A New Herdmate

     On valentines day this year I had to put 2 of my goats to sleep. My old mama Zecilly and her son One. Zecilly had slowly developed arthritis over the years, and last winter it got to where she could no longer stand. I helped her around for about a month, carrying her front end in a sling so she could get outside or inside. I put off the inevitable for months, nursing her along as long as she was happy and eating.

     Meanwhile One had developed bone cancer, most noticeably in his lower jaw. He had trouble eating, so I switched him to a soft alfalfa hay and pellets. After awhile he could no longer eat those, and became noticeably uncomfortable. So I called and made him an appointment with my vet, and almost immediately Zecilly stopped eating.

     It crushed me to take them in. But I couldn't let them suffer either. So on Valentines day Two became an only goat.

     He seemed to handle it quite well, he hung out with the alpacas like they were family and was mostly Ok. It didn't seem odd until you'd see him laying out in the rain (which goats hate like it's hell's own acid that falling from the sky) to be with his alpacas. I'd go out and he'd be soaked, shivering, and miserable; but they refused to go in the barn and so he stayed with them. So I began locking everyone in the barn in bad weather, which mostly served to piss the alpacas off more then anything.

     Two is older, and has arthritis in his hind legs. It doesn't usually bother him much, he gimps a bit in cold wet weather but that's about all. But after awhile he started coming up lame more and more often, rather then napping in the sun he was spending the day chasing after the alpacas. Way too much movement and running for old goat joints. Alpacas are not very considerate friends.

     I don't want more goats. I love my goats- too much frankly. The thought of more goats who are not Zecilly and One makes me cry every time I think about it. I couldn't handle looking for another goat, but it was becoming obvious Two couldn't handle alpaca friends. So I tried to have him befriend the horses. In his younger years Two loved the horses. When Cody was new and sickly, the goats slept with him and cared for him. Two used to bully him out of his feed bowl and play chase games with him in the pasture. Cody could be Two's new friend again.

     But Cody wasn't a good friend for the same reasons as the alpacas. He runs too much, he plays too hard. He didn't want to nap in the sun all day. And poor Two started showing more signs for wearing out and not being able to keep up with the others.

     So I was stuck needing a friend. I put out word I was looking for a crippled old goat for a friend to my crippled old goat, because he really didn't need a young goat full of piss and vinegar to try to handle! I got plenty of offers for young goats, but nothing that would just like to nap in the sun and accompany Two in retirement.

     Sunday my alpacas were leaving to be pasture boarded at a friends house so they could be fat and sassy on grass for the summer, which they will love all to bits. And poor Two. He was going to loose the closest things to friends he had, crappy friends though they were.

     So I started hunting the internet for goats or sheep for sale. Surely somewhere! I called a few people, and everyone was happy to sell me baby goats or baby sheep! But it seems most had gotten rid of their older stock because the hay shortage, nobody had old anything.

     David suggested Craigslist. I poshed at him, I never find anything on craigslist! I had a few more places to try before I gave up and bought a baby goat, I planned to call them the next day. Awhile later he called me over to the computer, someone had a polled mini ewe for sale, 3 years old.

     I wrote the gal for information, and we went to see her the next day.

     This tiny sheep was a nurse/friend for the womans baby goats! She used her as a pasture buddy for babies, but had moved her goats and now this little sheep was by herself with no job. She was super calm, sweet, tiny, and loved goats!

     Needless to say, I had found a friend! We loaded her in the back seat of the car, and came home (with a stop at Smiths for a bag of sweet feed so she'd make friends with me too).

     So now little Miss No-Name Sheep is hanging out in the barn with Mr. Two, becoming friends. I explained to her that her only job was to be sweet to him and she'd have all the food she wanted and a warm place to live for all her days. Plus, I will get wool next year! The benefits abound!

     The tag in her ear must go, it's making me twitchy, but I'll wait until she is settled in and happy here. I don't know her breed, she's tiny compared to most the sheep I've dealt with, and especially tiny next to Two.

