LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Last night, watching Winston rip the squeaker out of his indestructible tug toys, surrounded by his other toys, well fed, brushed and with a shiny coat, I remember back to last May when we got him.

After years of holding firm, the Velvet Freight Train managed to lure me to a rescue adoption event. I had a rule, no adoption events, because I knew from experience what happens when you mix women with needy animals.

But this time was somehow different. She had found “the perfect dog” on line at Ginger’s Pet Rescue (www.gingerspetrescue.org) and what do you know, it, and lots of other little dogs, would be up for adoption on Saturday at the Pets Smart near our home.



Having had dogs most of my life, I was enjoying the luxury of being pet free. No vet bills, no ruined rugs and furniture, no kennels, no guilt trip when leaving them alone. No constant poop patrol. But, I don’t know why, this time I gave in, and told Peggy, “If we’re going to go, we better get there early.”

Ginger and a volunteer helper were unloading little kennels when we arrived. It turned out that the dog Peggy wanted had already found a home. Of course it had. But there was a nice Papillion – Peggy wanted a Papillion – in this kennel, Ginger asked if Peggy would please hold it, and tried to get it out of its kennel. But it wasn’t coming. It stuck it’s legs out on the side of the kennel like a cartoon dog and refused to budge.

“Ok,” Ginger said, “let’s try this one,” and reached for another kennel. Into Peggy’s arms she poured a brown and black puppy with funny ears and a curly tail. It looked up at Peggy with big brown eyes, cowering, confused and hopeful, “You’re my mommy?”

Tough lawyer Peggy melted. That was it. Love at first sight.

I told Peggy, “You better let me hold him while you fill out the paperwork. This dog isn’t going to be here long.”
That’s how Winston became part of our family. When we got him home, he peed on the rug.

WINSTON’S CHRISTMAS 2010

At the close of Christmas Day, after our good company had gone home, Winston collapsed on his pillow. It had been a happy, active day, and a day without a nap. Being gracious host, head of the entertainment committee and center of attention is hard work.

It began with Winston’s first Christmas presents ever. Santa brought him a tug toy skunk (no stuffing!), and a virtually indestructible fabric boomerang. His little brown eyes sparked joy and surprise after opening his packages. “For me?!” While Peggy and I opened our presents he went to work shredding the skunk. The nasty squeakers were the first to go.

While I was making turkey dinner, Winston had a very serious assignment. His job was to keep the floor under my feet free of food droppings on which I might slip. Except for an occasional break to show off one of his new toys and have me toss it for him, he took this very seriously. The floor was kept sparkling clean and I didn’t slip once.

Winston gave our company, Cathy and Bill, Judy and Chris, a good barking when they arrived, then settled down to be a gracious host. “See my new toys. This is a skunk. You want to throw it for me.” Then he provided after dinner entertainment by jumping on my lap at the table. “Hello, everybody! Wasn’t that a great dinner? Say, is that leftover turkey?”

As our guests were saying their goodbyes, he bid them farewell by having me hold him on his back with his belly up and his long legs in the air, and he gazed at everyone in his upside down way. “Is anything cuter than me? Did you see my new toys? You’re not leaving yet, are you? Hey, where’s the turkey.”

Happy Holidays from Winston.

A BEAUTIFUL JUMPER

Yesterday, October 20th, at our Four Paw Agility class, Winston once again proved himself an able, if sometimes distracted student.
His warm up lesson was to wait in front of a jump until I gave him the command, then to jump, first to the left, then to the right, once with me facing backwards. He did well at this, and he’s getting much better at waiting until released. Both Jan and Ann complimented him on this.
Winston’s next lesson was to go over five jumps in a straight row. It took of couple of tries, with me at the starting point and instructor Eric at the finish with a touch plate and treats. Once Winston got the idea, he did all five jumps with ease and it was beautiful to watch. Everyone commented on what great form he has. He’s a natural jumper.
His third lesson was to run a circuit of one jump and one tunnel and keep running it until I said to stop. The tunnel is a tube about 12 feet long, two feet high and is curved at a 90 degree angle. Winston managed to run the course twice before getting too distracted. Tunnel, jump, tunnel, jump. Then he lost his concentration and on top of the tunnel and ran about half way across it. A nice feat, but sorry, Winston, no treat. When we were looking he also ran up to the top of the steep ramp, which is about 6 feet high. No fear of heights for Winston!

FOOD

At Agility class last night we had a fruitful discussion about dog food. Eric and his wife, who works for Pet Pros in Lake City, have done in-depth studies of what to feed dogs.
Here are the conclusions we reached –
1. Dogs need variety in their meals. Feeding them one kind of protein, especially beef, can lead to allergies and other problems. Best to feed them different foods on a rotating schedule – dry food in the morning, canned food in the evening. Or chicken one week, lamb or a different protein the next.
2. Raw food is good. We didn’t pursue this topic in depth, but it seems to improve their energy, their coats and their dispositions. Raw can be mixed with store-bought. Caution – this is controversial. Do your homework here.
3. Grain is bad. The consensus was it’s best to go grain free, just like for humans.
4. Don’t leave food out. If a dog doesn’t finish his meal in 20 or 30 minutes, pick it up and feed it to him at his next meal. Eric explained that the dog will quickly learn the routine. This does a couple of things – it shows the pet that you are the source of food, and, once the routine is set, and he doesn’t eat, it alerts you that something may be wrong.
We originally started Winston off on Blue Buffalo puppy food kibble. After a while though he started turning up his nose and leaving most it uneaten. At the same time, he was having bouts of gastric distress, leaving messes that I had to clean up. I hate cleaning up messes, especially the ones that stain the carpet. I’ve since learned that a number of Blue Buffalo products were recalled due to excessive vitamin D in the formula.
So we tried some Newman’s Own Organic, but same result – a turned up nose and the runs. Was it too rich?
I stopped by the Mud Bay at University Village, and the nice clerk there gave me some samples that met my criteria. What a useful service this is. I narrowed it down to Evo and Instinct. After learning that Evo was recently purchased by Proctor and Gamble, I settled on Nature’s Variety Instinct Grain-Free Nutrition. We’re starting with some Chicken Meal Formula and a variety of their canned foods, even one with rabbit. Dogs eat rabbits, right? Winston’s been on that diet for about a week. So far, so good. He likes the canned food best, but does OK with the kibble.

