Farewell, 2013. Onward to 2014!

2013 was a Pretty Good Year.

Pongu, my crazy fearful little pound puppy, finally became a Real Competition Dog (kinda-sorta). In 2013, he finished his RL2 and RL3 titles, both with Awards of Excellence for high scores (making him three for three on those). He earned his ARCH, ARCHX, and ARCHEX, along with a couple of variations on the RL1X/RL2X/RL3X level championships, making him one of the 50 most accomplished mixed-breed dogs in the history of our dorky little sport. We ended the year with 1188 Championship points (or something reasonably close to that, I hope...), which should be sufficient for a pretty solid divisional ranking and possibly a break into the Top 20 Overall.

On top of that, Pongu finished all the titles in the Trick Dog progression, from Novice to Champion, over the course of 13 days in March. He earned his Novice title in CDSP obedience with all three qualifying scores of 190 or better.

Less formally, Dog Mob put together a couple of goofy tricks this year:

...and they took a couple of nice vacations: Lake Placid (winter), Nantucket (summer), Nantucket (fall), and assorted day trips.

 And we hit our goal of fostering and placing five dogs this year, with considerable help from Crookytail in his role as Guidance Counselor to Homeless Mutts:

Foster Dog 18: Penny Lane (later renamed Skunky Mushmellon)

A St. Bernard/Golden Retriever mix, Skunky was a stray on the streets of North Carolina. A kind-hearted woman in the neighborhood had been feeding her for several months, but when the woman was faced with undergoing a medical procedure that would likely require lengthy hospitalization, she reached out to a local rescue to take Skunky. That rescue in turn sent her to Wags, and I agreed to foster her for the group.

Skunky was adopted by an art gallery manager who met her in our neighborhood dog park while dog-sitting her employer's poodle. A couple of months later, in one of life's minor coincidences, she moved back to North Carolina when her owner relocated to that state.

Foster Dog 19: Foozie (later renamed Lolly)

This little dog wound up in Robeson County Animal Shelter after an area woman spotted her trying to get into the backyard trash cans and called Animal Control to take the "fox" out of her yard. I pulled Foozie and brought her up here, where her cute looks, sparkling personality, and small size drew a lot of attention immediately. Foozie had a number of great homes to choose from; because she seemed to enjoy and do well with children, I placed her with a nice professional couple that had two young sons and had trained their previous dog at my old club.

Foster Dog 20: Serenity

Another pull from Robeson County, Serenity (whose shelter name was Serendipity) was a sweet little mystery mix who ended up going farther afield than any other foster dog of ours this year. She was adopted sight unseen by a friend-of-friends: the couple who adopted our foster dog April had a friend who was looking for a dog of her own, and she clicked with Serenity from afar.

And so we packed this little dog up in an airline crate and mailed her to Minneapolis, where she lives happily ever after.

Foster Dog 21: Florence (later renamed Dori)

Found scavenging on an illegal garbage dump in Robeson County, Florence was a clever, affectionate dog who had only been here for two days before she got an adoption offer from a young professional couple who happened to see her walking around town wearing the Homeless Dog Vest of Shame. I kept her for another couple of weeks to do a complete evaluation and get started on some basic training (where she showed some real potential), and then she went on to her wonderful forever home.

Foster Dog 22: Ashling

This little Yorkie/Wheaten Terrier mix was confiscated along with three siblings from an unfit owner. Because of their history of neglect, all the dogs quickly became sick in the shelter. Ashling pulled through, but not all of her brothers were as fortunate.

Miraculously, her unlucky history left no scars on her personality. Ashling was a happy, bubbly, gentle dog who loved children, and that combined with her small size and (above all) low-shedding coat made her a very high-demand dog. This little Cinderella dog had her choice of fairy tale endings, and went home to one just before Christmas.


So much for 2013! We'll see what 2014 brings.

Lolly, Once Foozie, Goes Home

Last week we said farewell to Foozie, who was renamed Lolly (short for "Lollipup" -- adorable, isn't it?) by the kids in her new adoptive family.

Before she left, Lolly had just started to really relax and let her true personality come out. I took her to a couple of different dog parks, where she socialized and played beautifully with everyone from a juvenile Great Dane to a couple of elderly, wheezing (but still energetic!) Pugs.

