Sitting

Baxter has been doing fairly well at sitting and waiting for the OK to exit the front door. He was sitting in the backyard this morning starring up at the fence waiting for a squirrel to come into the yard. He just scratched at the back door and when I went to let him out he stepped out and then stood there stalking a squirrel, waiting to run.

We met several dogs over the past 2 days while out walking. Baxter has been good with all of them, trying to induce them to play, large and small, no matter the size. It has been good. He has of course gone nuts over cats we have seen, but the harness keeps me in control and I just give him a tug and say let's go and we are off and moving and leave the cats alone.

Pretty good week

It has been a re-adjustment going back to Baxter from Cassie, but he is doing fine. I got him some new stuffed toys and they are good. They haven't been torn apart yet. He has nibbled the little ears off, but that hasn't caused an issue. He is outside right now sitting watching for squirrels to come back so he can chase them. He has been good in the house and last night he got back in the swing of taking himself to his crate when he was ready for bed. He has been eating fine though he seems to prefer to get food from his treatstik than from his bowl. Treatstik as seen in

Baxter's home

He is ready for a walk but I am waiting for Ben to get home from school to say hi and then we will hit the neighborhood.

New foster for Cassie

Cassie has a new foster home. A new foster person for the shelter wants to foster Cassie and my deal with Monica was to take her until she found a new foster situation for her. I am cleaning up all the dog stuff in the house and will be bringing Baxter back home.

Chew, chew, chew

Cassie redirects her energy to chewing. On the plus side, she only chews things that you give her to chew, doesn't take stuff on her own or go for the furniture. She loves a rawhide or a bone. She was coughing and spit up a bit of bone fragments earlier this week, so I took away all the bones and that has passed. She does still have a big hip joint bone that she can gnaw on, but I cut out the rib bones. I have a twisted rope toy that is knotted on the ends that is about 1 inch thick rope and Cassie chewed it in 2 pieces (chewed through the middle) this week. I also have a chewing bone that is hard plastic that is advertised as good for cleaning the dogs teeth and she has been working hard on that one, but it is holding up just fine. She continues to eat well and continues to hang out well during the day but at days end, she is playful and wants to go run. Alas, we have to keep that to a minimum, but she can be redirected with a stuffed bone. I had a Kong "ball" that had the slits along it you could put cheese spray in and you could put treats in the middle, but she chewed it into pieces (the red kind, not the black super chew proof). Overall, still a great dog to have around and loves to sit or lay down and be petted. Haven't seen much negative behaviour with her other than greeting people too energetically and her aggression toward other dogs.

Back to the shelter

I had roofers here replacing my roof this past Friday and I had a group coming in to do a project at the shelter so I took Cassie with me. She did fine. She is aggressive toward other dogs and needed to be crated to limit her running around, so we kept her in the office. I asked if she should start coming back on weekend days and the answer was yes. She went Saturday and Sunday. I just posted some more pictures on Picassaweb of Cassie. http://picasaweb.google.com/dklinecp/Cassie# She is looking good. She is always raring to go and I have to keep her slowed down.