Adoption fees waived

The shelter is doing a special promotion right now on our longer term residents. The dogs / cats who have been at the shelter more than a year are having their adoption fees waived in August. I think this is on the right track though if not successful, we should probably extend it a bit. I have been busy lately on weekends with school about to start again for Ben and with projects and family visits, etc. Next weekend Ben will move back up to Dallas and after moving him up there, I should have more time to devote to the shelter and to Karma's advertising.

Things have been going pretty well with Karma other than an issue we have been having where she will growl/bark at Ben and sometimes charge him when she is laying in a room with me with a rawhide (or even sometimes with just a stuffed toy she is enamored with at the moment) and Ben walks by or comes to the doorway. If I tell her no, then she drops her head and skulks away, but it is concerning to Ben and also to me. I have started taking up the rawhides and need to only give them to her with the door shut.

Karma has spent 3-4 day weekends at the shelter a few times over the past month or so and she doesn't like it. Now when I take her to the shelter she won't get out of the car. I driven in the back gate a couple of times and closed the gate and opened the car. She gets out, but after the first time, she figured out that I am putting her up and she hangs out by the car until I get a leash on her and bring her to her pen or inside.

I need to brainstorm with the shelter folks some additional advertising ideas on our long term dogs. Karma/Oreo/Rigby deserve good homes and we need a way to show them off even at the expense of the more easily adoptable dogs. I need to start taking Karma to all the adoption day events I possibly can and also putting on the "adopt me" vest. It is a bit hot to be wearing a vest, but she needs to find a good home.

When I picked Karma up on Monday,I heard that Baxter came for a visit to play with Karma this weekend. From what I heard, she wasn't sure about him for a few minutes and then they remembered each other and played and played. Wish I had been there to check that out and to say hey to Baxter. Baxter's new owner is a shelter volunteer, so we may be able to do it again sometime.

The shelter has been trying to match up Karma with another dog so that she has a playmate, but we haven't hit on the right combo. We tried her with our big chocolate lab, Buster, but she got after him and he didn't like it and shied away. We her to behave and took them in the meet and greet area and let them off leash, but they just ignored each other. There are a few new dogs this week, so perhaps we can try again with another.

Thundershirt

Linda mentioned the thundershirt for dogs with fear problems and I bought one for Karma. This morning we went out the door for a morning walk and a minute later she was pulling her way for the front door. I didn't hear anything, but it is a bit misty here and there and she headed right for her closet hiding place, so I assume it was thunder. I went in the closet and put her shirt on and made it nice and snug. It was a bit harder because she wasn't standing up, but was sitting. I left her there in the closet and a few minutes later she came out to see me. I adjusted her shirt a bit and she wandered around with me. I took her out back and she didn't run right in the house. I pushed around the manual mower and she wandered around. I was hoping she would go to the bathroom, but she didn't, but she also didn't run inside.

I tried taking her out on a leash again but we only made it down the driveway. Inside she seems fine. She is laying here in the computer room with me on her comforter chewing on a rawhide. No running to the closet in fear, so I take that as a good sign that it is doing something.

Rain, rain, go away

Karma doesn't care much about rain, but she hates thunder. It has been storming tonight and she has been panting and hiding. I just went into my bedroom and she was laying in the master closet curled up with her stuffed duck in her mouth in the dark. Alas, what can you do?

Run-mate

I decided on Saturday that Karma needed a runmate. Being a female, male was the obvious choice, but the choices right now are a bit limited. I thought perhaps Toby might be okay as he had come in with Daisy and they shared a run for a while. I talked to Desiree and Sarah about it and they said Toby and Daisy had been separated because they stopped getting along and we all agreed that Toby is a bit of spaz, but I said we should try. Sarah got Toby and I took Karma and we went for a walk and brought them together but it was a face to face meeting which is never good. Toby went for Karma but missed and we kept them apart. I gave them each some petting and Toby let Karma come up and sniff him and she let him sniff her some and we went for a walk together with no incidents, but it seemed like there was mostly indifference between them and it was very hot out, so we took the dogs in and then took in the rest of the dogs. Perhaps one of the new dogs that came in, but I didn't see anyone that just jumped out at me.

New Toy

I posted this on Facebook, but didn't post it here. Karma has a new squirrels in the tree toy with 3 small squeaky squirrels in a plush tree. She has to put her mouth in there and grab out the squirrels. She loves to get them out by grabbing their tails and slinging the tree back and forth. She has figured out how to get them all out in much less than a minute and then I have to reload it.

From Karma

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/fYGkWaIbQoxpWX_zmiSWhg?feat=directlink

It's a dogs life if you are lucky.

Here is a shot of Karma hanging out in the window while I am working at the home office. The window sill is just the right height for her to rest her chin on it and look out the window.

From Karma

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/IqX4noDAc0JWlA9DGen7Hw?feat=directlink

Bouncing like a Tigger

Karma was excited to see me yesterday as I was up at the shelter to fix some window screens and pick her up. She was bouncing up and down like a Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. After all the other dogs went in to have supper, the dog caretakers let her run in the yard and she came over and kissed me while I was fixing the last screen and then went off running. She was hopping on me trying to get me to finish and take her home and I soon did and she came home and layed on a comforter and fell asleep. We went for a short walk and she went in and out and wandered around and just hung out with me while I watched some TV and had a conference call. Same old "follow you around" Karma.

