Confessions of a First Time Foster

Paris has been coming out with us with just a dangling leash. She doesn’t want to run, so it’s safe enough, but OTOH she hasn’t been coming well when we call. So I think that privilege needs to be revoked. ::sigh:: Three dogs is a lot for two handlers! (Paris is paper-trained and doesn’t need to come out with us, but she wants to and I’m happy to encourage her to cross-train.)

I do not like housetraining a dog with a UTI. Yes, the second urinalysis (which the vet ran only after a bit of an argument) came back with white blood cells, so we’re putting Angel on antibiotics. (We still owe the vet another sample after Angel’s out of heat.) Sadly, Angel’s cloth diaper doesn’t protect as well as the disposable ones did. That we now have to leash her to a belt or crate her (or at least gate her into the kitchen) became evident after a series of spots appeared on the freshly cleaned carpet within an hour of her being outside. (arrrggghh!) Angel’s diaper was damp — I can only hope that she’s the sole perpetrator! At least now we’ll know if she’s innocent, since we’ll know exactly where she’s been.

Message from Joan:

My vet is still trying to figure out how a little dog raised in a cage can get so strong.  When Charlie ran even the vet tech who ran track couldn’t catch him.  When you catch him ( I have confidence you will) leave him on a leash.

Marilyn sent me some chain leashes which he can’t chew to death – but it does mean that it sounds like Casper the Ghost all night when he drags it around my ceramic tile floors.  When I wash the cloth one I’ll put him back in that.  That is if I can get close enough to take the leash off.  These dogs had a strange life before and I wish I had more details.

Maybe if you take the food away every now and then he will get curious.  That trick did work on Charlie.  He got to the point that he even went into the kitchen looking for his bowl.  On the other hand I got him in bed with all of us and he stayed there until about midnight.  I think that they were also drugged at some point.  Every tranq the vet gave him made him crazy hyperactive.  She said that is often from over use of the drugs.

I found myself wondering if they would ever find humans to be o.k. for them.  I know he thought that being in bed with all of us was wonderful.  He took a giant sigh and settled in to sleep like a log.  I wish I saw more of that.

Just remember that if you can see [Einstein] he really didn’t want to run away from you – he’s just confused.  Otherwise, he’d be in the next county by now.  Good luck

I don’t think I ever mentioned that the Mystery of the Lake involves a serial striker. We’ve cleaned up I think four lakes carefully placed at the entrance to Angel’s crate. Luckily that’s in the kitchen. I know I wondered whether it was Cognac trying to “hide” Angel’s den or Paris declaring herself Angel’s landlady. We got a new clue when I actually looked at the living room:

I can’t imagine why Cognac would be feeling protective of his and Paris’s crates, but I can well imagine why my sweetie-pie would want to post “Private Property” signs. And of course once I started looking, more spots were evident. So we got a company in here to clean the carpets today, including spraying the whole thing with a deodorizer. I was very pleased they could get here with so little notice, because it was impossible to even think of housetraining Angel with the carpet in such shape. Which reminds me, Lynn told me today that the longer we wait on starting official housebreaking, the harder it will be. Darn. So I guess we start now.

Anyway, as the tech was finishing up (at around 1pm), he told me that the carpet would take up to 12 hours to dry. I asked about the dogs walking on the carpet, and he said it was no problem. Then he added that we shouldn’t let them lie on the carpet. Oh.

At the time Paris and Cognac were at the groomers. We found out that we could book them two rooms for the night at the boarding place we use, and decided in one of those instant mutual decisions that the prospect of three unhappy dogs penned in the kitchen for the rest of the day was unendurable. So after Paris & Cognac got home from the groomers, we took them over to their vacation place. Angel of course couldn’t go — I wasn’t going to consider asking the boarding place to take a dog in full-blown season. Nevertheless, keeping just one dog off the living room carpet has been delightfully easy.

And they would have been three very unhappy dogs, btw. It’s not bad enough that all three of them vociferously dislike being confined. No, Angel has finally decided to let Cognac have at her. I took the dogs into the kitchen last night so I could take Angel’s diaper off and give them a chance. (Paris of course came with.) It turns out that while Cognac can get his dingus a bit out, something isn’t working right and he can’t hook on. Poor boy! Poor little girl! Even poor Paris, who was feeling extremely bored. But Cognac kept trying. And trying. I answered the phone, “Triple X Motel. Rates by the hour.” (Credit to Papa for suggesting the “Rates by the hour.”)