(apologies for the lack of paragraphs,and sentences running into each other,blogger will not post this post as i wrote it arrgghhh!!)
This was B when we first met him at the vets which he'd been dumped at.
He had injured one of his hind feet,and the family who owned him at the time apperently phoned one of those 'pets to vets' type services,and when they turned up to collect him,the family just let him out into the street and he was running around until they managed to chase him around and get him into the car!
They had him treated by the vet,and then just left him there.
He stayed at the vets for several weeks,whilst the legal stuff to make him the possesion of the vets,and rehomable was sorted out,we took him home on New Years Eve of 2009,and we laughed how we would normally be going out partying but instead we were staying home with a new dog that year instead!
Shady trying to entice Bug to play :)
He was a skinny boy for a while,and his coat was crap.His paw healed up after a few weeks,and although he has a huge scar,his paw is fine.Funnily enough he had the injury as Boo had on one of his hind paws.
Mr B and me have always had a kind of an estranged relationship.We got him not long after our beloved Boxer Boo had died,and as Pete and I both wanted to make sure he didn't turn into just 'my' dog,we decided that Pete would do all the work with him.
For the first year or so that we had him I was still dog sitting Ella a Boxer,and they used to play for hours,I'd put them out in the garden when the weather was nice and they would just play for HOURS.Both of them puppy/adolescant Boxers,their energy literally had no end,and as the alternative was Ella sitting at her house alone,and Bug just sleeping if he was indoors,it seemed like a perfect solution.
I had a lot of young dogs all at once,who all loved playing together,and when the weather was good,I'd sit outside with them for hours,just watching them play and interact with each other,the shifting dinamics between them did and still does just fascinate me.
[IMG]http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa18/minstrel_2007/bugly/IMG_1950.jpg[/IMG]
I was looking after Ella most of the day each week day until around 2 years ago,up to just a month or so after Mindy came to live with us.
Mindy kinda took over from Ella as being what/who Bug spent most of his day playing or just being with.Of course every day B got at least one good run,but it was always Pete who took him,as I had Shady and Mookie to do,and Mindy when she first came to live here.
Bug was really hard work physically on the lead,and trying to get him to accept a head collar was sadly a long drawn out process.The problem was two fold,firstly he was/is incredibly strong physically,but also and worse was that his previous owners had unwittingly taught him that he should use his strength against humans to get his own way.
I was lazy at that point and so let pete deal with his exercise.
The problem was,although I wasn't treating B like one of my dogs,in the sense that I didn't do any of the 'bonding things' with him,which is what creates such special relationships between me and my dogs,I was expecting him to
act like one of my dogs,which was totally unfair.
With my dogs I walked/ran them every day,trained them nearly everyday,took them to work with me,groomed and fussed them every day,and probably a million other things which I don't even realise I'm doing.With B I'd take hi to work with me,but mostly he'd just be outside playing with Ella or later Mindy.With my dogs whilst I work,I also have little games with them,as they are always bringing me a toy in the hope that I'll spare them a bit of time and have a tug,or game of fetch with them,because no one took the time to fetch,b didn't seek these interactions with me,so we were just rubbing along living together,but not really living
together.
I'd always described B as having a heart of gold,he is SO friendly,so happy to just get along with everyone,and I'd never blamed him for his sometimes crazy (just hyper and clumsy)behaviour,I always knew and was happy to acknowledge that it was our lack of work with him which made him that way,but I never really felt any great need to change how we all lived,he was happy,that was the main thing.
But over the past few months,secretly Mr B has been sneaking his way in to my heart.I think a part of me not getting close to him was the fear that comes along with loving someone as much as I love my dogs.
Before B came along,I'd lost 3 of my dogs in 4 years,it was a tough time.Subconsciously I think that was a part of why i kept B at arms length.
But no more,B is one of
my dogs too now,and I am proud that he is.I'm gonna stop letting Pete do all the fun stuff with him,and take him out and about and to shows etc with me,let him broaden his horizons :)
Funnily enough over the past few weeks when he's at work with me,I find him coming up to me with a toy,looking hopefully to see if I'll play with him,I tell him how clever he is,and we have a game,and we let each other in a little bit more with every tug,and fetch we do.
I took him and the little girls to the kennels with me whilst I worked today.I usually take the 'Dream Team' and leave B and Mindy for Pete to sort out and walk,but as it is so wet everywhere and the dogs were going to have to stay in the van all day,I don't like to take Shady.Once Shady has had a run in the morning and at lunchtime,he gets in the van,gets all the bedding wet,and the poor 'baldies' have to sit on wet bedding and be cold all day.
If I only take the baldies,they dry after a quick towel off,and can then get all snuggly on nice dry bedding.
