Mike’s Doghouse

Wow, it’s been six months since I posted anything here.

Mike is now 1 yr 5 mos old. He hasn’t grown much and is still a maniac. But I like that attribute!

My broken leg took forever to heal and now winter has decided to enter with a bang (see links below). We constructed a new dog ramp out back (see links below for that, too).

I’ve continued to do small things with Mike such as “what have you got”, “let me have it”, as well as all the basics we learned in dog class. He’s really good with “wait” although the more excited he is, the harder for me and him. Mike’s also had to learn to live with a kitten which has been a test for all of us.

I plan on getting back to serious work with Mike this week. It is going to be warmer (above freezing for the first time in weeks!) which will mean less pain and more patience for me. My plan is to start with the basics (sit, down, stay, wait, etc) and re-establish communication between us.

If all goes according to plan, I’ll be updating here again with his progress. He goes to the vet for his yearly checkup soon so I’ll have his weight to tell you!

Linkages: (links listed in chronological order)

Snow posts over on my blog:
(basically, it snowed 14-20″ and we were out of power for nearly 5 days)

First Snow
First Snow cont.
First Snow Part 3

Dog ramp building is not for wimps!!
(you can also view all of these in one lump but they are in reverse order: tag – construction)

House Projects: Wash and Ramp
House Projects: Square
House Projects: Angles
House Projects: Planking!
House Projects: Finishing
House Projects: Enjoying

Mike got neutered today. At 8 mos, it’s the longest we have ever waited to get a dog spayed/neutered. We (and the vet) wanted to wait to see how his bladder was doing. While I won’t bet the farm that Mike is 100% house trained, I do feel his bladder problems are slowing resolving to the point that if he has to go, he has enough time to take himself outside.

Mike wasn’t allowed breakfast this morning. He was in his sleeping crate (which is on the floor on my side of the bed) and was quite irritated. We call him Mr. Squeaky for a reason and boy was he squeaking! He has a nice, deep bark but he still has that high pitched “HEY! You! The one with the thumbs!” kind of noise.

Anyway, I’m going soon to pick him up. We had it done at the vet’s office vs Humane Alliance, a low-cost spay/neuter clinic. The vet wanted to take x-rays of his hips while he was asleep (no official word yet on the hip x-ray results). The cost will be staggering, I’m sure. But Mike is worth it.

We’ve taken almost all of our other critters (an ‘off the top of my head’ count came to 7) to Humane Alliance for spay/neuters. We’ve never had a complication. In visiting their website today, I found their statistics page. Some interesting numbers!

And, no, I am not going to get Mike fitted for neuticles.

Good question. I’d done some research earlier. The rule of thumb is that what they weigh at 6 mos is half what they’ll way as an adult. If that holds true, then Mike will be about 80lbs or so.

He hasn’t added any adult bulk. He’s tall, almost as tall as Joella and Sam now. But he is thin and wiry. The last time he was at the vet’s, he barely reached 40lbs. We look at him sometimes and wonder if he is every going to add muscle mass and bulk or will he be a small dog after all.

Here’s Jo and Mike back in mid January:

And here they are from the other evening:

He is almost as tall and almost as long as she is but really does not have that bulk of an adult rottweiler. However, I went to look through Jo’s vet record and saw that in January, 2002, at just 1yr and 19wks old, she was just under 70 lbs. She is about 82lbs now at 8yrs old and had a maximum weight of 90lbs in 2005 when she was 4.5 yrs old. Going by this, we can assume that Mike is not going to start really filling out until he is at least a year. That is typical of Rottweilers and other large breeds. They don’t reach their true adult size until two, sometimes three years of age.

Normally, I hear about this kind of stuff the day after it is over. But this one I actually find out beforehand!

April is the ASPCA’s Prevention of Cruelty to Animals month. Anything that helps the animals also helps us. I’d much rather support the ASPCA than PETA. Those guys scare me because while their hearts may be in the right place, their methods and reasoning are so far off the mark.

Anyway, check out your local ASPCA or similar agency and get involved!

