Little Gifts

Where's the 'like' button! Congratulations Oakway!

How have they both been without him?

I hate throwing up. I think Danny does too. He looks like a comfy bed will be his friend for the rest of the day.

This is the hardest part of loving a dog. I know you will do what you feel is right for him Cynthia.

We have a small, white, fold up plastic seat that I think was originally intended for elderly people to have something to sit on while they weed the garden. I make colour themed floor mats for all my dogs eating areas so the seat has a non slip cover on it. It is for our big girl and she likes to eat on a large flat plastic plate so the seat size suits (say that fast three times!).

I'll be watching the stars come out tonight looking for a new one.

Been thinking about you since I got up, wondering how you are spending the day. Stay strong, live in the moment and know you are doing the right thing for your gorgeous boy. XXX

I'm of the train of thought that they don't need to be there experiencing you being upset so having them off doing something pleasant with someone else is the way to go. I'd probably only let them sniff Mac after he was gone if they wanted to. If they showed no interest I wouldn't be actively pointing him out to them. His scent is going to be around the house still anyway. I think it is hard to anticipate which dogs cope ok after losing a pack mate and which ones don't. I don't really feel sniffing them after they are gone makes that much of a difference and it is not till they are continually missing that some dogs realise something has happened to their pack. I think it is good you are planning ahead but it is still ok to just go with your heart on the day. It is still going to be horrible and hard to say farewell.

Gosh she is pretty! Despite my new found love of shar pei I am still terribly weak when it comes to pied staffords and bull terriers!

I was on holiday in Morocco a couple of years back with my Kodak P&S and one of my fellow travellers had a Panasonic Lumix 10x optical zoom. The photos were just so amazing compared to my camera (and others on the trip as well). The colours and the various shooting options were also much better. So I bought myself the same camera as soon as I got home! I am planning on upgrading mine before my next big trip. At present the most photos I take is usually at concerts and I've played around with the different shooting options and worked out how to take the best pics in that kind of light setting and distance. So even though it has a pretty good optical zoom option and ability to take pics in dark and bright lights it is still a very lightweight and small camera and I can carry it in my little shoulder bag. Make sure she gets at least one spare battery for her trip (I'd get two) and a good sized memory card (or two!) as well.

W got a large Dingo bin from City Farmers and it takes a big bag of Black Hawk plus any packs of unopened treats. It is a thin rectangular shape and in two years there has been no deterioration of the plastic/rubber seals, no ants, cockroaches OR dogs get in it. Plus the food seems to stay fresh as one of mine poo poos anything remotely stale.

Oh honey I am so very sorry. Heartbreaking stuff but you are doing it out of love for your beautiful boy so it is the right thing.

She did it a bit this morning again and didn't sleep with me last night. She'd already been up and had breakfast. My sister was sleeping in and I could hear Stussy panting and noticed her climbing all over her. Since I was up I called Stussy and we went into the lounge room and a one on one play with toys to try and use up some of that nervous energy. She was focussed on what I was doing. I did try chicken first but as she had just eaten her breakfast she wasn't interested. Then we went under the house and sorted stuff. She doesn't get under there much so was quickly distracted by doing something different and all the interesting smells. I kept calling to her and she would come back for a scratch and then run off again. Just me and her. Corvus I will have to ponder the safety behaviour/spot idea more as we have tried something similar before but it was an epic fail. She simply wouldn't stay in her quiet spot when the action was going on elsewhere (she has a tendency to get over excited by a couple of things and we've trained her to come out of the situation and sit but no success getting her to stay put in say another room). I can see we have at least two problems happening - the dove noise is the trigger to her expecting I might have a tantie and her fear that I might have a tantie is causing the over the top appeasement attempts.

Counter condition it. No more pillows at the window. Reward the sound - pats, treats, anything. Just to clarify - I haven't done the pillow at the window thing since the initial incident as I realised by her response that I'd scared her. I've totally ignored any doves that might be partying outside either window. Since we have been using lots of cuddles and praise when she gets upset we will definately need to up the ante and add yum yum food. I think the hardest part is going to be being awake enough to respond appropriately when we hear the doves and she gets scared. Instead of staying half asleep and hoping it all goes away I am going to have to slap myself around and get focussed. Stussy has always been pretty bomb proof so I do want to shift this fear. I once owned an sbt who was terrified of everything and I hated what he went through. That I accidentally caused it in Stussy makes me feel horrible. Rebanne, I will also be trying the hosing idea!!!!! Fecking doves.......

