More Bosco Updates

Bosco has been here about a week and a half. He has put on some good weight, but still has some more to go. Pie has decided he is ok and now finally has someone to play rough with and bite. Bosco is fine with all my dogs and hasn't growled at any of them since the first days.

I think it is very interesting that even though Pie and Bosco are both good natured dogs who get along with all other dogs, neither of them was comfortable with each other at first. Bosco because he had just lost his family and was in a new place and Pie because a strange dog was in her house who growled at her if she bothered him. Now that they know each other, they have great fun wrestling and chasing. I just wish I could use my back yard so they could play outside everyday!

Pie stealing the toy Bosco was playing with.

Sharing a different toy. My camera was having trouble focusing today.

Here is a video of them playing inside. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgBHk9VNxho

He has been to two agility trials, being nervous at the first one and less so at the second one. At the second one he started to get excited while watching the dogs run. When Bosco gets excited he starts to get mouthy. Pie has learned to grab a toy and chomp on that, but Bosco hasn't learned that yet and for him, sleeves and hands are fair game. We are working on fixing that.





He likes toys and will tug and fetch toys, but isn't so good about bringing them back. He has not met a dog yet that he doesn't get a long with. At the first agility trial when he was uncomfortable, I was not letting dogs sniff him since I didn't want to push him too far outside his comfort zone. However, I did let a female puppy and him interact and he was fine. That puppy's big "brother" came up and also started to sniff him and I could tell he was a bit uncomfortable. He put his ears back and his head down... so I removed him from the situation. But that tells me even when he was not happy, he is still polite to other dogs.




One other great thing about him is he has no resource guarding issues at all. Not over food, or toys and not towards people or other dogs. Bloom is usually locked in the kitchen when eating, but for some reason he wasn't. Bosco takes a while to eat due to having so much and due to the large rock in his bowl. I looked up, and Bloom was licking the outside of Bosco's bowl and Bosco was completely unconcerned. Pie would have started the hunched over- eat faster routine, but not Bosco.



The large rock used to slow down Bosco's eating frenzy. The damaged white bowl in the background is Fancy's. She did that last time I was gone for a week with the Air Guard. She gets a bit worried when left alone for long periods. Someone came over three times a day but that wasn't good enough to calm her anxiety.

Bosco has put on even more weight!

Sometimes I think Bosco listens better than Pie (who has her UD.) He has better self control I think and is for sure not quite as excitable. Compared to Pie, I would say he has a medium energy level.

Speaking of Pie...Pie thinks Bosco has been getting too much attention so she is trying to get more attention. Here she is showing off by playing with three toys at once. Look closely and you can see the small green thing sticking out of her mouth. It is the third toy and is a green ring with the texture of a tennis ball.

Dogs, Dogs, Dogs and More Dogs

I bought Fancy a jacket because she has been shivering in the cold weather due to her hair cut.

Isn't she stylish?

I am teaching Bosco to "sit up" and he was doing so well I tried to get a photo of all three dogs doing it together. Bloom used to know this trick but no longer. Remember the new Mummy movie with the retired RAF pilot who ends up dying in the plane crash? Remember the scene where he walks through the fountain and makes a comment about the idiot who spilled the drink? Well, he's about two steps ahead of Bloom because Bloom no longer even realizes when he walks through the dog water bowl. How many times can one dog walk through the same bowl in one day!? Argh! But getting back to the picture... since Bloom isn't cognizant enough to realize when he walks through a water bowl, I knew better than to include him in the photo op. Sorry Bloom(ish.) Sadly, I never did get the perfect photo. I couldn't get enough distance because I was too close to get all the dogs in one shot, and as soon as I stepped back, one dog would invariably drop the pose.

Fancy and Pie up, Bosco laid down when I bent over to get a better shot.



This is the best one showing them all up at once but Bosco is actually on the way down, plus the obvious problem of most of his head is missing.



Bosco CAN do it, just not at the same time as the others, apparently.

I tried to add an "e" to Bosco to make it like Roscoe, but then I started communicating with a lady who knew him when he lived in Northern CA, and then the lady who originally rescued him from a shelter in Washington and then nursed him back from near death and fostered him in Montana. She named him Bosco, so I can't just go around adding "e"s to names then email the original namer and expect her to add the e also. So he is Bosco without the e from now on.

Pie and Bosco (no e) share some chewing time.