She also learned to appreciate the joys of dog beds...

...and learned "Sit," kinda-sorta, to a shaky level.

Ordinarily I try to separate the foster dogs for training sessions, especially early on, when Dog Mob is likely to be a greater distraction than they can ignore. For most dogs, it's much more difficult to learn something totally new when you also have to worry about other dogs competing for your treats. Dog Mob is pretty good at staying out of the way (they're accustomed to the routine of one dog being put in a Stay while I practice with the other a few feet away), but it's still more than the average foster dog can handle.

Lolly was a little different, though. She got more worried when there wasn't another dog close by, and she was a lot more comfortable trying out a Sit when the other two did it in front of her first.

So, since that's what worked better for her, that's what we did. I put Dog Mob in Sits, rewarded them for doing it, and then lured Lolly into a Sit and gave her treats as well. Dog training is all about adapting to whatever works best for that particular dog.

Within a couple of sessions, Lolly didn't need the other dogs right beside her anymore, and she could respond to a verbal cue more often than not (although, as demonstrated by this clip, her response rate was far from 100%).

I wouldn't go so far as to say she knew Sit by the time I gave her away. It would be more accurate to say that she knew the best guess was to Sit when I looked at her and made talky noises in an expectant tone of voice. The cue itself wasn't tremendously meaningful to her (if I had said "Banana" or "Radio" in a similar tone of voice, I expect she would have responded at least half the time with a Sit) and we hadn't even begun proofing... so the foundations were in place, but the behavior was far from finished at the end of our first week. Still, it was good enough to get her posed for pictures.

And by then we were out of time. Lolly had garnered quite a few applications (at the time I stopped accepting new applications, there were seven homes that had expressed serious interest in her -- an all-time high for my fosters, especially since I only had Lolly listed on Petfinder for about a day and a half before I stopped taking applications to avoid disappointing even more people) and, after meeting two prospective adopters, she had a commitment and a loving family who was waiting to take her home.

On Friday night we packed her bags...

...and on Saturday morning she went home.

Adios Lolly, who once was Foozie. Have a wonderful life. You're a lucky girl who landed in a loving home, and you won't have to scrounge in garbage cans anymore.

More Foozie!

Well, Foozie's got a meeting with a prospective adopter in two days, and another prospective adopter interested if that doesn't work out, so it's looking like this little dog will not be with us for much longer.

That's okay. I think I need her to go away soon anyhow so I don't get too attached. I already make her wear the orange Vest of Shame not so much because she needs the extra exposure out on the street (she doesn't; she's been on Petfinder a whole 12 hours and has gotten multiple inquiries) as for a visual reminder to myself that this is Not My Dog.

I don't have any serious desire to keep Foozie, of course. If I ever had another dog it would be a Schutzhund prospect, which is a roundabout way of saying "I won't have another dog for hopefully a really long time," because Pongu would never tolerate having a rival for his Important Job as a competition dog, and I don't have time to get involved in Schutzhund right now anyway.

But the dogs I'm drawn to are the big working/guardian breeds, and if they're not outright hostile to all other living things (Pongu), they are at least possessed of a certain solemn reserve (Crookytail, most of the time, except when he's doing the foster-socializing gig). Foozie is small and semi-fluffy and a lovable cuddly lapdog, i.e., not my kind of dog.

She sure is cute though.

We still haven't done any formal training. Foozie turned out to be sound-sensitive enough that the unmuffled clicker was frightening to her, so next time I'll try priming a verbal marker instead. She remains reluctant to take treats and is only eager to take them when Dog Mob is around to steal things from lollygaggers, which is not super helpful when I'm trying to teach a totally new behavior to a dog who hasn't yet learned how to learn.

I can tell that training will go very quickly once Foozie grasps the concept -- when she's in the mood to take a treat, she'll follow lures with lightning speed -- but we still haven't broken through that initial barrier in communication.

So even though I was able to get a moderately impressive picture of what looks like a nice lined-up group Stay, in actuality it's a bit of an illusion. Dog Mob is holding a nice lined-up Sit-Stay, that's true. Foozie got lured into a very temporary position between them, further lured into a Sit, and then subjected to a rapid-fire barrage of praise and liver treats to keep her smiling while I snapped some pictures.

