Arthur, the day he joined us (photo taken right after his new arrival's bath)--one day before he was scheduled to be euthanized in a pound in a neighboring county Two New Pages of Puppy Photos
Luke's got a hold of Louie. New: The Pups have started playing together
Pat Arnold's Daily Dog Log
SUNDAY OCTOBER 6 2002
After Arthur's adoption Amber is left without a companion
Shepherd Arthur was adopted yesterday, so now his little kennel mate, Amber, is without a companion, and she needs a friend.
All the dogs are paired up here at our Happy Home for Strays, except for the few "singles" who prefer, for one reason or another, to have a kennel to themselves, so this made it a bit difficult to find a friend for Amber since everyone was already paired up.
Happy and Rover are the likely "couple" to change companions
Nine-year-old Happy and six-year-old Rover have been kennel mates for a long time, and as we mentioned before, they tolerate each other, they are friends, but they don't play together, mainly because nine-year-old Happy is not a playful dog. Rover has played with Amber before, so we thought we'd try Rover and Amber together again, and have Rover become Amber's kennel companion if all went well between the two of them.
Then, the plan was, that if Rover moves in with Amber, Happy could meet house fellow, Danny Boy, and if all goes well with these two, Happy could move inside with Danny and share his quarters as an inside/outside dog. This would be especially good for Happy since she has arthritis, and being in a warm house in the cold winter weather would be the ideal situation for her, as it also would be for all the many other dogs here with arthritis and hip dysplasia. (This is why we need either a kennel building, or we need to find some way to heat the individual shelters--especially for all the older dogs with hip, knee and arthritic problems. Please email us your ideas on how to heat very small buildings (our shelters, which are big wooden boxes containing two dog houses each).
All goes well with Amber and Rover
The second-time around introduction with Amber and Rover went just fine. The two took off running all around the play yard chasing each other, and they were happy, so we put Rover in Amber's kennel with her.
Happy meets Danny Boy in the park and all goes fairly well
Next was the very first introduction between eight-year-old Retriever/Chow mix, Danny Boy, and nine-year-old hound/mix, Happy. They took a little while for their sniffy-greeting, and then their tails began to wag a little, and all appeared to be okay. After they spent a short period sniffing around the park together off leash, we took them into Danny's yard, and Happy immediately went to Danny's scoopy hole (which raised the fellow's eyebrows a bit), which scoopy-hole is located under the shade of the ramp leading up to Danny's doggy door into the house, and Danny became a bit more leery about his new friend when we brought her in the house thru Danny's doggy door, which leads to the back-half of our trailer, which consists of two office/bedrooms with two people-size beds in each, and the guest bathroom where Danny often sleeps. As long as Happy doesn't lie on Danny's vent in the bathroom on the tiled floor where Danny stretches out over the floor vent to feel the cool air when the air conditioner is running, Happy won't be getting into any trouble.
We're still in the testing stages with Danny Boy and Happy, tho, probably for several more days, but if all continues to go well with both newly matched pairs, we will probably continue with this new arrangement.
LATER UPDATE
Happy and Rover go back to their original kennel
Although they spent the day with their respective new kennel mates, Happy and Danny just don't know each other well enough yet for us to leave them alone unsupervised. Bill spent the day in the front office (one of Danny's two bedroom/offices) working on this update, and he said there were just too many occasions when Happy and Danny couldn't get by each other as they tried to move around (such as at the doggy door or between Bill's desk and the corner of the bed). They didn't growl or glare at each other but each (when blocked in) would simply wait till the other moved, and when Danny was doing the waiting, he would kind of look frustrated, as if he were wondering, "How the heck did she get in my house, anyway?!"
We noticed Rover several times throughout the day looking in our direction thru his and Amber's fence. He seemed to be wondering when we were going to come and get him and take home back to his and Happy's kennel. To put our minds at ease, Bill and I decided to return Happy and Rover to their original kennel. Shortly after this Amber's pathetic howling cries caused by her losing yet another companion were so painful to hear I put Rover back in with Amber again, which made her very happy.
We may try putting both sets together for short periods of time every day over the coming days.
UPDATE ON RECENTLY ADOPTED DOGS:
Arthur, adopted yesterday, is fine and is enjoying his new home!
We got a beautiful email message from Arthur's new mom telling us all about how well Arthur has adjusted to his new home, and how much Kathie, the mom, loves her new pet. Arthur has three new house cat friends to get used to and he can't understand why they won't play with him.
Little Max is doing fine in his new home too
We hear from his mom often about all the cute things Little Max does.
Tony the Pony wrote an email
Tony the Pony wrote too (all by himself on his dad's computer, Tony said), and Tony Loves his new home and his new family and his new doggie brother and sisters. Molly (Tony's new dog sister, who looks just like Tony) showed Tony how he can get ice cubes from the refrigerator ice maker, all by himself, and Tony loves ice cubes!
*Pat's Daily Dog Log - LAST WEEK - 9/29 - 10/5/2002
*Photo Pages - LAST WEEK - 9/22 - 10/5/2002
(1) All four pups with their eyes open
(2) Freckles cleans up her babies
*Pat's Daily Dog Log - Previous Weeks
A Note from Pat ...
Please help us spread the word about Straydog, our Happy Home for Strays. This will be of help in raising the much needed funds to keep our shelter going--not growing, just going.
If you would like us to send you a stack of our recent newsletters for you to place at your vet clinic, or your place of business, or for you to hand out to your dog-loving friends, we'd be happy to get them to you right away. (All this printing was donated to Straydog Inc., and we've got a box of extras.) Or you could print (or have printed) a bunch of copies as per Bill's note immediately below:
PDF of our September 2002 Newsletter:
If you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer, you may click on the link immediately below to see the entire newsletter in paginated form with all the photos in color. (If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can download the software for free from www.adobe.com.)
We encourage everyone to print out several copies of our newsletter (it looks especially nice printed out on a color printer) and distribute copies to your animal-loving friends and acquaintances. (At least print out a copy for yourself, please.) We began the mailing of the 32-page, black and white, printed booklets (the printing of which the company Bill works for donates to Straydog Inc.) to our totally-free-of-obligation mailing list (which list anyone can get on by just asking us) on Wednesday, September 25, 2002.
Please be aware that PDFs (Portable Data Files) can be gigantic (this PDF of our current newsletter is 3.6 MB), and if you are accessing the Internet via a dial-up modem, it may take 20 - 30 minutes (or longer) to download the newsletter onto your computer. If you have a fast connection (DSL or cable modem), it should take less than a minute to download the PDF file of our newsletter.
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