I weighed Bosco when I took him to the vet and he was 55 pounds. That was last Friday. The next Tuesday I took him back, just to use the scale, and he weighed 58 pounds. He looks better, but his hip bones are still very pokey so we have a ways to go yet.

Better... but not there yet.

Rain, Rain Go Away

I uploaded a few videos from my last two agility trials to my You Tube account. http://www.youtube.com/user/ResQQ The most exciting ones are the videos from Feb 16th. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Suyu4MLvIII&feature=channel_page It was President's Day so I got to skip work and play agility instead. The adage is true- a bad day of agility always trumps a good day at the office. Even though it was pouring rain, it really wasn't a bad day of agility. Even though my boots were NOT waterproof and I had soaking cold feet, it wasn't a bad day. Pie qualified in one run, we hung out with our friends, the rest of me stayed dry thanks to my Air Force issued gortex pants and my dad issued Volvo jacket, and I even got to witness minor feats of engineering.

The ground is river sand and when it gets wet, it does not turn to mud. If anything, it is easier to run on the wet sand because sometimes the dry sand can be a bit loose. The only drawback is when the ground gets too saturated, the agility area starts to turn into the river again. There were some rather large puddles, but it turns out that not only is Andres,the facility manager at the agility venue we were showing at, a great moving helper (he helped me move into my new house) and a good agility equipment builder (he refurbished Kate's a frame) he is also a civil engineer. He used a hoe (I think he has more experience with a hoe than I do, see my post about the bent hoe) to dig canals out of the puddle. One was so extensive it looked like the Maginot Line. The rain water drained out of the puddle and down the Maginot Line and out of the agility area. So I guess Andres' Maginot Line turned out to be more useful than the original. At least his accomplished its purpose.

Another of the canals reminded me of the Canal Turn in the Grand National, even more so since it was The Pie running the course. Unlike so many hapless steeds in the movie, we took after our namesake and did not fall in the Canal Turn. I did almost slip while Pie was doing the weaves, but that isn't applicable to the movie since there are no "weaves" in a steeplechase horse race.

We have not had Tuesday agility class for two weeks due to the rain. It is always bad news to trial more than you train, so we will see how Pie does at our agility trial this weekend. We are only showing one day. What will I do to keep myself entertained on Sunday??

Snow Pictures...Again

On Monday, Kate and I went to the snow. We went to the same location as last time (first blog post) but this time there was hardly any snow. However, it was enough for us. It was icy on the road, so we just drove up a short distance, parked, then let the dogs run amuck.

A very rude and unsafe guy ruined our otherwise nice time by roaring up the road and refusing to stop while we corraled our dogs. Kate was waving at him to stop but he just kept coming. What if we wanted him to stop because the third member of our party was laying just around the bend in the middle of the road with a broken leg? (Probably he knew that was unlikely because we would have drug the hapless individual out of harms way.) What if I was holding Kate hostage and she was waving for help? (Maybe he didn't want to get involved in a hostage situation.) What if our truck was broken down and we were waving for a ride? (Maybe he thought we looked dangerous. Like in Back to the Future where Marty tries to stop the old guy in the car and the old lady says "Drive George! Drive!") What if we were waving at him to stop because we had dogs running around that we didn't want to get run over? (Obviously he was a jerk who didn't care and couldn't be bothered to drive at a safe speed.)

Other than that, we had a nice, cold, time, and here are a few pictures to prove it. This was before I butchered Fancy's hair cut. Kate took all the pictures.

Poor Fancy was always trailing along in the rear.

This is puppy Power. It was her first trip to the snow.

I think this is an exceptionally cute picture.

Driven and Power (sisters.)

Pie being bad.

Whee!

It could be a greeting card.

This one is even cuter, but Pie barged into the frame and ruined it. Typical little sister behavior.Why don't I ever take such nice pictures?

Many more photos can be seen here: http://s628.photobucket.com/albums/uu4/drivendogs/2009_02_09_Snow/?start=0

Big Nose

So big it doesn't even fit in the crate. She must be belong to our family of big noses for sure.

Anybody Want to Adopt a Malinois?

Boscoe is a foster Mal who is looking for a home. He was originally adopted out about a year ago but his owner is no longer in a position to have a dog and Boscoe went to live with his parents. However, the parents don't want a dog and can't have one either. They did the right thing by contacting rescue and bringing him back. They brought him to me, which was nice, and also left me with toys, a crate, and some money for food.