A week at the shelter

My house is a wreck with painters here this week. There is texturing material, spackle, paint, etc all over the place. There is paper on the floor, plastic over furniture and it all around isn't a place that a dog should be if it can be avoided. Thus, Karma will have to stay at the shelter for a few days until this is finished. They are making a lot of progress already today.

No love for Karma today

No one visited with Karma today. The person that wanted to meet Karma yesterday didn't come back today to setup a meet and greet with their dog. Perhaps tomorrow. He seemed to really like her, but not sure whether the dog they previously adopted from the shelter is a good match for Karma or not. Time will tell.

Much better about getting into the car

Back when I used to do the monthly Petco adoption day,I remember trying to get Karma into the car to take to the adoption day and she was resisting all the way. Even when walking her in the yard at the shelter, she would pull away if walked too closely to the shelter's van. Now that we have gone back and forth to the shelter a lot she seems much more eager to get in the car. When I open the car back, she puts her paws up, but doesn't jump right in. I have to lift her, but that isn't too hard. Just the fact that she isn't pulling away is great.

Chewed window sill

I haven't had a bit of damage from Karma until this morning and even then I have no idea how it happened. We got up early, went for a walk, she was carrying around one of her rawhides and laying down and chewing it. I remember there was a rawhide on the top of the window sill in the room where I was working and I thought her chewing the rawhide was kinda loud, but it wasn't until later that I looked down there after she had left the room for a while and I got out of my chair and I found that she had chewed up the corner of the window sill. It isn't where her rawhide was sitting, so I don't know how it came to pass. Oh well, another little repair to add to the other dog chewed window sills that will soon be repaired.

The camera adds 10 pounds, but Karma adds 52

They say the camera makes you look 10 pounds heavier, but I did a differential weight by picking up Karma and getting on the scale today and she adds 52 pounds to me.

Some lightning, some thunder and a whole lot of pacing/panting

It was stormy last night and Karma was very agitated. I didn't make a big deal over her behavior so as not to reinforce it. It was calm before bed, but during the night it got stormy and she was pacing and panting and crawled under the bed for a while. She really doesn't like loud sounds.

Another week of good Karma

`Things have been going great with Karma. She is a follow you around kind of dog. She will hang out in the room I am in when I am working or watching tv and just lay on her comforter on the floor. If I sit on the floor with her, she is right up on me to get some petting and to lay next to me. She sat in my lap on the floor yesterday to get some extra petting. If the tv volume is too loud and there is any gunfire or other loud noises, she runs to another room, but she is starting to get used to the fact that it is just tv. I left her home for about 9 hours yesterday and still nothing disturbed in the house.

Karma is good on walks with a couple of minor exceptions. Just like Baxter, she will try to take off after any trucks with flat trailers passing in the street. I think it is because the shelter is right next to a uhaul place. She is also shy about walking along the wooden fences where there are barking dogs on the other side that she can't see. We have adjusted our route to miss the long sections like that.

Karma home alone

I left Karma alone in the house not crated today while I went off to work for a few meetings. I had closed the bedroom doors, but she had the roam of the main part of the house. The only thing I found amiss when I got home was that she had taken one of my winter gloves off a chair in the kitchen area and it was on her comforter. Aside from some dog hair on it, there was no problems with it. A great result.

Skittish

Karma has been doing well. I put her in her crate for 20 minutes Monday night while I ran to the store and she didn't want to go into the crate, I had to drag her to it. I left her this afternoon so I could go to the office and the same reaction. Overall she is doing really well. I was watching a movie last night and when some fireworks went off in the movie, she ran off to the back of the house. She also didn't like the tank fire in the movie. She is overall pretty confident when we go walking, but occasionally she will shy away from a fence where another dog is barking or see something out of the corner of her eye and get spooked. I think it is just getting used to her new surroundings. I need to work on putting treats in the crate at different times so she will be going in the crate more without being shut in. She has been going in and out of the crate, but doesn't want to be told to go in there and left at home.

Settling in

Karma did well last night. She was pacing around a bit in the new environment and was kind of nervous when walking down the block to the mailbox, but she slept on a comforter at the foot of the bed last night and aside from getting up to reposition herself, she seems to have stayed there all night. This morning we got up early and walked the 1.5 mile loop. It started raining about 1/2 way around and she wasn't too happy about that and stopped and looked back at me a few times, but we pressed on until home where I dried her off. She has been laying around on the floor most of the day as I work on the computer. We went out before lunch for a walk in the snow. I put a jacket on her but the flakes kept falling on her face which made her shake. She seemed to take it pretty well and she seemed to start knowing the way to go on the loop. Now she is curled up on the floor in the computer room as I work.

Karma comes home

I picked up Karma this afternoon. I will post some pictures here later. She seems to be doing okay. She has been sniffing around outside and I can't tell if there are general dog smells that interest her or specifically her old buddy Baxter.

Karma

Well, I just read the daily shelter update and the meet and greet with Karma didn't go well and so it looks like I will probably be taking her into foster.

Very quiet

The house has been quiet since Baxter was adopted. After having him so long, it is strange to not have a dog. I thought I was going to foster Karma, but she got an application, so it has been about 3 weeks with no dog. Tonight I was at a dinner where people were sharing their dog pictures and it was strange not to have one.

Between dogs

Well, it has been a hugely long time since I could write this, but I am between dogs at the moment. Baxter was adopted and went home today. I had mixed feelings after so long, but I am happy that he has finally found someone.