     They will have their own small pasture and stall, so nobody can bug them or pick on Two. They can eat and sunbathe all day and rest arthritic joints in cushy retirement. I couldn't be happier with finding her, and I pray she and Two fall madly in love and are the best of friends. And double awesome points to David for digging about on craigslist until he found a perfect Two-companion candidate. My heart wasn't handling it, and he found a real tiny sweet sheep gem for my giant sweet old goat. :)

Harley's Handsome Coat

     Harley loves to go outside and play. Usually it's hard to get him and Faith to come inside. But one morning it was cold. He ran for the door, put his face and front legs through (which left plenty of him still on the house) and put on the brakes. Nope!

     So I began catching and leashing the long dog to force him out into the cold where he would shiver and whine as he peed and ran for the house. He is not a winter dog.

      So where on earth do you buy a coat for a cold little long dog? 22" long to be exact!

     From DoxandDane on Etsy!

     Look at that handsome boy! I found this wonderful woman on etsy named Janae who makes awesome custom coats, they have a chest covering and can be made to fit any odd-shaped dog. You customize the whole thing to your dog's size and shape.

     I sent her Harley's measurement and the colors he likes, and I got a custom made long dog coat!

 

     It has a tendancy to billow out behind him when he runs, so I call it his cape. This is purely because he is sooooo long, I think I will probably put some elastic leg bands on it for him. He is, stretched from nose to tail, well over 3 ft. long! The current guess is Dauschund/Golden Retriever, one day I may buy one of those DNA kits just to find out. Check out those HUGE thick legs. I can't wrap my fingers around his legs they are so thick, he has thicker legs them most of the mini horses I work on!

 

     Plus those giant, knobby, crooked knees! Watching him run is like watching an inchworm inch, lots of back and no legs involved.

 

    

     But he has one of the funnest personalities you will ever find on a dog, and I don't think I'll ever meet a more stable, happy minded soul. He is AWESOME for rehabbing other dogs. He is just that solid, stable, calm soul that they need to work with. I find him becoming my go-to dog with anyone with issues of any kind, or even just normal training work.

 

     So now my long dog love is cozy warm for the coming winter; if he gets out from under the blankets to see it.

 

     Thank you Janea! http://www.etsy.com/shop/DoxandDane Visit her store to see all kind cool designs she has. Mom MUST have one of her Bronco's coats for the crazed Peyton :)



    

Pottery Madness

     My boyfriend David got into pottery last winter, and had a blast making all kinds of cool things to fill the cabinets of friends and relatives. I was slowly lured in; helping him fire, helping him glaze, babysitting the kiln. Then it comes to the point of, "Hells bells I do everything but throw!" and you give in to the new craft you weren't going to start because you have too many craft projects to begin with. Plus I had a 'want'.

     Custom dog bowls for my dogs!

      So I'm making heavy duty customized dog bowls for my crew. And then I started telling people, and now I've got a list of dog bowl Christmas presents for all my friends dogs. Now I have gads and gads of dog bowls, and Faith is the only one with her own so far!

     So it's a fun new hobby and with both of us playing we needed more room, so my mud room is now a pottery studio, or more appropaitely, it's still a mud room! Extra bonus of concrete floors means very easy cleanup.

     Pottery is a very messy business as you can see. And I invest in the most pricey of chairs for my mud work.  

     Of course I couldn't do these things without assistance, and my main assistant is Misty Moo, my disabled bun.

 
     Those who follow the blog know of Miss Misty. Her best bunny buddy Sapphire passed away recently of old age, and now Misty has been diagnosed with a degenerative spinal condition. The condition is a result of raising rabbits in cages too small, they can't play and their spines don't develop properly. As they age the spine calcifies until they become paralysed. Misty isn't paralysed yet, but she can't stand up on her own or clean herself, so she has to stay in a small, heavily bedded cage to keep her clean and so she always has access to her food and water. She's on medicine that may help her be able to walk, I am hoping it works so she can have more freedom, but until then she has to stay in her cage. But she is quite pleased with herself and all the attention she gets now, she bangs her water bowl around or kicks the back wall when she wants something, and watches pottery making like TV.

