As the Revolving Door Turns

Duke, Duchess, and Olivia all went to their new homes over the weekend. And 6 more little puppymill survivors arrived Friday night - two male Shih Tzus (age 1 and 3), two Cavalier King Charles Spaniel girls (both 4, I think one might be pregnant), a very scared little Papillon girl, and an 8-week old, deliberately-bred Boston Terrier/Beagle mix puppy. (It's one of the newer "designer mixes" - a Boggle.) They're at various levels of socialization, from Max the little Shih Tzu boy who's as outgoing and snuggly as they come, to the little Papillon (as yet unnamed, because I have no clue what her personality is going to be like) who's absolutely terrified and tries to dig herself a hole in the corner of my bathroom to hide in when I open the door.

I'm sure she'll come around, though. Chu-Chu was almost as scared when she got here 5 weeks ago, and she has absolutely blossomed. She loves going for rides in the car, so I take her along whenever it's feasible. She still isn't much on being a lap dog, but she loves her skritches, pets, and kisses. At bedtime, she comes into the bedroom and waits for me to pick her up and put her on the bed. (And in the morning, she stands there and waits for me to lift her down.) When I lie down, she comes up for a goodnight kiss, then settles in somewhere about halfway down the bed, snuggled up to whoever's close. When I'm doing morning cuddles/pets, she gets right in with the rest of the gang demanding her share. When I went to teach my class last night I took Chu-Chu, Sparky, and Penny with me, intending to use Sparky as my demo dog and bring the Chooch in just to hang out. Sparky wasn't in the mood to be compliant so I ended up putting him back in the car and bringing Penny in to demo with.

As I was waiting for my students to arrive I got out my baggie of bait - tiny pieces of hot dog - and started a little warm-up with Penny, but I was also treating the Chooch. Just for the heck of it, I thought "she probably won't do it, but let's see if I can teach her to 'sit'." Much to my surprise, she got it almost immediately! And then she got "watch me" just as fast. She was eager, focused, and more than happy to do what I was asking (as long as I was rewarding her with "food! food! give me food!") I ended up using her to show my students how to teach their dogs "watch me" and "sit". I'm going to work with her this week, see if she can learn "down" and "come". I'm betting she'll catch onto those just as quickly.

What a little doll-baby she is, and such a little character. She insists on going out in the big yard with the big dogs when she needs to poop. She'll pee in the patio, but wants the wide open space of the big yard for her bowel movement. Actually, she's got a favorite potty place out there. The big dogs race around, she just does her little Shih Tzu bounce around the yard and doesn't pay them any attention. And they don't bother her. I was standing out there watching her this morning, and I was laughing out loud. (She makes me laugh out loud half a dozen times a day.) And now she's an obedience dog. What a hoot! It's going to be very, very hard to let her go. Maybe nobody will want a tiny, nearly-toothless little girl?

I've got Max the littler Shih Tzu boy scheduled for his neuter on May 8, along with the two intact Low Riders, Beau and Bailey. 4 days later, I've got Parchesi the Boston/Beagle puppy, Rose the littler Cavalier girl, and the grizzly grey Shih Tzu boy going in. I'm going to hold off scheduling Ruby the Cav (in case I'm right and she's pregnant) and the little Papillon (to give her time to start coming around) for a couple of weeks. I'll need to get one or two of the others adopted out first, anyway, so the adoption fees can be used to pay for the surgeries. The spay/neuter clinic is offering rabies vaccines for $10 now, which is both convenient and a budget saver - I don' t have to make the 18-mile drive in to the vet for just the rabies vaccine, which is administered by a tech, not preceded by an exam first, and costs $23.

I received some very disturbing information last week. It seems there's a puppymill practically right around the corner from me. Less than a couple of miles from my house there's someone who (supposedly) has over 100 dogs in rabbit hutches. I'm going to take a drive down that road in the next couple of days and see if I can figure out where it is. Then I'll work on a plan to insinuate myself with this person, to see if he'll let me have his discards (or sell them to me cheap) - breeding stock that's not producing any more, unsaleable puppies, etc. Maybe I can help clean up my own backyard.

The weather was horrible over the weekend, but it was nice yesterday, it's nicer today, and it's supposed to keep right on getting nicer through the weekend. It was so nice to be able to stand outside to dump litterboxes this morning, and it sure makes life easier - anything that spills just gets hosed into the flower beds (I use wood pellets, it's fine to use it for mulch) so I don't have to do any sweeping, and I can wheel the trash cart right over to the bags of waste and not have to carry them through the back hall and garage to get to the cart. I'm going to get all of the dog crates out to the yard and scrubbed down this week, a couple a day. It's so much easier to do it outside than it is to do it in the tub! The 400 Varikennels fit through the doorways (but don't fit in the tub unless they're broken down) and only the 500's need to be broken down to get them outside, I can scrub them and then hose them off to rinse them, turn them door-down and let them air-dry, and there's no flooded dirty bathroom to clean afterward.

I've decided the only way I'm going to have my house the way I want it is to do it myself. I'm never going to get the help of my male relatives and I can't afford to hire someone else to do it, so I'm just going to do it myself. I pulled up the carpet, pad, and tack strips from the half-bath floor, and treated the plywood with a wash of Odormute. It's all ready for the latex primer (and I'm using Kilz latex sealer) and then I can put down self-stick tile. I couldn' figure out how I was going to make a pattern for cutting the tile to fit around the toilet, but then I realized I could use the carpet I removed, so I just rolled that up and stuck it in the garage for now. Once that's done, I'm going to tackle the family room. It used to be the garage, it's a square room and has a cement slab floor. I'll pull out the carpet and padding, wash the cement, seal it with Kilz, and paint it. Something bright and cheery, that room's a little dark. Once that's done I'll be able to use the family room for rescue purposes - crating, grooming, supplies storage, whelping area/nursery room when necessary, even training. I'll know in a few weeks if I'm going to be able to get vinyl in the rest of the house. If not, then I plan to pull up all the rest of the carpeting, sand the plywood floor, seal, and paint it, one room at a time. Might even do some stencilling on the floors if I get really ambitious. That can even be done in the winter, a little at a time.

I've sat long enough. Time to get up and get back to work.