Dog owners unite

Ok, so it wasn’t really a gumdrop button like in the movie Shrek (one of my all time favorite animation movies), but it was close!

Since our loving little devil has come back from Jamestown, he has been quite fond of pushing mom and dad as far as he can. I think it is a combination of being upset with us for leaving him, being away from home, getting sick, us giving him pills for his bacterial infection and most of all because he is getting into his ‘teen rebellion’ period.  (as you can see in my artist’s rendering to the right)

(Guinness by the way is feeling much better now. Prescription dog food and pills for a week later, he is back to his normal bouncy, rabbit chasing, vocal self.)

Anyway, back to the story…… this morning while my wife was getting ready to leave the house (and after I had left), Guinness was being a good boy and was on the floor chewing his bone. That is until my wife who had been starting to eat a big "morning glory" muffin, decided to set it down on the counter and head upstairs…..

Yep, you guessed it! As soon as my wife heard some strange noises downstairs, she ran down the steps to see Guinness in the middle of the kitchen floor and "gulp"………… the muffin was no more than a few crumbs on the floor. Guinness was off to the races around the house as soon as the word "GUINNESS!!!!" could come out of my wife’s mouth. One lap around the house and one around the table and Guinness was off down the stairs looking for the side door to be open and when it was not, it was down to the basement and into his kennel, where my wife promptly smacked his bottom, told him he was naughty and closed the door.

Lesson learned by parents: not safe to leave any food on counters, table or TV trays
Lesson learned by Guinness: I like their food better than the dry crap they put in my bowl

Wow… thank you wanderer for your thoughts and comments on my last post.

I experienced all the feelings of associated with helplessness in a matter of about 2 seconds when I found out what happened to Guinness. It’s not that we are happy with what happened but it did and I wanted to share the terrible experience with those out there who may be considering buying a puppy.  I am not looking for sympathy from anyone on this one, but would like to build a community of sharing between dog owners and dog lovers.

We have read all kinds of books from training to the characteristics of the Airedale breed. We also have had Guinness in training twice already and are planning to take him back again soon.  All our trainer can tell us about our Guinness is the following:
1. he is a terrier
2. he will learn on his own schedule
3. keep working with him
4. enjoy the time you have with him

Guinness does very well with all of his commands at home but gets a little hyper around all the other dogs at school and while in vehicles because of all the different smells and other stimuli.  It will just take some time for him to settle into adult dog.

We do not walk our dog in the middle of the night and certainly have more respect for other people and their home than to let our dog poop on other peoples lawns.  If by chance that does happen, we carry doggy bags with us to dispose of everything properly.
I’m not condoning what happened, but please don’t criticize me for actions that were an accident.  They do happen. 

Would you let your children run outside to play if you left the grill on?  What if they run into it or want to touch it because they are curious? All while you were inside preparing big juicy steaks.

I thought not.

In my last post I forgot to mention the car ride to the Vet….

As my wonderful wife was taking our sick puppy to the vet last week, she put him in the back of the Jimmy like usual with his collar and leash on.  As she was driving down some of the residential streets at a slower speed she thought it would be nice to open the back window for the sicky.  (Guinness LOVES to stick his head out the window while we drive; I think he gets high with all the smells)  As my wife pulled out from an intersection stop sign, Guinness thought it would be a good idea to jump out the window.  OMG!  It is amazing where dogs can squeeze their bodies through! 

After pulling through the intersection as to not cause an accident (and probably starting to freak out), my wife gets out of the vehicle at which time Guinness now thinks they are playing a game.  It was not until some very helpful kids corralled Guinness that my wife was able to catch up and grab his leash to bring him back to the Jimmy.

So, out of this, we have a puppy who is sick, is quite defiance (just the breed and we know it) and could have possibly been hurt quite seriously.  We are very fortunate that he is getting better and did not kill himself jumping out of a moving vehicle (even if it was only going 5 mph).

I thank all of you for your previous comments on the nipping (which is getting better by the way) but now ask for any thoughts or suggested solutions to our vehicle jumping puppy issue.  Obviously, keeping the window up comes to my mind.  The second option is to tie his leash to the cargo straps in the jimmy, or load up his wire kennel every time we go somewhere (which is not hard, but a big pain).

Does anyone have some ideas for us?

Our trip was wonderful and I should have photos up on Areaphotos.com very soon for anyone who is interested.  Guinness behaved quite well while at the babysitters and is quite happy to be home (as are mom and dad).  Thank goodness we talked our mother-in-law into making the hour and fifteen minute drive here to Fargo to drop off Guinness.  I just don’t think my wife and I could make the round trip after the jet lag.

Happy to be home, Guinness is testing his limits with mom and dad, but we’re just too tired to put up with his shenanigans and are quite happy when he finally just lies down in his usual spot and takes a long nap.  He is eating like a mad man now and we are a bit concerned with his diet at the babysitters.  They bought two different dog foods for him even after we sent more than enough with.  (They were concerned he wasn’t eating enough)  I’m concerned with what three types of dog food will do to our poor little guy’s tummy!