As I have mentioned before, I used the services of an animal communicator to talk with Joella before I started to seriously look at which pup to get. I adore Patty Summers and have used her several times over the past 12 yrs or so. This past weekend (March 21-22) I had the chance to attend a workshop at her place.

I wrote extensively about it over on my blog – “Communication Workshop“. I hope you wander over there and read the article. If you are not completely into the woo-woo stuff, here is the bit that involves Mike and Joella:

In the afternoon, we’d used a piece of paper to write down a question for our animal. So I asked Joella what did she think of Mike. One of the women who picked up Jo’s photograph said “She wants him to go back where he came from.” I was very surprised and shocked and sincerely hoped this was not what Joella really wanted. The other person said “She tolerates him.” Patty, who knows Joella well had also asked her this and she clarified for us what Joella meant. It seems that Joella saw him as an annoying pet that she does indeed tolerate. But she also loves him dearly. Patty also said that the message of sending him back was most likely linked to what was going on at that time. Later I discussed this with Lorna and Sunday had seemed to be Mike’s “pick on Joella” day. At one point, Jo had enough and held him down with one paw while growling and cleaning his entire face. He left her alone after that.

I also put Mike’s picture on the table with the question of “Do you have anything to ask (or say to) me?” Again, the response was surprising. Dave, the only man there (who is also very good at communicating with animals) said Mike wants to know if he is there to stay or is he going to be sent away. That was a big surprise. I think it is connected to the near-constant frustration over his house training. Could also be connected to Jo saying she wanted him go back where he came from. The other person that connected with Mike said he loves the car rides but wants to put his head out the window. He wants to feel the wind on his face and have his ears blown. That was a funny one to all of us. Mike is scrawny enough that we don’t let the window down much, afraid the twerp would jump out. He now has seat belt so I can let the window down lower without him bailing. Patty also connected with Mike. His message through her is quite profound, seeing as how it comes from such a brat. “I really love you. I’m here because you want a reminder or reason to laugh. You get the importance of not taking life too seriously.”

My blog, Thought Patterns, is an eclectic place with rants about stuff ranging from Real Life to LGBT Rights to Writing to anything in between.

I’ve updated Mike’s photo album. The URL has changed and I’ve done a lot to the images’ organization. Let me know what you think!

I have a lot more to put up there but at least now it is suitable for viewing.

http://mike.holyroller.org/photos/

Mike and Joella went to the groomer today. It had been a while since Jo had had a bath and we don’t think Mike had one since he was first rescued at 2-3 weeks old. On the phone, the woman had no problem grooming a Rottweiler so off we went. DeDe of Pampered Pets in Weaverville is a cool woman. She has a lot of dogs of her own and also does boarding/sitting. She fell in love with Mike (as does everyone that meets him) and thought Joella was beautiful. After giving her details of them both and their grooming history, I left them in her capable hands.

I went to the pet food store (Asheville Pet Supply) and got a bag of dog food and some chews. With four adult dogs and one growing pup, we go through a lot of dog food! After that, I went to Waffle House in Weaverville to eat and wait for the dogs to get done. I tried calling at one point but didn’t get an answer. I knew she had a busy day so I wasn’t bothered by that. I’d dropped them off at about 11:30 and she said to give them a few hours. I went to pick them up at about 1:30 or 2.

Mike did fairly well with his grooming. She said he wandered around the tub a lot and finally sat in a far corner, his back to the wall. But he wasn’t overly upset about it. Joella did her usual thing of slowly sticking her head over the edge until she is all but stepping out. She brought them from the drying area to the main room and Mike was this huge ball of fluff! He hadn’t been brushed yet and it was funny to see him all fluffed out like that. He wouldn’t stay still for a decent brushing but she got him fairly well. Joella was next to come out and she was also all fluffy. She loves to be brushed though, so was easier to do. DeDe had managed to talk Jo into letting her do a few nails and while I was there, talked her into a few more.

Including tip, it cost $60 to get both done. Not bad! We will definitely be taking them back. Lorna wants me to take Sam by next week. The back seat of my truck looks like I sheered a sheep in there from Sam riding to class and back Tuesday!

