Month: April 2011

Buddy came to work with me today which meant he mostly did this…

The little walks he had and two flights of stairs each way really tuckered him out.
Tonight I’ll be missing my Fitz (and Ryan of course) but I will have a lap dog for comfort.

Fitz got some new toys today (I stopped on the way home from work to pick him up some things, since he is obviously into toys now that he’s not so nervous and quiet all the time).  His main gift was a stuffed duck with a rope neck and he really likes that one.  Here are some pics of him playing – he can throw the duck in the air and then chase it 🙂

This is a special week, it’s his first week here so I’ve been coming home early and letting him play while I work from home.  Unfortunately this won’t continue for long.  Next week we have a vacation though so he’ll get a lot of time to be more active during the day.  Then the following week we’ll see what we can set up with a dog walker during the day so he can handle the long day in the kennel (I normally get home around 6/6:30).

The work week has started and Fitz is doing great so far.  Sunday night was rough, he slept from 7-10 pm and then didnt’ sleep a wink all night, which kept us up as he paced around the bedroom, licked himself and shook himself (collar jingles).  He whined a few times, we walked him (just in case) but he was just awake.

So Monday we changed it up as best we could.  I got a few hints from friends and here is what we learned about Fitzwilliam:

• – Chicken broth (just a little) mixed with his dog food means he’ll eat it when we feed him instead of hours later – yeah – he’s eating on a schedule now!
• – Plain chicken cut up is tempting enough to work on training with him- we’re working on ‘come’ and he’s definitely learning
• – He does play with his toys now – he will throw around his rope bone and a stuffed animal I gave him for 20 minutes straight if he’s in the mood.  He’s not into the tennis ball and only chewed the kong once for a minute.  He won’t ‘fetch’ but he’ll run and get something I throw and go chew it happily.  If I go to take it he instantly leaves it for me, he’s very submissive.  Tonight i will buy him a few more toys to see what he likes.
• – A piece of cheese in the kennel and he goes in no problem, he seems to be okay in there for 8 hours straight, just sleeping probably.  And he was just fine when i got home.  So we’ll keep this up for the week and then look into a dog walker for after our vacation when his kennel stays will be closer to 10 hours (I have to leave work at 2 in order to keep it down to 8 hours)!
• – If we work on keeping him more awake in the evening (when he wants to sleep) he will sleep from 10-12 or so (which allows us to at least fall asleep).
• – If we open up the rest of the upstairs for him to wander in at night and take his collar off he doesn’t whine and he just wanders which is quiet enough to let us sleep.
• – He can definitely go all day and all night without having to go out, he was in no rush at 6am to even go.  He doesn’t like the wet ground as much and it’s a rainy week 🙂

So we are learning and he’s being such a good boy.  He’s definitely got a lot more personality now and is testing his boundaries, trying to get into things etc.  I finally had to dog proof some of the rooms he has free range in and he seems happy.  He gets lots of praise and petting and still loves to follow us around.  He’s not happy when we’re in different rooms or on different floors, he has to check on both of us constantly 🙂

And two benefits:

• – The exercise!  I am going to get in great shape with this routine!  We do some sprints every morning (I like to get him exercised a bit before a day in the kennel).  And walks in the evening.  If the weather is nice we do long walks (3 walks this past weekend alone).
• – The extra time in the day!  Contrary to previous habits, I actually enjoy getting up at 6am (if I can get to bed by 10:30 and actually sleep at night).  My day is so much longer and I get so much more done.  I’m also a morning person so I’m more productive when I get in to work at 8 rather than 10 🙂

Fitz for short. He’s a 4 yr old lab mix.  Not sure what he’s mixed with but he has some red hair in his coat and some white spots on his feet.  His original name was Nacho but he was a stray and the name was new so we changed it.

On Saturday we decided to go over to the humane society just to see what dogs they had and put in an application in case a dog came in that matched what we were looking for.  Never having been before we had no idea what the process was.  We walked in and saw 3 dogs that we loved immediately.  After asking questions about temperament and how they were with other dogs, this guy sounded perfect.

He’s great with other dogs, very submissive so he’s even good with dominant dogs.  He’s great with people and children, just friendly if not a bit timid.  He’s very comfortable when you kneel down instead of stand over him though.  He knows absolutely NO commands at all but seems to be pretty house broken.  We’ve caught him lifting his leg twice in the house but both times caught him before he marked, and got him outside.  He’s doing very well.

The only problem is we’ve made no headway with any type of start on training.  He doesn’t seem to like food or treats or toys that much.  I did figure out he likes cheese so we used that to get him in his kennel for a quick trip to home depot.  Since we have to work tomorrow I wanted him to have some short stays in the kennel today and he seemed fine in it (probably used to it).

He was understandably nervous yesterday but finally last night a little personality started coming out (he likes human food and since he doesn’t know ‘No’ yet we have to watch him when we have food out.  We’re looking into taking a class with him, especially since I only know how to train with treats.

We’ve taken him on some long walks and a jog or two already and he seems okay with that, not great at night with cars going by, headlights and cars seem to make him nervous.  He’s such a good boy, he hasn’t barked, growled or whined yet, no noise at all.  He doesn’t know his name or anything like come, sit, stay.  We have some work to do.

Anyway, he’s hanging out with his Daddy right now while I paint the gym and Ryan works.  He’ll get another kennel practice later when we go out for another errand.