     Then of course Elliot helps. Or more Elliot complains because I won't let him on my shoulders or lap while I throw, or he'd end up in the clay. He doesn't believe this is a good reason though, and gives me a lot of "The Face of Cat Displeasure".

 
     And I wouldn't be doing anything without Zak! What madness.

     Of course, whether I want it or not, I always get Daisy's opinion.

      And it's just never positive. :)

The Tail of the Mad Wee- Pt. 2

     Zak was the first huge influence on Manning. The little Yorkie lived in a constant state of near panic, and this was overwhelmed by... pretty much anything. There was no blip of calmness to reward, no mind to work with, just pure panic in the face of any situation.

   

  So Zak introduced Wee to the idea of relaxing. To the idea of being safe with a pack. I used Zak to introduce Wee to other people; leaving Wee on a leash and letting Zak greet the newcomer first, then slowly feeding Wee line as he wished to approach. This became a safe way to introduce him to strangers without hysteria or biting.

     I took some time but Wee slowly settled in, relaxed in his environment a bit, and the developed an unhealthy attachment to me. He became hysterical whenever I left. He would find an area about 1-2 ft. wide and pace it back and forth at top speed, screaming at the top of his lungs while urinating/defecating himself the whole time and continuing to run back and forth through it. He'd occasionally pause a minute to run through the whole house, spreading his nasty paste everywhere, before resuming his pacing. He didn't do this for a few minutes, he did it for hours. He did this until his eyes were bloodshot and he was hoarse from screaming. He'd work such filth into his coat and environment it'd take hours to get everything cleaned. He'd do it the whole time I was gone from home.

     A cage did not help, he did it in a cage. Tied up he would trow himself at the end of the line and flip himself over, and he'd do that for hours. He dug a 1" deep hole in a solid wooden door, and he was only in the room a couple hours. No miles of walking or even bike riding his little legs off would get him tired enough to keep him calm.

     I spent days and days and weeks walking to the door, walking back, walking outside, walking back, going to the mailbox, coming back. In the mean time walking the little legs off him, and putting him in a cage small enough he couldn't pace with the ferocity to exhaust himself while I was gone. Progress was painfully slow, but it was there. Soon I came home from a quick trip to the hardware store and found a clean Wee in his clean cage. There is rarely such excitement over something like that! 

     It continued to take time but we got to the place where if I walked out the door, went straight to the car and drove away; then pulled in, got straight out the car, went into the house and let him outside, I could leave home without an accident in the house. If I dallied about or checked the mail, he would hear me, become hysterical, and begin pacing and peeing. 

     Another problem was when he was in this frantic state, nobody but me could touch him (and I made a loud noise to snap him out of it a bit first). He would go into fight mode and attack, no matter how well he knew the person. Upon being dropped he would immediately resume his pacing. Nothing and nobody could snap him out of this. The other dogs knew to leave him alone with plenty of space, he would slip from panic to terror and attack blindly.

     Enter Harley Longdog.

 

     I had, it is sad to say, mostly given up on 'fixing' Wee. He was pretty much good. I didn't let strangers around him without him being on leash, or let strangers pick him up, but basically he was a pretty good dog. While I fed or worked outside I put him out in the yard in the chain link and he paced the fence and did his peeing hysterics outside. He walks perfectly on or off leash (2" behind my left foot). We worked a long time to get him ok with walks off the property, he would get upset and pace back and forth behind my legs while we walked. But other then some little 'isms' and anxieties, he had come a remarkably long way.

