TUESDAY AUGUST 15 2000 Dog trainer Nan Austin volunteers
Yesterday's phone call was a wonderful surprise! Professional dog trainer, Nan Austin, called offering her dog training services, if we needed them, for any of the dogs in our care. (Jake came to my mind right away.) Nan had heard about our shelter and was looking forward to coming for visit and to meet Jake, and any others that could benefit from her help.
I was looking forward to meeting Nan and so happy that Jake would be receiving dog obedience training. (Nan uses the positive reinforcement method of training.) This was going to be an exciting morning for Jake.
Nan took Jake to the big play yard for his first lesson. She said that Jake is a wonderful, very smart dog and did very well during this very first training session. Nan will be coming again in a few days to work with Jake some more. Thank you very much, Nan!
Before Nan left I asked her if there was anything more that we could do to help the fearful big pups become people friendly. Her reply was for us to just continue what we already are doing for them, which is to spend lots of time with them and continue to give them lots of attention, which will in time gradually win their trust in us. It will take a lot of time.
We want the pups to be adopted yet I feel that right now, because they are so fearful of people, it would be too much of a traumatic experience for them to go on one of our adoption days, so I mentioned this to Nan to get her opinion. She agreed stating that the pups would be petrified by such an experience.
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 16 2000 Champ moves in with Trixie
Trixie desperately needs a kennel mate. She is the beautiful Rottweiler we rescued from the highway last March with her two puppies. (The pups have been adopted.)
Trixie is available for adoption and several people had been interested in adopting Trixie--but for all the wrong reasons. Several people wanted her for breeding purposes (but were NOT interested in her when they found out we had had her spayed), and several others wanted her to become their "junk yard" watch dog. These people are certainly not the kind of people any of the dogs in our care will ever go to. And because Trixie is still at our Happy Home she needs a companion dog, until we find a wonderful loving family (or individual) to adopt her.
During these last few months we tried to place several nice of the nice "single" male dogs with Trixie, to become her kennel companion, but she wanted nothing to do with these fellas, so she has been in a kennel by herself. We've taken her on extra outings to the big play yard to help compensate for her not having a kennel friend, and we all spend lots of time with her, but she needs more than that -- she needs a doggie companion.
CHAMP! Our newest arrival. Maybe Trixie will like him . . .
We were all hoping that this wonderful young dog, Champ, would become the perfect friend for Trixie. It should work, I kept telling myself. Champ is a year-old Lab, and a very friendly, very energetic, playful happy dog, yet still enough of a pup so that Trixie wouldn't feel threatened by him. And now that Champ is out of quarantine, he needed a friend too.
The introduction turned out to be a big success! Randy had Trixie on her leash and I had Champ on his leash for their introduction in the big play yard. At first there was a whole lot of sniffing going on between the two of them, and then came the playful nudges between the dogs, so we knew all would be okay. What a relief! We took off their leashes and Trixie and Champ were off and running around, playing together. It was beautiful! It is such a wonderful feeling for all of us to know that Trixie has a nice, new doggie companion now and Champ has a companion too!
We let the dogs play for a long time in the play yard to give Randy a chance to enlarge Trixie's kennel to become a "two dog kennel" now, so that there would be plenty of room for the dogs to play and chase each other around.