WINSTON TAKES ON A PIT BULL. A Tale of Two Dog Parks

About once a week, we like to take Winston to a dog park so he can run and wrestle with other dogs and play “chase me.” We usually go to Magnuson Park because it has a nice area exclusively for small or shy dogs. Big dogs and Winston are a big concern for us. He’s small, fast and basically not afraid of big dogs, but we’re told being small and fast can trigger a big dog’s predation instinct.
However, Magnuson Park is about a half hour drive from home, and Shoreline has an off-leash area much, much closer. Last Saturday, we decided to check it out. It’s tucked behind Shoreline Community College, and has a quite large fenced in area. It’s pretty nice. Except for the small dog, shy dog area, which is a small, dirty, barren fenced in area about the size of grocery bag. Insert disappointment here.
But as long as we were there, we decided to let him play in the big dog area. He immediately found a nice, medium sized friend to play with and they did great for a while, racing all over and rough housing. Then a young couple whose foolish grins flashed cluelessness, decided it would be fun to take their adolescent, untrained pit bull off its leash. Of course, it went straight for Winston and started worrying him and made him yelp. Winston responded by turning around and taking off after the pit bull, barking and growling. He was giving him what-for. Peggy said, “I want to leave now.” But the young couple leashed their dog back up, and we let Winston continue to play with his new friend. Then Mr. and Mrs. Clueless decided to let the pit bull back off its leash, and it went right for Winston again, biting him and horrifying us, but once more Winston wasn’t going to back down. After much shouting by us and barking by the dogs, the young couple packed up their dog and slunk off. Take it to training!
The next day, after church, we took Winston back to Magnuson Park. The weather was gorgeous, and there were lots of fun, well-behaved dogs in the small dog area, all with concerned, well trained masters. Winston ran and wrestled and played “chase me” until he was worn out. It’s fun to watch Winston run. He really takes off in a blaze, tail sticking straight out behind, a master of speed and broken-field running.

TDAA 10/10/10

Sunday, October 10th, Peggy and I drove down to Auburn with Winston to watch the finals of the TDAA National Meet. The actual title of the meet was the 7th Annual TDAA Petite Prix National Agility Tournament. A big name for a lot of little dogs. It was held at the Argus Ranch for Dogs.
We had no idea what we’d find and we were just dying of curiosity to see for ourselves what a Teacup Dog Agility Association meet was like. Would it be outdoors or indoors (it was raining that day)? Would there be a lot of people or not very many? Would there be food?
What we found was startling. First of all, yes, it was held indoors in a nice, very large pavilion, Argus Arena. Yes, there were lots of people there and dozens of dogs. And, yes, there was a food trailer with hot dogs and burgers. We’ve since been told that Argus Ranch is like heaven for dogs and agility training. It certainly is a large, well-kept facility.
Argus Arena is about 26,000 sq ft and is set up with two rings, one on each end of the arena. One ring was set up with 4” jumps for the smaller dogs, and the other was set up with 8” jumps for larger dogs.
Happily we ran into Robin and Norm Carlson who are the owners of Winston’s agility school, Four Paw Sports Center in Lynnwood. fourpawsports.webs.com. They were there competing with their two dogs, toy Klee Kai (which is the singular and the plural), and kindly spent quite a lot of time showing us the ropes and explaining the courses and rules to us. Klee Kai are miniature huskies and they are beautiful, bright energetic dogs. www.huggablehuskies.com
The courses consist of jumps and various “touch” obstacles, like ramps, teeter-tooters, hoops and tunnels. Teams are awarded points for completing the obstacles in a particular order in a set period of time. It’s as much of a test for the owner as it is for the dog. Though the competition can be fierce and the rules somewhat complicated, the emphasis is on fun. It’s really a delight to watch the little dogs in action. They work so hard, and they really want to please and they love the challenge and attention. Winston said that he run those courses faster than anybody. We’ll see.

MAKING STRIDES

Saturday, October 2nd, was the day of the big event – Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, a 5K walk through downtown Everett and the Historic North Everett Neighborhood. It was sponsored by the American Cancer Society. With her freshly minted survivors medal, Peggy headed up the team Tough and Determined (TAD). TAD raised $1,075 and came in 18th out of 82 teams in funds raised. Joining the team were Sue, Chris, Judy, Carol, Marcia, Jacqueline, and others, and well as yours truly. Helping to guide us were Marcia’s dog, Huck, and Jacqueline’s dog, Moxie.
Winston was with us the whole way, and excited to be in this wonderful event, surrounded by brave, determined, compassionate women. He charmed the walkers, especially the kids, who took breaks to pet him. He may be an Agility Dog in training, but a 5K trot proved a BIT too much for his little legs. Thanks to Carol for helping to carry him.