 

     Then Harley chose to give him a very new uber-calm energy to deal with. Baby Harley, with his total lack of any kind of aggression or malice, watched Wee begin his mad fence pacing. And he said to himself, "Fun madness! We will play!" and toddled over and pounced Wee. The look on the little Yorkies face was beyond priceless. He paused, used some foul language, and immediately started to pace again. Pounce, pace, pounce, pace, pounce, pace until finally Wee turned to him and screamed, "I'm trying to be hysterical over here damnmit! Leave me alone!"

 

     You could almost see the switch. He hadn't been able to complete whatever stereotypical behavior he believed necessary to keeping the sun in the sky. His ritual was rudely interrupted without finish, yet nothing bad happened. He looked around like he'd woken up out of a long dream, waiting for the explosion, earthquake, and whatever his fearfullness thought would happen, and it didn't. The gears in his little head produced smoke with this new thought.

 

     What if pacing isn't necessary? What if it is really ok? Do I really need to do this?

 

     And with that I watched the little Mad Wee, who had spent likely years with his hysterical pacing, slowly walk to the corner of the fence where he could see me work, lay down, and fall asleep. For the first time ever. Harley watched this as well, then tromped off to go play with Zak.

 

     I was dumbfounded. A human could not show him this, he was too fearful and went into fight mode. I don't believe just any other dog could have showed him either. Because Harley is such a unique absolutely harmless, low, soft energy to him, Wee is not in the slightest way threatened by him. Wee is to a degree scared of all other dogs, he doesn't "speak dog" nearly as well as he should, and is very socially awkward and timid with others. But Harley is harmless, so harmless even Wee, who is scared of everything including himself and the kitchen sink, is not scared of Harley. And that is how Little Harley Longdog started the impossible rehabbing of The Mad Wee.    

Feeding Your Good Wolf

     An old Cherokee told his grandson, “My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy and truth.”

The boy thought about it, and asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”

The old man quietly replied, “The one you feed.”

 

      This is one of my favorite stories. I’ve heard many variations, but they are all roughly the same. To me this is not only a story about personal growth, but an easy way to understand learning theory as well. You always get the behavior you reinforce; the wolf you feed.

     In any behavior you can focus your attention on one of two aspects; the one you want, and the one you don’t. You want your dog to greet people by sitting politely, you don’t want him to jump 6 feet in the air and body slam them into the wall. You can attempt to kill the bad wolf by yelling, hitting your dog, locking him away from guests, or by any other means that suit you. Or you can simply feed the good wolf, giving treats and affection while your dog sits calmly, and it will extinguish the bad wolf all by itself.

     Both these methods will usually work. Often times punishment leads to a dog who is frightened by guests, or it isn’t harsh enough to work and the dog persists to be more physical with guests until he is removed from the area. Feeding your good wolf in this situation will always work better, and often quicker, but it takes patience and peacefulness from you to work. It’s usually the human that fails at this; they can’t hold their temper or frustration and resort to punishment. Thus working to feed your dog’s inner good wolf feeds yours too; and visa versa as people who instead focus on their dogs bad behavior often end up feeding the wrong wolf in themselves; becoming tense, harsh, irritable, and angry.

     But really training any behavior is so simple that it’s laughable when you look at it from the base perspective, feed the behavior you want and let the other one starve. You can feed it with affection, excitement, a game, or even food. In alpacas you can feed the behavior of coming toward you, and they will stop running away. Feed the dog for sitting politely by the door, or for walking nicely on the leash. Feed you horse’s good behavior of being easy to catch, or standing well at the mounting block. It’s a cumulative effect of many soft touches, butt scratches, cookies, and Frisbee games to build your perfect animal companion; and in the meantime this feeds your inner good wolf, your compassion, kindness, empathy, patience, calmness and love. In the end you and your animals will grow from each other.

The Tail of the Mad Wee- Part 1

     I have been delighted of late at the enormous impact little Harley Lowrider has had on my Yorkie-esque little beasty- Manning a.k.a. The Mad Wee.