At lunchtime I played the 'adapted fetch' game I play with the dogs cos I am so scared of breaking them by playing normal fetch.As I am super talented at breaking my dogs,I do kinda molly coddle this lot,so I don't break them prematurely.
So I throw the toy,the dogs run off after it,but I throw it more up than away,so the dogs do the running bit,then stand still and look to see where its going to land,so by the time they get to it,they don't do that scarey skid into the fetch,which practically stops by heart everytime lol.I swear when I see them skid like that I can practically convince myself that I can hear their cruciates snapping!
I'm so happy me and the B boy are such good friends now,we were both missing out by not getting to know each other properly :)
Shady trying to entice Bug to play :)
He was a skinny boy for a while,and his coat was crap.His paw healed up after a few weeks,and although he has a huge scar,his paw is fine.Funnily enough he had the injury as Boo had on one of his hind paws.
Mr B and me have always had a kind of an estranged relationship.We got him not long after our beloved Boxer Boo had died,and as Pete and I both wanted to make sure he didn't turn into just 'my' dog,we decided that Pete would do all the work with him.
For the first year or so that we had him I was still dog sitting Ella a Boxer,and they used to play for hours,I'd put them out in the garden when the weather was nice and they would just play for HOURS.Both of them puppy/adolescant Boxers,their energy literally had no end,and as the alternative was Ella sitting at her house alone,and Bug just sleeping if he was indoors,it seemed like a perfect solution.
I had a lot of young dogs all at once,who all loved playing together,and when the weather was good,I'd sit outside with them for hours,just watching them play and interact with each other,the shifting dinamics between them did and still does just fascinate me.
[IMG]http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa18/minstrel_2007/bugly/IMG_1950.jpg[/IMG]
I was looking after Ella most of the day each week day until around 2 years ago,up to just a month or so after Mindy came to live with us.
Mindy kinda took over from Ella as being what/who Bug spent most of his day playing or just being with.Of course every day B got at least one good run,but it was always Pete who took him,as I had Shady and Mookie to do,and Mindy when she first came to live here.
Bug was really hard work physically on the lead,and trying to get him to accept a head collar was sadly a long drawn out process.The problem was two fold,firstly he was/is incredibly strong physically,but also and worse was that his previous owners had unwittingly taught him that he should use his strength against humans to get his own way.
I was lazy at that point and so let pete deal with his exercise.
The problem was,although I wasn't treating B like one of my dogs,in the sense that I didn't do any of the 'bonding things' with him,which is what creates such special relationships between me and my dogs,I was expecting him to act like one of my dogs,which was totally unfair.
With my dogs I walked/ran them every day,trained them nearly everyday,took them to work with me,groomed and fussed them every day,and probably a million other things which I don't even realise I'm doing.With B I'd take hi to work with me,but mostly he'd just be outside playing with Ella or later Mindy.With my dogs whilst I work,I also have little games with them,as they are always bringing me a toy in the hope that I'll spare them a bit of time and have a tug,or game of fetch with them,because no one took the time to fetch,b didn't seek these interactions with me,so we were just rubbing along living together,but not really living together.
I'd always described B as having a heart of gold,he is SO friendly,so happy to just get along with everyone,and I'd never blamed him for his sometimes crazy (just hyper and clumsy)behaviour,I always knew and was happy to acknowledge that it was our lack of work with him which made him that way,but I never really felt any great need to change how we all lived,he was happy,that was the main thing.
But over the past few months,secretly Mr B has been sneaking his way in to my heart.I think a part of me not getting close to him was the fear that comes along with loving someone as much as I love my dogs.
Before B came along,I'd lost 3 of my dogs in 4 years,it was a tough time.Subconsciously I think that was a part of why i kept B at arms length.
But no more,B is one of my dogs too now,and I am proud that he is.I'm gonna stop letting Pete do all the fun stuff with him,and take him out and about and to shows etc with me,let him broaden his horizons :)
Funnily enough over the past few weeks when he's at work with me,I find him coming up to me with a toy,looking hopefully to see if I'll play with him,I tell him how clever he is,and we have a game,and we let each other in a little bit more with every tug,and fetch we do.
I took him and the little girls to the kennels with me whilst I worked today.I usually take the 'Dream Team' and leave B and Mindy for Pete to sort out and walk,but as it is so wet everywhere and the dogs were going to have to stay in the van all day,I don't like to take Shady.Once Shady has had a run in the morning and at lunchtime,he gets in the van,gets all the bedding wet,and the poor 'baldies' have to sit on wet bedding and be cold all day.
If I only take the baldies,they dry after a quick towel off,and can then get all snuggly on nice dry bedding.
Awwwww that's so lovely - yay Bugly :)
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