Boscoe was in my area, so I agreed to foster him. I have a bad track record with fosters. Pie was my first foster, and I kept her. My second foster, a young TT, was only staying with me a few days before going to his new home, or else I probably would have been tempted to keep him too. Let me make a confession... if you hand me the leash to a dog and that dog is sweet and has at least a tiny bit of personality, I will start to get attached...Boscoe needs to find a home quick, because...well, just because. He is neutered and around 2.5 years old. Boscoe's previous owner did some work with him and he sits on command and can even hold it a little bit with some reminding. He knows down if you help him. He responds to his name and comes when I say his name, if nothing else is going on. It is unknown if he is housebroken because the parents did not let him loose in the house. He is crate trained.

He is a moaner and a groaner but not a whiner. He is fascinated by the noises the computer makes and by the images on the computer screen. He kept trying to poke back behind the computer screen to see if the moving images might come out back there. He is very sweet with people. He is neutral towards Fancy, thinks Bloom is weird (who doesn't) and has had some words with Pie. I told him it was not acceptable to have words with Pie and he gave me "sorry" body language. I think many dogs do not like Pie because she just comes on way too strong, even if she is not jumping on them, they sense her strong personality and want her to back off before she molests them. He can be in the same area with Pie and not go after her, it is just when she comes up to him, twice he has growled at her, with a show of teeth once. I do not think it is a big deal at this time. Just trying to feel his away around these unknown dogs. He is neutral towards Fancy because she is neutral to him.


Boscoe is very thin. He was not neglected, he just is a "hard keeper." I will have him checked out by the vet for worms or any other problems, and I will also use pumpkin and full fat cottage cheese to fatten him up. He eats plenty. He is so spastic about his food I'm surprised he hasn't bloated already. I'll also take steps to slow his eating down. He is a really nice Malinois, who I think will make someone a really nice pet. So if you know of anyone looking, pass the word along!



Some of the pictures got a bit distorted. Boscoe is pretty, but not as pretty as Pie. He is also a bit of a different type than Pie. I think maybe he is more conformation lines. You can tell because he as a small stop and seems heavier boned than Pie. Although some working lines have lots of bone as well. It's hard to say, but because his type is different than Pie's I am going with conformation lines...










Fancy got a home done hair cut... can you tell?


















One last picture of Boscoe staring at his new love on the computer screen. You can see the exciting video here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOd65uPM7ZQ&feature=channel_page



In other news... the grass is still growing... dogs are still not allowed in the back yard which means Boscoe gets pottied on a leash.I put lattice up in the front so when I take Pie and Fancy out, they have a safety barrier between them and the street where cars zoom up and down. I believe I can keep them out of the street without it, but why take that chance? This will keep them safe.


And just so poor Bloom does not feel left out, here he is wearing his sweater.

Although he still shivers with it on and the heat turned up, so then this is what happens to him...


He is wearing his sweater, and is wrapped in two big towels, and my afghan which is supposed to be for keeping me warm, but I recognize when an old dog needs it more than I do.

Best Picture Ever

Isn't she beautiful? (Click here for a larger view. I tried to post it bigger here, but no luck.) This amazing photo was taken by Suzanne White of STWhite Photography. Thank you Suzanne for such a wonderful treasure and for allowing me to post it to share with everyone! You can see more of Suzanne's work at http://www.stwhite.com/



And to think before I owned a Malinois I once said, "I like Mals, but they aren't that pretty." I changed my mind in a hurry after Pie came into my life!

New Grass and a New Dog

First, the grass is still growing nicely.

But I read in the paper (online) there may be water rationing this summer and if so all my hard earned grass will die and I will cry.

Next, this is my new dog. A cute mix of some kind, but I have no idea which kind. I might name him Bloomish. **note for those who were fooled- this really is Bloom, just with a haircut.

And, here is Pie's long lost older brother. We met him at the show this weekend. He is a rescue from Santa Maria.

Here they are sharing a similar facial expression. Must run in the family.

Here is Fancy's long lost twin brother. This was from a show over the summer, but I saw him again at the show this weekend. He has his ears in a poodle cut which I do not prefer.

Both Fancy and Pie ran a little slower than usual at the show this weekend, because it got hot later in the day.