Mike’s Doghouse

Mike is one tricky pup.

House training is still on going with some great progress and still very little progress.

I purchased an elastic dog collar that has 4 huge bells on it. The pet supply store had them on sale from leftover Xmas stuff. I can’t imagine putting this on a dog as the noise is way loud. Anyway, I was going to take off the bells and hang one or two on the door but they make enough noise as a group that I can’t miss it. I even hear it all the way in the kitchen!

When we go out, we shake the bells and say something along the lines of “do you need to go outside?” “ready to go outside?”. The idea is that when he needs to go, he will ring the bells. He can’t reach them without standing with his front paws on the door. He’s managed to take it off the doorknob twice but usually just nudges it with his nose. He has already learned that ringing the bells and/or whining gets him outside. Big step considering we’ve not worked on “touch it” yet!

However (with Mike, it seems there’s always a “however”), what he wants is to go outside and eat sticks, walnut shells, pecan shells, leaves, dirt, bark, packing peanuts (long story), and almost anything else he can find. He loves to hunt down and carry huge floppy gross mushrooms, too.

We’ve stopped the long walks and instead stand in one place with him limited to with about 5-8′ of that spot. He must do his business there or back inside we go. If I know he needs to do his business but he’s too interested in the other stuff, we go back inside and he goes into his crate. 20 minutes later, we go back outside. Eventually, he will either do his business outside or I get impatient and we go back in where he promptly poops in the living room.

As with any dog training, most mistakes are the handler’s fault. Mike doesn’t have accidents, I do.

And while we are on the subject of Mike’s weirdness, here’s another for you. Mike will chew on anything made of any material. He will even chew on my chair. He’s pulled out some cosmetic tubing ends, roughed up an adjustment knob, and he has left his mark on the metal frame. The below image is the frame above the rear wheel. That’s tooth marks on the metal.

link to bigger image

I was able to not only look at Mike’s teeth, but to also get some images of them. The trick is to catch ‘im while he’s sleeping.

In the first image, those two slightly larger bottom teeth might be new adult teeth but I don’t think they are. I checked back at the Donnerberg Rottweiler site but it’s still hard to tell.

The second photo clearly shows the baby canine tooth.

We go to the vet’s this afternoon to pick up Popcorn and to give them Mike’s urine sample (we weren’t able to catch it yesterday). No fecal sample yet since he and Sam keep wanting to go outside to play.

You can see larger views of the teeth photos over at Mike’s photo gallery in the “Growing Up Big” album.

So, if you remember from a previous post, Mike’s age is in question. It is possible he is younger than we thought. Normally, this isn’t a big deal, but if he is younger than previously assumed, he rec’d his rabies vaccine too soon and it will need to be repeated. I don’t know if other vaccinations will also need to be redone.

Tonight, while waiting for something to download, I did a search for images of puppy and adult teeth. Not for the squeamish! I managed to find an excellent set of images and explanations on, get this, a Rottweiler site!

Donnerberg Rottweilers in California has a great page of teeth info. The photos are great and include puppy teeth, adult teeth, and various stages in between. These photos will help me to keep an eye on Mike’s teeth. I looked at them this afternoon and I don’t see that much of a difference since last week at the vet’s.

In the morning, I have to collect a urine sample and during the day, collect a fecal sample. Oh goody. Oh joy. In the afternoon, we take another of our dogs, PopCorn, in to the vet’s to get two masses removed from her foot. She’s had a mass from this foot removed before and we knew it would grow back. It did, and brought a friend. PopCorn just had a cancerous tumor (and her spleen) removed two weeks ago. It is a slow-growing cancer, extremely rare, and since this means she’ll be with us at least another year or two, we figure it would be best to make her comfortable. When we take her in (she gets carsick so we always take her in the day before), we’ll give them Mike’s contribution to our growing bill there.