, and is still sitting inside in the nest box. will have to watch the gash to see if it gets infected.

Can't really blame steppedog for that one, it is his instinct to chase birds. Just our luck to get a duck with a death wish

cue, not queue.
no, I was not lining up with anyone to get him out of the fishpond and away form the duck!