meet-our-pack

Muffy

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:29:50 +0100

Meet Muffy!

Muffy is our teeny-tiny, 5 year old chihuahua. What a little fire-cracker! While usually reserved and elegant, Muffy has her moments where some insane energy takes over and she goes nuts. Everything becomes an outlet.
Sometimes she chases our cat, Matzo...

...which in turn sets the other dogs off and we have seven four-legged beasties tripping over each other and slip-sliding down the halls.

Most of the time, she wrestles with Olli, although she's just as content to cuddle with him. Or Emma.

Or sometimes she rips a toy to smithereens.

In general, she's a sweet little dog but she does have this annoying habit: Anytime something new happens, she barks. And barks. And barks. Some dogs have a cool bark, like Emma. Some have a funny bark, like Jack. But some dogs have an amazing ability to grind on the nerves with a single yip. That's Muffy. Thankfully, through alot of patience and alot of practice, we're reducing the barking more and more. One thing that still needs some work - her howling.

Cricket

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:21:15 +0100

Meet Cricket!

He's so handsome :)

Cricket, our lhasa apso, is 9 years old which makes him the oldest of our pack. Cricket has seen many dogs come and a few go, but he's still there as toy-greedy and cantankerous as ever.

Cricket LOVES toys.

Alot.
Everytime we come home from shopping, he investigates each bag just to make sure he doesn't miss a toy. He's so toy greedy, he'll actually drop his toy in his food bowl during feeding times and growl at the other dogs. Just in case they were thinking of playing with his toy.

Being the oldest does have its disadvantages, though. Over the past year, Crickey has developed a heart-murmur: a condition where the heart doesn't close properly and doesn't pump blood the way it used to. Some dogs live with it for years but some cases are more severe. Cricket has to take medicine twice a day for his poor heart. He was also recently diagnosed with arthiritis in his hips. He was shaking very badly and yiped anytime someone touched his back. We had no idea what it was until we took him to our veterinarian who then prescribed more medication. He's been doing better ever since.

Funny, though - most of the time he spends his days sleeping on the couch but the minute a piece of steak on the floor, he's there, likkety split. As if he forgot for a moment he was supposed to be an aging grampa ;)

Olli

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:05:26 +0100

Meet Olli!

Olli is our latest edition. He's an AKC registered salt and pepper Miniature Schnauzer. Isn't he the cutest?

Olli's mother was a white schnauzer and his sire was a black and silver (my favourite colour combo) and he's turned out to be the sweetest dog anyone could ever want.

We picked Olli out of his litter at 5 weeks and had to wait 3 whole weeks before we could take him home. Three whole weeks! Those were the longest weeks I could ever remember. By that time, however, we'd discovered Cesar Millan and were frantically reading his puppy book. During the course of the wait, we visited him three or four times to get him accustomed to our images and brought a toy to familiarize him with our scent. When we brought him home, we introduced him rear-first: the most polite form of introduction a puppy can muster.

Since then, he's become a pack favourite. He's one of those rare dogs that gets along with everybody and anybody. His favourite playmates are Muffy and Jack, but he'll also play with the rest of the doggies. There is one drawback: severe separation anxiety. Terriers are an interesting breed - everything they do, they do to their fullest. Olli doesn't just whine when you're gone, he'll literally begin screaming and it takes at least ten minutes before he calms down again. There are techniques for curing this, but it'll take time :)

Bessie

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:58:00 +0100

Meet Bessie!

Yep. That's Bessie.

Bessie is a 7 year old black lab/australian shepherd mix. We bought Bessie from a pet-store (something you should never do!) and she's turned out to be one of the calmest, most relaxed members of the pack. The first two years were a living nightmare - she chewed everything in sight and without Cesar's techniques to guide us through it, it was quite the ordeal. Since then, however, her only problem has been -

-food.
Food is Bessie's passion. She'd eat all day, every day. If we let her. For awhile, Bessie was severely overweight. We didn't really do anything about it until a few months ago. She just didn't look happy - she had a hard time getting up, moving, breathing - everything was a struggle. That's when we decided it was time we stepped in and we're proud to report that she's lost eleven pounds since September. :)

If there's one thing Bessie loves more than food, it's her pillow. Every year at Christmas-time, we buy her a new pillow. When we give it to her, she rolls on it and rubs on it the second it hits the floor and woe betide any dog foollish enough to stray close to that pillow. Bessie has what is known as a 'gentle-mouth', but there's nothing gentle about snapping teeth. She certainly loves those pillows.

All pillows.

Jack

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:47:33 +0100

Meet Jack!

Ain't he cute?

Jack is one of two mutts in our pack. This little guy was sold as a Shih Tzu/Yorkie cross breed. We mainly see his Shih Tzu lineage, but his energy is definitely from the Yorkie side.

Jack was bought as a birthday gift and his entrance should've been the first warning. When the box was opened, the lid literally flew off and half-way across the living room. Out popped Jack, in all his fuzzy glory, his feathered tail already wagging. Naturally, we greeted him like we always greet something cute: with shrill shrieks and insane amounts of petting. I don't think he even touched the floor for the first hour.

Jack and Emma instantly became friends. They were both puppies and cancelled out each others' manic energy, tearing around the yard, chasing after a foot ball or wrestling together (See? Emma really is a gentle giant. Look at the size difference!).

Sometimes, though, Jack will calm down and relax. Those are the times when he'll sit at the window and stare at the birds or when he drapes himself across the floor and sleep for hours.

Jack's breeders housed a magnitude of dogs (mainly shih tzus) but cared for them all on a personal level. Jack was picked up at 8 or 9 weeks and was already doing well with other dogs and people. He does so well, in fact, that he can completely relax at the groomers, even falling asleep as they work on him. He didn't come without his fair share of problems, though. His energy is completely different from the rest of the packs', who are typically laid-back, so he's constantly winding them up. He also developed an umbillical hernia (not unusual for the breed) and has discoloured lines on is face from his pushed-in nose.

He, is, however, one of the cutest things on four legs and probably gets away with alot more than he should.

Emma

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:28:51 +0100

Meet Emma!

Emma is our eleven-month-old Great Dane puppy.

Yes, she really is just a puppy.

Dane's come in various colours and patterns - Emma's in particular is called 'blue merle'. You won't find many like her because the blue merle coat is considered a mutation in the breed. The AKC does not accept it as a colour, either, and when two merles breed it results in deformed puppies. So she's unique.

True to the breed, Emma really is a 'gentle giant'. Most of the time. We bought her through a breeder when we discovered their ad in the paper. In hind-sight, it may have actually been considered a mild puppy mill. A puppy's peak learning point is from 8 to 12 weeks. Most puppies don't leave their mothers until their 8th week and in that time they learn the way of things: the pecking order, respect, human interaction. We got Emma at 4 weeks which severely deprived her of the time she needed with her littermates and mother. Her mother was extremely aggressive which may account, in part, for Emma's aggression. Without knowledge of proper socialization, we kept Emma with us and only discovered later that she had developed fear-aggression towards humans.

She was fine with her own pack, both canine and people, but when strangers would come to the door or we would meet people on our walks, things were different. Due to her size, most people tend to feel apprehensive and even fearful toward her anyway. Their negative attitude, or energy, combined with her uneasiness made for an instantly bad situation. She never did bite anyone, but there were a few close calls. It doesn't help when people insist to pet your dog despite the fact that teeth are showing, lips are foaming and hackles are raised. With alot of prayer and Cesar's techniques, along with some willing passersby, Emma is getting to the point where she can walk down a sidewalk without wanting to eat the poodle and its owner on the other side :)