Yesterday, Mike went with me to Waffle House again. He didn’t go in, but stayed out in the truck. The objective was to get him out of the house and to show off his ears to the folks there. He chewed the two cell phone chargers in the truck, though. My fault. When I came out and showed him off to everyone, we then went over to the grass where he peed and peed and peed! Outside! Away from home!

Today he went with Lorna and me as we ran errands. The first thing he did was pull the stuffed Rottweiler out from the pocket in the back of the driver’s seat. I put all his toys there whenever we get back home. He stayed in the truck while we went in and spent major bucks on shoes (that God I only need them once every two years or so!). He didn’t pee both times we took him out but he also didn’t destroy anything in the truck. We gave him a chewy so perhaps that helped.

We stopped at a convenient store and got him some water. He drank a LOT (it was a pleasant, spring-like day). From there, we went to Tolliver’s Crossing, an Irish pub in Asheville. We sat outside with Mike. He did relatively well. He settled down eventually, watching everything and everyone. The hardest part was picking up all the cigarette butts before he found them (and dumpster diving for them when he did). We took his new travel bowl with us and put scraps in it for later. He wasn’t wearing his cape, which was good. Mike likes to get up on his back legs and wrap his front legs around the arm of the person petting him. He does jump up too much, something we are working on. Mike is much more interested in people than Jo ever was. He will go to them, not wait for them to come to him.

When we left, Lorna took him for a short walk to a bit of grass under a pitiful tree. Mike watered it well! Back at the truck, Mike got his scraps and some more water. Next up was Earth Fare where Lorna went in and Mike and I rested in the truck. He went nuts when a woman approached her car parked next to us. No barking, but he managed to his upper body and one leg out the window. The woman had a dog in her car. It never barked at Mike and he never barked at the it. When that car left, another pulled up, this time with TWO dogs. Mike never barked. Stuck his head out the window and sniffed, but no barking.

Joella is not dog aggressive. I’d never ever call her that. However, she is dog excited. Rotties are talkers and when she sees another dog when we are out, she talks about it. This talking sounds an awful lot like she wants to eat the other dog, but she doesn’t. It’s just her talking. She’s never shown aggression when the two dogs meet. She’s never met a dog she wouldn’t play with.

Mike won’t be that dog excited. He knows they are there but isn’t interested. He wants people. All of them he sees. He wants to touch them, by touched by them in return, and hear how cute he is.

All in all, it was a good day out. We all came home exhausted (and Lorna and little buzzed from the two Twisted Thistle beers she had at Tolliver’s). Mike’s not done much but play a little then go into the big crate to crash for a while. Then come out and repeat. Mike’s gotten better at walking on the leash and we were impressed with him calming down relatively quickly. He rarely laid down, but he did sit or stand in one place. It was good for him to experience another place.

In an earlier post, I said I was working on setting up the photo gallery in another location. That is (was) going smoothly. Until today when I found I could no longer sign into the admin section. Sigh.

Anyway, I have some new pics of Mike. Click the images for a larger version.

That ear stands up when he is paying attention or very intent on something. I was eating a banana, one of his fave snacks. Yeah, he’s weird.

Mike almost fills the recliner now!

We call this his “suicide pose”.

We got Mike a new crate the other day and today, while he was at the vet’s office keeping them entertained, we moved stuff around and decided where to put the monstrosity. It is the same width and depth as Sparky’s old crate but is about three inches taller. It is also one of those “folding” crates while Sparky’s crate is put together with large pins/poles. It has two doors so we can be more flexible about where to put it. It also has a divider to make the crate smaller as the pup grows. Mike’s current crate is not tall enough for him and he has to lay at an angle if he wants to fully stretch out. It is just like the bigger crate except it has only the one door and is made by a “generic” company. The larger one is by Midwest (Life Stages-Double Door 42″), a huge dog supply company and the smaller one is by Bargain Hound (the 30″ one).

Here’s Mike in his current, smaller crate:
12/24/08

2/6/09

The larger crate with the divider in place will be in the living room. This is where he will stay during the day when I am too distracted to watch him close enough. It will also be where he will stay whenever we are gone. The smaller one is still in the bedroom and will be for sleeping. At least for a while. We’ll eventually move the larger crate into the bedroom and store the smaller one.