Here's where we started:

...and here's how it ended:

...but in reality that dog in the middle doesn't know how to Sit or Stay on cue, it just looks like that because she's sandwiched between between two other posed dogs and then I bribed her a bunch.

In another week or two she might actually be able to do that on cue without me having to rely on chicanery and liver treats to get her into position, but I don't think I'm likely to have her in a week or two.

Foozie!

On Saturday morning we collected foster dog #18: a sweet little Corgi mix named Foozie.

Foozie is about 18 months old and weighs approximately 30 pounds, which seems to be a healthy weight for her. In the three days she's lived with us, she has shown herself to be a quiet, affectionate, and playful little pup with a silly Corgi trot and a fondness for tummy rubs and neck scratches. She gets along fine with Dog Mob (which is to say that she plays wonderfully with Crookytail and mostly manages to avoid Pongu's wrath), stopped trying to herd the guinea pigs after the first day, and hasn't met a person she doesn't seem to love.

Best of all, she hasn't peed in my house yet!

While I'd hesitate to promise that Foozie is 100% completely "housebroken" (a word I've come to be slightly wary of during my time in rescue, as it means different things to different people and anyway almost every dog needs a refresher course upon moving to a new home), she does potty within 10-15 minutes of being taken outside for a walk and has made no mistakes indoors, so I will say that if she is not officially "potty trained," she's not far from it either.

Initially she pulled very hard on leash -- harder than any dog I've ever walked, at least proportional to her size (if not hardest in absolute terms, because she is just a little thing) -- but an EasyWalk harness and a couple of days' practice have gotten that down to a mostly acceptable level. She's not going to win any awards for precision heeling anytime soon, but you can walk her down the sidewalk without getting your arm yanked out of socket, she hasn't shown any reactivity to dogs or other common stimuli, and she doesn't try too hard to eat garbage or puddles of St. Paddy's Day puke. For most people, that's good enough.

She's mostly quiet in the crate. Sometimes she cries for a few minutes in a high-pitched tweetybird whine when she wants attention or to come out, but it never lasts more than five minutes, and she soon settles down for the night and when I leave for work. I've seen no signs of serious separation anxiety; the worst she does is that few minutes of not-very-loud whining.

Foozie doesn't seem to be familiar with toys and has shown no interest in balls, squeaky toys, or tugs thus far. She isn't big on treats, either; the first couple of days she wouldn't take any, and only in the last 24 hours has she decided that she wants in on the action when Dog Mob is getting treats in front of her. Because she's still finding her feet and is not relaxed enough to be interested in the usual motivators, we haven't started formal training yet, but it is my hope to begin that as soon as she's comfortable enough to participate.

As far as I can determine, she doesn't know any formal commands. No Sit, Down, Stay, etc. Recall is hard to assess because she naturally gravitates toward people anyway, so my guess is that she does not have a trained recall but it'd be pretty easy to teach one.

Most seriously, Foozie tested light positive for heartworm at the vet where she was boarded before coming to Philly. Because her test results were so mild, the vet recommended using a "low kill" treatment regimen instead of subjecting Foozie to the dangerous and expensive "high kill" treatment. This means that she has to take four pills a day (two in the morning with breakfast, two at night with dinner); after the first week, this will taper down to two a day. Additionally, she has to take Heartgard pills every month for a year -- but that's something I'd recommend for any newly adopted dog anyway, since it's always prudent to treat Southern shelter dogs for exposure to heartworm even if they don't test positive for harboring worms.

So right now, Foozie's on prednisone and doxycycline. The prednisone can be hidden in her food and she eats it without noticing, but the doxy is a little harder to administer. She's very good at sniffing those pills out of her food and spitting them to the side. I've had to resort to dropping the pills directly to the back of her tongue and massaging her throat until she swallows them involuntarily. It's a last-resort method, but Foozie won't let herself be fooled by hidden pills in food (and I have tried just about every variation of "hidden pills in food" there is, other than grinding the pills up and dispersing the powder, which I think would backfire given how unpleasant the dogs all seem to think doxycycline tastes), so here we are.

She's been a very easy houseguest, and I'll be sad to see her go. I don't think it'll take long at all to get Foozie adopted, though. I can't walk this dog down the street without two or three people stopping me to say how adorable she is and asking if they can pet her.

She'll find a home soon, and I'll do my best to ensure it's a good one.