A Home For Snickers (We Hope)

I love dis heater. It is my favorite.

Well we might have a permanent home for Snickers which is amazing news! A couple up in Alexandria have put in an application for her. She'd be an only dog with no children, which I think is what she really deserves. Somewhere nice and relaxing. Relaxing like sleeping in front of the heater.

Well all they need is a home visit and they'll be good to go. So in the spirit of Happy Holiday tidings, here's a video of romping in the snow.

Gaius' Rockettes Audition

Stoney Point too was delayed due to a dead battery in my camera, but look for it in the future.
Here's a new trick We're working on.



It's not perfect yet, but certainly coming along. A VERY difficult video to shot though :)
He's licking his lips the whole time (calming signal) because I think that he's nervous that I'll step on him. But Cindy says he'll gain more confidence the more we do it. It also might come from a puppyhood filled with "DAMN IT GAUIS, DON'T GET UNDER FOOT. I'M GOING TO SQUISH YOU LIKE A BUG ONE DAY" Again, the more cookies he gets for it, the more comfortable he will get.

This is one in a long line of tricks that Cindy wants me to teach so we can do a "freestyle-esq" routine at the Richmond Pet Expo this year. I'll keep you all updated on what he's learning :)

If you don't know what free style is, here's a video of a woman (and her dachshund of course) doing a routine. Gauis' and I are no where near that, but we'll come up with something fun!

Stony Point: Part I

One of my favorite places in Richmond to train is Stony Point Fashion Park, a local dog friendly mall.

Sorry for the fuzziness, I have the cheapest camera Target sells! Which means 10 blurry pictures to every one good picture.

I'd say about 75% of the stores allow dogs. Which is just an amazing training opportunity. Not only for obedience, but for socialization of new puppies. And for the training of service and therapy dogs. All you have to do is look for the little puppy sticker in the window.

I think the dog on the sign looks like a dachshund. Don't you? They also have stores that only allow small dogs, but that doesn't effect us here any.

The place even has all of these cute dog statues everywhere (You might remember them from Gauis' short movie Play?)

If I can't take a picture of a still dog that isn't blurry! What hope do I have with moving dogs?

Gauis and I head to Stony Point every Friday to work on Obedience training (more on that later). It's really a lovely mall, but defiantly a bit to pricey for me. Window shopping is the name of the game at Stony Point. College students and Saks Fifth Avenue just don't go hand and hand. The major shopping demographic at this mall is old rich ladies and trophy wives.

But today I was on another mission. No obedience training involved. I was on the get Snickers a forever home mission. So her and I trudged off to the mall with a pocket full of left over turkey and a handful of home made business cards that I made for her. And talked to folks.

I was hoping to really talk to costumers but my greatest success was with the store employees. They just loved her. She was a super good girl and let everyone pet her (It will be a cold day in hell before Gauis is that friendly with strangers. She shows me daily what a long way I have to go with him). She even let children pet her. I think she's very used to them. I was also planing on working on loss lead walking with her. She dose pull a bit. But in the end I sort of gave up and decided the meet and great was more important. I mean she's 10 and only 15 pounds (might be 14 now, she's lost a bunch of weight which pleases me.). She also not TERRIBLE on a leash, just not up to the standards I hold Gauis too (But I try not to let him pull EVER). I figure I'll just let her pull a bit on her harness, she's so well behaved on everything else. Maybe something to work on later.

She is by far the hardest dog to take a picture of, this was the best out of 20 pictures!

I got a bunch of people to take the cards at least. So we'll see if anything comes of this trip. Defiantly going to make the Thursday Stony Point excursion a habit with my foster dogs. The place is a gold mine :)

Snickers says "Leave him in there!"

Gauis however was not so happy with this little trip. Usually the evening jaunt is reserved for Gauis and mommy alone time. No foster dogs allowed (Snickers barks when kept in a crate during class, so she usually spends the time at home so I don't annoy everyone). Today when I put him in the room and put a leash on Snickers he threw a fit. This was his special quality time gosh darn it! I just leave the puppy gate up when I leave but when we got home he had slammed the door as well in protest (Serves me right for teaching him to close doors). We are currently not on speaking terms, but he'll get his weekly Stony Point trip tomorrow.

Happy Chanukkah (Wordless Wednesday)

I is got a furry Kong Wubba for Chanukkah

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.