Adventures with Obi: HE'S BAAACK!!!!

[Marlene]

Debbie,
It is so good to get caught up on and read your posts. Obi is really cute. It sounds like it is going to work out with this sweet little guy. I am happy for you!!!

[StarDeb55]

The first day at work went fine. I had gone out & got Obi a Kong yesterday just to be on the safe side, filled it with the Kong peanut butter filling, & froze it. Handed it to him as I was going out the door, & told him to have a good time. The kitchen was still in 1 piece when I got home about an hour ago.

Thanks for confirming what I thought about the arrangements for the boys when I'm at work, Sas! Chewy is slowly adjusting, & even if they don't become true buddies, as long as Chewy tolerates Obi I will be ok with that. Harley & Chewy never really were pals, but Harley did tolerate Chewy. Even though Chewy probably outweighed Harley by 10-12 lbs., Harley did not hesitate to put Chew in his place when he felt it necessary. I can see signs that this is the interaction between Chewy & Obi right now. I know a lot of people who don't like the idea of letting their pups sleep with them, but I have had pups sleeping with me for 20 years or more. I think the new sleeping arrangements are working out as Chewy has always slept at the foot of the bed. Chew has already kind of told Obi, "Look fella, this is my place, go find your own." Obi seems to have decided to take Harley old spot up next to my pillow which works for me. Obi seems to like to stretch out right against me, & as long as he is, that is a LOT OF ROOM!!

Debbie

[SasAndYunah]

So glad it went well on your first day at work And oh yeah, I too have Yunah sleep on my bed And just to be safe...I deworm myself everytime I deworm Yunah Small "price" to pay for having her next to me

Sas and Yunah

[Bailey's Mom]

Debbie- I was just rereading the past 3-4 pages. I think it's very considerate of you to go through all this so that I will have lots of second hand experience when Little Miss arrives home.
I had a couple of thoughts to share.
Remember my telling about Peaches and the playpen that didn't work? Well I had forgotten that after we gave up on the crate and on the play pen we shut her in the bathroom. She dug grooves in the wood on the bottom of the door. A lot of grooves. Then we tried the gate thing. We got a 2 foot high gate. First time we tried it, when we got home she was out. Then we tried a 3ft gate. It was not long before she figured out how to get out of that. Finally we put the 2ft gate on top of the 3 ft gate. That contained her but she started digging at the bottom where the gate was. This was in our kitchen. When we moved in that house the kitchen had indoor/outdoor carpeting on the floor. One day I dropped an egg and by the time I could grab a sponge, when I looked back down, I could not find the egg. You could not tell anything had dropped at all. That made me wonder what else was in that carpet. I never liked the idea of the carpet and I never liked indoor/outdoor carpet and I definitely did not like the avocado/lime design and color of this carpet. Well, as Peaches dug at the bottom by the gate she started digging up the carpet. That kind of carpet, when a thread comes loose, it just runs and runs. It was not long before she had a good 9" torn up by the door to the dining room. And when she did this digging it shot the rubber backing out the other way....so we always had a little pile of rubber to pick up when we got back. It sped up replacement flooring. I wasn't happy about that and we could not afford it but somehow we found the money to do it.

One other thought-to anyone who uses gates....one reason we stopped the gate was because I was worried that Peaches, by jumping to try to get out, would get her collar caught on the gate and hang herself. I surely didn't want to come home to Peaches "blowing in the wind!!" I think we then started removing her collar. It was not long after all that that she had run of the house.

I think we have a couple of options here for the new house member. There are closing doors with glass in them. There are separate areas where she can come with me. If we need to pen her in, we have a seciton of short hallway with a door at one end. We can easily put up a gate at the other end-or at both ends. From the doored end she will be able to see the front doot.

We too have slept with our doggies. With Peaches, for a long time, she would sleep in our bedroom with her own little bed beside me and then later another two feet away, out of the way of foot traffic. It's kind of hard to remember now-but she either liked that arrangement all the time or she wound up sleeping on the bed near the end. That bed wasn't really big enough for 3 of us. In this house, Palmer would start out at the foot of the bed. Some time during the night he moved up between our pillows. When it was cold, he would burrow his way down under the sheets and usually put his back up next to Bob's. It got kind of crowded for Bob sometimes (often!) but he managed. Once Palmer was gone it took him awhile to "reclaim" his 1/2 of the bed!