     So I thought I would tell the Tail of The Mad Wee, because as much as I occasionally want to throttle him, he is fascinating in his madness and really has changed drastically for the better. His story also illustrates how much stable, sane dogs can help completely crazed little maniacs and bring them into a state of stable sanity. And above all to show how far he has come, and how well he is still progressing. One day, I do believe, he will be A Good Dog.

     The very basic back story on The Wee is that my mom adopted him from a now-closed local high-kill humane society. He was dumped there after being deemed unadoptable in a local no-kill rescue. This rescue does a lot with puppy mill dogs, and based on his caged-dog front teeth and horrible habits (along with being miserable to house break) I'm willing to bet that is were he originated. We were told he's a purebred Yorkie (though not likely to win any breed prizes if he is) and since I doubt the source I call him my Yorkie-esque dog.

     He came home with mom scared to death of everything, covered in a nice matted coating of urine and feces. He was traumatized enough to allow a first bath, then he basically ran for cover.

    He was obviously not housebroke, and had a tendency to pee anytime frightened (which was pretty much all the time). And then he started to bite my moms boyfriend when scared. So he has just been a delight from the start.

     When I met Manning I immediately began calling him "The Wee Dog" because of his diminutive size. I was eating potato soup at the time and saw him skitter through the house in a mild state of panic over all the things. So I sat down cross legged on the floor, and Zak and Faith sat in front of me awaiting the sausage bits out of my potato soup, because they know good and well I don't eat them and that they always do.

     Manning circled us neurotically and we ignored him completely. With my dogs focus on the slowly growing line of sausages on my leg, he sniffed closer and closer to us without having any attention directed at him.

     Three sausages sat on my leg, so I gave one to Zak, then one to Faith, then laid on on the floor behind me. There was the brief mad skittering as Manning dashed forward, grabbed the sausage, and ran like hell to hide under the couch with it. None of us moved from our casual dinner.

     Now he was interested even more. I could feel him touching and sniffing my back, watched him sniff both Zak and Faith head to toe. I told them to Wait and ignore him, and with the promise of sausages they couldn't have ignored him more. By the third round of sausage handouts, Manning was sitting casually next to Faith calmly taking his sausage piece and eating it right there with us like he was not insane. Thus, via the miracle that is potato soup, we made a friend.

Harley

     A couple weeks ago Thursday I got a midnight call from friends of mine. They'd found a puppy covered in blood in the middle of the road. He was still alive, but very out of it.

     I went over and met them. We cleaned up the blood, which all came from a ugly head wound, but no other major cuts or injuries. All the legs worked, and the tail definately worked. But he was totally out of it, he could barely move his head.

     First thing Friday morning I was at Seven Oaks getting his head taken care of. He chipped his skull, and had brain swelling, but no other severe injuries from the car. He had terrible fleas and ticks, along with being stuffed full of worms. He got good drugs, and a staple in his head. He was very out of it for the first few days, and didn't do too much but cuddle up in his basket.

     But then slowly but surely every day there was improvement. The first day he was awake all day, the first day he ran, the first day he ate good... Then it became the last days of his medications, the removal of the staple, and his first day for going to work with me and Zak. He became a differant puppy entirely.

      He made his first trip to Petsmart and got lots of toys and tag with his name.

     Now he terrorizes the house, stealing anything he can get ahold of. He is a Dachshund mixed with something much bigger, he's a definate lowrider. But boy if he stands up he's tall! He can steal off most shelves and especially likes socks. Usually he runs about like crazy stealing, then curls up on his nest to pass out cold.

     Or cuddles up with Zak for a nap.

     So now there are 4 dogs to fill a kitchen. Wee is currently taller, but not for long. But he is enjoying being the 'big dog' for the moment.

     So that has been my madness. Chasing a crazy little monkey around collecting all his 'treasures' and all my shoes from his various nesting places. I had forgotten how puppies could find every single dead thing that ever was on your property to roll in and then eat. He excels at this game!

     But how can you resist that face!!!