There is a big tree in between my sister and my bedroom windows. Along my other big window is a big vine. Doves love to hang out in both. As it is now warmer weather our windows are open and I am being woken by dove coos at ugly o'clock every morning. I am not a morning person so it drives me a bit crazy. About three weeks ago I got woken by a dove love in. I got out of bed and whacked the fly screen with my little pillow to make the doves fly away and collapsed back in to bed. For some reason Stussy (my sbt) thought she was in trouble and got very worked up. The next day it was the same thing when the doves started (even though I didn't do anything about it). She was panting and shaking and crawling all over me (and the other dogs) trying to appease me like she had done something wrong. This continued for almost two weeks and she stopped even sleeping with me at night. Some mornings we would get up and do breakfast and go back to bed for a sleep in and it would be even worse and she would be moving between my room and my sister's room doing her panting and scrambling routine, upsetting both the other dogs. We both tried to reassure her she wasn't in trouble for anything and tried cuddles and yawning at her (which usually works if she is over excited) without success. She wouldn't even let me do her morning massage and once out of bed was clingy but wouldn't engage for quite some time. I thought in more detail about how to deal with this and thought it was linked to us going back to bed for a sleep in. So I lay in bed (but fully awake) and I massaged her and cuddled her and talked to her in a high pitched voice giving her lots of praise. It took about 20 minutes but she settled. That night she returned to my bed and has stayed there ever since. The mornings since then I did the cuddles and massages and praise routine (even though she wasn't acting stressed) and I thought I had resolved the problem and she was no longer scared of sleeping in my bed, particularly in the mornings. NOPE! This morning she was at it with a vengeance - running between both our rooms shaking and panting and jumping on and off of us and crawling over us, licking our faces and just not being able to stay still. I realised there was a dove carrying on outside my window. I'm now thinking it is the dove sound that is triggering her panic 'in case' I get upset at it. I was able to calm her down quicker than previously but what do I do if she has developed such a response to a bird sound? I can cut back the vine from my window but I'd have to get tree loppers in to remove the other tree and it serves a bit of a light barrier for our bedrooms so we'd prefer to keep it. Can I desensitise Stussy to the sound somehow? I haven't reacted to the sound or even gone near that window for weeks so I'm not sure how I am reinforcing it. And for what it's worth Stussy has been a very naughty dog over the years but rarely gets in actual trouble because I never catch her in the act and some of it is my fault for leaving known temptation in her way. So the number of times she has actually been in 'you'd better kiss my butt because I am furious with you' trouble is miniscule. She is 8 years old. She is usually very fond of a lie in with her mum and good at sharing bed space with me and the other dogs.

Yep, some of the dried fruit in the cake is a big no no for dogs. Hasn't hurt Stussy (fruit and nut chocolate thief) but better to watch in case Bonnie doesn't have a cast iron belly.

I started fostering again after my old girl departed. She needed extra care in those final years and I didn't think it would be fair on her. I have a weakness for SBT's so decided to foster a breed of dog I had no idea about - had never even seen in person, on the basis I wouldn't fall in love with them so easily. So while I didn't end up with a foster that I couldn't bear to part with, one foster herself chose us and it became clear it was in her best interests to stay with us. We then had a full house and had to stop fostering again. I have absolutely no regrets as I now love the breed (shar pei) and of course adore our funny little foster failure. There were a couple of other fosters that broke my heart when they left but they had chosen special families for themselves and that is what it is all about. I can't provide the kinds of homes they went to and luckily most of the new parents have stayed in contact with me. I've also seen several of them since they were adopted and they couldn't care less about me! It is important to find a group whose practices and values you support, the ones where you get a say on the dog you foster and who considers your household requirements. There are ones out there who will just dump any old dog on you and that is not good for you or the foster dog. It is easy to fall in love with your charges but what they need most from you is a safe and nurturing place to become their best selves so they can find their forever home. I found it so rewarding to see a terrified or shut down dog start to trust and engage again. Our other dogs really enjoyed the experience too and helped a lot with the transitions our fosters made. I've shed lots of tears but they were all happy ones.

Very glad he has been removed and hopefully will make a full recovery. I hope the wombat also had an alternative exit route.

So sad. I'm sure the rescuers would be just as upset as the owner.

Another Pikelet follower here so I know all about P'waff's time in foster care too! Rocco is beautiful!

Oh that's gorgeous! Happy Birthday Lola!

Can you go visit her with some roast chicken or something else that she really, really likes? Good news but weird too. Hopefully she picks up soon and can come home.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside! Is that a cuttlefish Jessie is nomming on?

Oh. Not the kind of news anyone was expecting. Big hugs to you Gillybob while you wait for news.

Where is the like button! What a beautiful story!