We found out quite soon enough!  Two days after we came home and Guinness started eating his regular food in regular amounts and times, he got a very, very bad case of the runs.  I am SOOO happy that Guinness is very well potty trained!  (He goes to the door and rings the bell every time).  But he is also ringing that bell about 6 times a day.

Wednesday came and my wife had time to take Guinness to the vet.  Wouldn’t you know it; our regular vet was all booked up.  So we took him into the vet at Southpoint (or something like that).  $80 and some prescription dog food later, we found out that Guinness had a bacterial infection in his intestines because there was not enough "movement" for the past two weeks.  We now have the very fun task of feeding him 5 to 6 times day and pills twice a day to fight this sucker off.  (I think he is feeling much better as he has had this prescription food since last Thursday)  He still sleeps a lot which is not out of the norm, but he is still not quite at active as he usually is.  I just hope by the time these pills and food run out that he is feeling better and we can go back to ONE kind of dog food.  Coincidently, if anyone is interested, Guinness gets Science Diet Puppy.  It is supposed to be good for his tummy and good for dogs that may develop skin problems.

It’s that time of year. Everyone wants to go on vacation.  Including my wife and I. This year we are heading out for the Trip of Trips.  I promised to take my wife overseas and I’m going to deliver on this one!  Two full weeks of no work, no phone, no puppy and best of all no interuptions.  Guinness is heading out to my mother-in-law’s house for the two weeks.  He loves it there, he is quite comfortable with both my mother-in-law and her boyfriend / fiance and I think everything will turn out just fine.  I’m sure Guinness will be full of treats by the time we get back and I just hope he behaves as well as any other terrier puppy would when visiting someplace strange.  Only time will tell.   Until we return better world travelers, I hope everyone stays cool.

I love out puppy dearly, but I think we have a serious problem and I’m not sure how to change it or if it will just go away by itself and I’m looking for suggestions.

Guinness in all of his 7 month old puppy playfullness loves to use his mouth to find out what anything new is. This includes when company comes over.  Guinness becomes very excitied, jumps and opens his mouth.  He never bites hard, but likes to ‘mouth’ everything he sees.

Does anyone have a good suggestion on how we can curb this habbit?  Or is it just an Airedale puppy trait?

Guinness was in to the Mutt Hut in Moorhead again, but this time it was for fun instead of for training. The summer heat was starting to take it’s toll on our poor little guy so we decided to get him trimmed. Although we know as an Airedale he should be stripped, we couldn’t quite afford it, so we opted for just a good brushing, wash and a trim. Here you can see the before and after photos of our little angel (or devil depending on the day)

Guinness After	Another photo after the haircut

Guinness was in for a treat and he didn’t even know it. We were taking a trip to my parents farm for the weekend and were a bit worried about how Guinness would behave in the vehicle and how he would interact with my parents Golden Retriever / Golden Lab Chopper.

All worries were laid to rest as he behaved very well in the vehicle (mostly becuase he was in his kennel in the back of the Jimmy with his blanket and a few toys. Only one potty break ‘pit stop’ was required on the 2 hour long trip and that made us quite happy.

Once on the farm he immediately became quite excited because he knew there was another dog outside the vehicle. But as soon as we let him out on his leash, we soon realized he would be just fine with Chopper and soon they both became good buddies. Guinness being the puppy he his was all energy and poor Chopper had his days full of playing around the yard (with Guinness on his tether leash) and would come up to Guinness only close enough to tease him a bit and then settle down and play.

Short of Guinness having a hard time adjusting to not being let in the house other than to sleep in his kennel, we all had a great time on the farm relaxing in the early summer sun as you can see in the photo below.

Well, maybe I did fail English and maybe I didn’t, either way I know my spelling is awful and my grammar is to be desired. However, I think Guinness beat me on this one a few weeks ago when he failed beginning training.

We had taken Guinness to the Mutt Hut in Moorhead, MN for puppy kindergarten and decided we liked it there and took him to beginning training. He seemed to be doing all right even though he was quite distracted with everyone else in the room speaking commands and many, many other puppies were running around with him.

However, we noticed that Guinness ‘listened’ to our commands much better at home than while at training. We struggled through all of our classes, I would work with him for half the class and then my wife would work with him the other half. Now that I look back at our nights at the Mutt Hut, Guinness really was the ‘trouble’ child of the group. While others dropped out, we chose to believe that our little guy could ‘do it’! Sadly, with only graduation night left, the trainer came over to me during the last part of the night and uttered those words I didn’t want to hear or admit….

"Maybe it is time to upgrade Guinness from the ‘choke chain’ to the chain with tines (AKA – choke chain with attitude)"

With that, I stood on the floor with Guinness pulling at my side letting the realization sink in…. Guinness Failed Beginner Training.

to be continued…… (Guinness is going back to training this fall)

It really is truly amazing to see how fast puppies grow. When Guinness came home with us 2 months ago, he weighed roughly 9 lbs. This past Friday Guinness had his last vet visit for the year. He had his last distemper shot and was vaccinated for rabies…he was also weighed….

In two months our little guy has tripled his weight and grown up like a weed. He is now 27 lbs. and as you can see quite a bit taller than he was as a small pup.