-Susan

[StarDeb55]

Thanks, Susan! My house is all ceramic tile floors where the dogs stay when I'm gone, so there's no digging up carpet. So far, I've seen Obi make no attempt at jumping the gate. ( Did you see the picture of the gate with Obi behind it?) The gate actually hits me about chest high which means it's slightly over 4 ft. high. I must retract what I said about nothing happening yesterday in the kitchen. I have a breakfast nook with bay windows & venetian blinds over those windows. I normally leave the blinds down. I noticed when we got back from our walk, that Obi had tackled the ends of 2 out of 3 of them. A couple of slats bent out of place, some chew marks, but no major damage. I just chalk it up as the price you pay for living with a dog, especially a young dog.

I decided to take Chewy with us today as he seemed so interested in going, I didn't have the heart to leave him. Chewy did very well. Of course, Obi & I have to go slower with Chew along. I did get a chuckle, though, as I noticed that Chew seemed to be quite perky, trying to walk a quickly as his little short legs could go. He was down right spunky compared to the first walk together on Thursday morning. Looks like Obi is starting to have a positive effect on Chew.

Debbie

[StarDeb55]

I got a very pleasant suprise a few minutes ago. I was at the kitchen counter fixing Chewy's pills in a Pill Pocket. Of course, Obi has already associated the kitchen counter with food, so he is jumping up/down, on top of me trying to see what I have. Out of desperation, I pointed my finger at him, & told him, "Obi. sit!" Son of a gun, he dropped right down. He didn't hold the sit very long, so when he started, again, I did the same thing. He went into a great sit. I told him to "Stay", which he did, until I gave him the OK to release. I really figured the little guy would have no clue what I wanted. This tells me that someone had him long enough to get him started on some very basic obedience.

Debbie

[AlisonandMia]

. Out of desperation, I pointed my finger at him, & told him, "Obi. sit!" Son of a gun, he dropped right down. He didn't hold the sit very long, so when he started, again, I did the same thing. He went into a great sit. I told him to "Stay", which he did, until I gave him the OK to release. I really figured the little guy would have no clue what I wanted. This tells me that someone had him long enough to get him started on some very basic obedience.

Wow! That doesn't happen very often with a rescue! There is one other, even better possibility and that is that Obi could be one of those very, very rare animals that is born "trained" - or more correctly is freakishly good at reading the human mind and responding appropriately.

When I was a teenager, a friend of mine had an Australian Cattle Dog like this. We know he never received any formal training because she got him at 5 weeks of age (he was a little sprawling white blob of a thing when he first arrive at their place, I remember). With that dog all you did was have a quiet conversation with him, explain what you wanted, and he did it! I imagine he would have been a "super dog" if he had also had some formal training (which he never did) but as it was he was pretty impressive. He was possibly the smartest dog I've ever seen at least with regards getting it right with humans. I've also been fortunate enough to have a horse like that myself and it took me an embarrassingly long time for me to twig that she wasn't even broken in when I started riding her! (I had got her under very strange circumstances and her past was shrouded in mystery.)

If I was asked to bet on the breeds in Obi's make up I reckon I'd have said poodle and pug. (Coloring is very pug.) I wouldn't bet more than 5 cents though as I'm probably wrong! Are you going to have his DNA looked at at some point?

Sounds like the little guys are settling in well together.

Alison

[Bailey's Mom]

Debbie-it sounds like you are having great fun. Here's hoping the training continues to go smoothly and surprisingly!

Does anyone have an idea about how much DNA testing runs?
Also-has anyone ever seen a purebred poodle with multi colors? Little Miss's Dad looks unlike anything I've ever seen in a poodle. I'll put in a picture of Mom and Dad. Mom is gorgeous!

Sorry-I seem to have crossed over threads here.

Keep the stories coming Debbie!
Susan

[BestBuddy]

Hi Susan,

We wondered about what was mixed in Luke when we got him so did a DNA test here. It cost us about $145aud and gave me something I never would have guessed....he was poodle and shiba inu.

I do wonder what Obi has mixed in.

Jenny

[lulusmom]

You can purchase a dna kit on ebay for $39 called the Wisdom Panel Insights Dog DNA Test. This is a swab kit for owners that is fairly new and it identified 170+ breeds. I used to be able to get the professional blood kit for the same price that identifies 200 breeds but you have to have a vet do the blood draw. The kit is complete with mailing package so it's super easy. We've done DNA tests on three rescues and my Jojo. As some of you recall, Jojo is a Pomeranian/Japanese Chin mix.