Zeus Update!

Zeus was adopted this week and is already in his new forever home!

Here's the email I got from the DRNA associate:

I will send lots of details later but the bottom line is that after a gazillion apps it was down to two, both families with children (because Z LOVES kids and not all dachshunds do) so the deciding factor was that the family we chose had a fenced in back yard. They live in New Jersey, have a terrific home and a huge fenced in back yard, have a 12 year old daughter Lara who is DESPERATELY IN LOVE with the Zeuster, and get this...they had their home visit yesterday (I talked to the rep in the car on my way back from Ohio where my husband's mom and sister live), they were approved to adopt, they hopped in their car and drove to Waynesboro last night, picked him up this morning and drove home on Thanksgiving Sunday. They are the real deal.

Will send you more info a little later ... Will send pics of Zeus and his forever family as soon as we get them. Told them that if they didn't send pics Jacque and I would drive to New Jersey and bring him back, LOL! BTW they also have two mini poodles and they had a dachshund who lived to be 18. Great folks.

You know when I get the pics I'll throw them up here for you all to see! How wonderful.

Whicked Shredding Skills Man (In Progress)

So here's a peek at what we've been working on.



First off I'm not kicking him to get that third foot off (I know it looks like I am). I'm just putting my foot on the board and invading his space (without touching him) enough that he chooses to take his foot off. Also I inadvertently feed him a lot when all four feet are on the board don't I? Hmmm, well this is why we record things! I'll work on not doing that as much next session.

Also Guest appearance by Snickers! Who by the way is currently available for adoption HERE

Thankful

I is thankful for my grandma.

Introducing Snickers

This is our new (semi-permanent) foster dog Snickers! She is a 10 year old smooth red tweenie (maybe 15 pounds). She comes from large hectic family with six kids and she spent ten whole years of life with them. One day they up and decided that they didn't want her anymore. Can you believe that? How do you not fall in love with a dog you've had for ten years?

Apparently they were keeping her mainly in the garage and the backyard. But that's enough about where she came from. Now she's with us. :)

She is just absolutely sweet as can be. She's a little nervous when she first meets folks (proubably undersocalized as a puppy, but then again Gauis was socialized like crazy and he's not a fan of new people. So perhaps its just a dachshund DNA thing). She's still better with strangers than Gauis. She just wants to sit in your lap.

She pretty much ignores other dogs large and small. She's sniffed Gauis a few times but that's the largest interest she's shown. She also ignores the cat! So good news all along. Her only issue is that she is VERY sensitive to handling. She yelps at absolutely everything. I'm used to Gauis who is pretty rough and tumble so I have to remind my self to be extra gentle with her if I need to pick her up, or move her. My not sure if it's a medical thing, just old age, maybe arthritis and some back troubles that lots of doxies have in old age. But she seems to preemptively yelp. So it might be behavioral. Just a defense mechanism to having a bunch of little kids around. An early warning system if you will. Well we will put her on supplements for her joints and I'll see if clicker training will desenstive it a little bit. Other than that, she's crate trained (sorta), and housebroken. She also LOVES to sleep in.

Right now, we've haven't really done much training except for some it's your choice. She has NO idea what impulse control is.

My only other struggle with her is switching her off the kibbles and bits (first ingredient corn... yuck) onto the royal canine I feed Gauis (first ingredient chicken). She'd rather it the junk food, but we're working on it. She sure likes table scraps. (Shhh... don't tell her but we're trying to get her to lose a few pounds. Get her lady figure back)

She also needed a bath. PHEW!

Gauis got one too.

P.S. Snickers is an awful name isn't it? I was going to change it... to Beverly... we were going to call her Bev.... but when she got here I called "Snickers" and she turned right around. Which means she recognized it... which made me feel guilty about changing it... Which I know is all in my head. It's not like it would have traumatized her, or changed her identity. But I just couldn't do it. I totally could have changed Zeus' name. He had NO idea Zeus was his name.

Dachshund Underground Railroad

Sean waiting to pick up our charges

So today we helped transport dachshunds from the South to the North to their new homes or foster homes. Much like the show Last Chance Highway. Only the all dachshund addition, and with less make-up and southern bell charm.

This is the pizza hut were we picked up the pups.

You see there are a lot more homeless dogs in the South than the North and because of that it's much easier to get animals adopted up there. That means someone has to haul their waging tails in a northwardly direction. So we all try to pitch in where we can.

This is CoCo, he whined the entire drive. Maybe it's because he's a boy
and someone named him CoCo! Come on, that's a girls name!

Actually this is our very first time doing transport. But it was only an hour and a half up and the same back. So three hours total wasn't bad. Then the pups were given to their next care taker for the next leg of their journey.

This is Jiggs, a totally beautiful piebald that PULLS on the leash.

Man these pups needed a bath though. My car smells like dog now. Which I guess is a funny thing to say since I have a dog. But he gets a bath like twice a month so he doesn't really have that...smell... you know what smell I'm talking about. I mean you get in close and it's there. But not stink up my car bad. These guys... smelled like they hadn't had baths in years.

