Anne-Marie's puppies are 5 weeks old and she says they are all healthy and friendly. Apparently they were taken out to the back yard at the weekend and they all froze with the shock of the big, wide world. They are becoming more adventurous everyday. We can pick our dog up after we come back from our holiday in Western Australia. Calum's favourite is a blue (grey) one with a small white patch on the backside.
Today at our craft group Jan was telling us about her little dog which is a cross between a schnauzer and a poodle. She hadn't been grooming the dog as much as it needed and when the groomer came the other day, the dog had to have all her hair chopped off, right down to the skin. Jan says the dog looks terrible and is shivering in the cold weather; her children have declared that Jan can't take the dog for a walk because people will laugh; and her husband refers to the poor dog as 'the rat.' The dog's hair had matted so badly that there was no alternative to cutting it all off.
Ushi and I were laughing our heads off as poor Jan felt guilty about letting her dog get so matted.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Puppies are born
Lisa's whippet, Zest, had six puppies on 30th May. There were two boys and four girls and they are all mostly white with brindle patches on their heads and backs, unfortunately Calum doesn't like the look of their coats very much. I thought that they looked very sweet but that may have been due to their tiny size and their pink noses.
In her email Lisa said that she had an order for a show dog male and that it was early days to start allocating dogs to people. I wasn't exactly sure what she meant but after a few emails I think she means that I may not be able to have one of her dogs. Calum had a word with Toni at work and she immediately suggested another breeder who has just had a litter of whippets too. New whippet breeder Anne-Marie has four boys and two girls and has not promised any of them to anyone yet. In the photos Anne-Marie sent me the puppies are mostly blue or brindle with white marks and Calum likes them a lot more - phew.
In the meantime I have been reading loads of dog books. 'The Dog Whisperer', 'The Dog Listener' and 'Cesar's Way' have all been great, the later two were lent to me by Ushi and I must say she has a very nicely behaved dog. Having read all these books has obviously made me a dog behaviour expert, when we are driving along in the car I say to Calum, 'That dog thinks it is the leader of the pack.' when we pass some poor soul being dragged along the street by their dog. When I visit someone's house and the dog jumps up I think, 'Dog trying to assert its dominance over me.' Calum says that I'm just reading all these dog books so that I can be a know-all when the dog arrives.
I realise now that our Jack Russell, Corrie, that we had when I was a teenager was completely untrained and acted as the leader of the pack her entire life. We were always wondering why she wouldn't do anything she was told, she always did exactly what she wanted and never paid any attention to us at all. I suggested to Calum that they had the same experience with Selkie, their Vizsla, he was horrified and insisted that Selkie was a well balanced dog, despite biting the postman; dragging someone off a moving motorbike and always barking at fat people. Yesterday I was taking to his mum about dogs and she said, without prompting, that she would adopt a completely different method if she ever got another dog because they didn't get it right with Selkie.
In her email Lisa said that she had an order for a show dog male and that it was early days to start allocating dogs to people. I wasn't exactly sure what she meant but after a few emails I think she means that I may not be able to have one of her dogs. Calum had a word with Toni at work and she immediately suggested another breeder who has just had a litter of whippets too. New whippet breeder Anne-Marie has four boys and two girls and has not promised any of them to anyone yet. In the photos Anne-Marie sent me the puppies are mostly blue or brindle with white marks and Calum likes them a lot more - phew.
In the meantime I have been reading loads of dog books. 'The Dog Whisperer', 'The Dog Listener' and 'Cesar's Way' have all been great, the later two were lent to me by Ushi and I must say she has a very nicely behaved dog. Having read all these books has obviously made me a dog behaviour expert, when we are driving along in the car I say to Calum, 'That dog thinks it is the leader of the pack.' when we pass some poor soul being dragged along the street by their dog. When I visit someone's house and the dog jumps up I think, 'Dog trying to assert its dominance over me.' Calum says that I'm just reading all these dog books so that I can be a know-all when the dog arrives.
I realise now that our Jack Russell, Corrie, that we had when I was a teenager was completely untrained and acted as the leader of the pack her entire life. We were always wondering why she wouldn't do anything she was told, she always did exactly what she wanted and never paid any attention to us at all. I suggested to Calum that they had the same experience with Selkie, their Vizsla, he was horrified and insisted that Selkie was a well balanced dog, despite biting the postman; dragging someone off a moving motorbike and always barking at fat people. Yesterday I was taking to his mum about dogs and she said, without prompting, that she would adopt a completely different method if she ever got another dog because they didn't get it right with Selkie.
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