This is Frankie, he's the only one that didn't come with a bunch of stuff because he was
right out of a shelter. He was scheduled to die today. He is also heart worm positive.

These dogs are headed to New York and New Jersey. In fact as I post this they are still on the road. It'll be a long day for them. I can't imagine how stressful this all must be. Under the circumstances they were all very well behaved.

This is Mr. Johnson. Seriously!?! Who names a wiener dog that. They aren't silly
enough without a name like that? Mr. Johnson also barked the whole ride up.

When we dropped these suckers off we were there on a second mission as well.

My van chalked full with crates. I looked like one of the 'hardcore' people at an
agility trial with my thirty dogs stuffed in a big van :)

A mission that will have a huge effect on the content of this blog for the next few months.

The next person we dropped them off to had a tiny little four door sedan and she still
managed to stick all four crates in there. I was super impressed hence the picture.

-Let's the suspense build-

bye bye little dachshunds, good luck in the North! Eat lots of real NY pizza for me!

We picked up our new permanent foster dog! (Well as permanent as foster dogs get). But more on her later ;)

NBA

Hey just because we got our trick titles doesn't mean we're done with tricks.

Here's a sneak peek of what we are working on.
More to come!

Gauis Baltar JE

Congratulations to Sean and Gauis for not only earning their Junior Earth dog title,

but doing so in one weekend. While managing to qualify in Introduction to Quarry every time as well! Making this a 4 Q weekend. That was after a total bust of a trial in North Carolina last weekend.
On Sunday he even reached the rat in IQ in under 5 seconds (4.2)! Very impressive.


If you've never heard of Earthdog (especially if you have a dachsund) Check out this earlier post.

Gauis was his usual exuberant self at earth dog. And waited patiently and politely to take his turn as usual....right..... All those terrier breeders are going to ban us from going to those trials one day just because Gauis is so annoying.



Now it's on to Senior Earthdog! Where there will be a false den to contend with AND.......

Gauis will be expected to recall back to the front of the tunnel away from the rats.

HAHAHAHAHA!

This dog won't take food when he knows he's about to see a rat. I have no idea how we are going to train that.

But you all will be happy to know that Sean held up his end of the bargain and gave Gauis a whole steak for dinner for completing his title.

Sean's only concern this weekend was Gauis changing his working styles while engaging the quarry. You see dogs are allowed to scratch, dig, growl and bark at the rat as well as bite the bars that separate them from the quarry. All of these things are considered "working". The dog must work the FULL 60 seconds after he reaches the rat to qualify.

Now the first few trials Gauis went to he worked by barking. Non-stop barking. Which was nice because when your standing at the opening of the tunnel you can hear him. This trial he would alternate between barking, growling and biting. All acceptable but nerve wrecking because only the judge can hear them. This leaves the handler standing at the front of the tunnel wondering Oh, gosh did he stop? Did we NQ? What's happening in there? But the biting does increase the possibility of us walking away with a broken bar one of these days. A badge of honor on the earth dog circuit.

Well before I go I will leave you with a few more photos of Gauis and our buddy Zeus who I'm sure is happy in his new foster home. We'll miss you buddy :)

A Tempary Companion

Hey everyone,

I'd like to introduce you to Zeus.

Now I'm sure your asking yourself. Who is that? You only have one dog Liz? Well you would be correct. This is my SUPER temporary foster dog. You see about a month ago I contacted DRNA and applied to be a foster home. It was a pretty in depth procedure. I mean there were test questions and full recommendations and everything. It was like applying to college. So all of that got approved and then we needed a home visit. And there we sort of hit a brick wall.

You see Sean works at night and I work during the day. Which means Gauis is only alone at home maybe two-three hours. It also means we are difficult to caught in the house at the same time. Great for foster dog parents but sort of a scheduling nightmare for a home visit. So the home visit thing was going nowhere and I thought in no time we'd get rejected for simply being unavailable.

But then I got a urgent email about a dog emergency. "Can you just keep a dog at your house a few days while we get him in a real foster home?" Well of course we could. That was the whole point right? That we were in a position to take in a foster dog. That suddenly changed to, "Hey can you guys go pick the dog up from his original owners?" So we did that too hence our VERY temporary pal here. In fact I'm trucking him off to his new foster home this afternoon.


Here is what we've learned about Zeus so far. He is 1.5 years old. He is both large dog and small dog friendly. He was taken from a yard with two large boxers and went to agility class with us Thursday and got along with everyone. He's a love bug and hasn't meet a stranger as of yet. He is 100% cat safe, and ignored Gracie even when she hissed at him. The three of them slept on the bed together yesterday. He was apparently raised with three cats according to his original owner. And he has yet to mess in my house, so he seems reliably house trained. AMAZING! Not what I was expecting from a foster.


Gauis wasn't so sure about this foster thing at first. Some strange dog in his house eating his food, playing with his toys and talking to his people. But then he realized that he could play with the him! Like anytime he wanted to, not just on special occasions like at a dog park. Then it was all over. He was in love.



I thought giving back fosters would be really rough for Sean and I because we might get attached. I never thought about Gauis falling in love :P Such fun, can't wait to get our next foster.