The carrot and the stick - Part II

As magnificent as peanut-butter-stuffed Kong is in keeping him busy and quiet, Danny still bores quite easily. That's where the stick comes in.

No, I'm not talking about the cane. (Although that reminds me, he has chewed up the fifth and final cane and I need to buy some more. Anyone know a wholesaler?) I'm talking about the muzzle.

Yes, I know I have tried the muzzle before but this is a different muzzle. The previous one was a very forgiving cage muzzle which gave him some room to manoeuvre. Our friend figured out how to get it off within a week and promptly chewed it to bits.

He sensed its vulnerability and would look at us with reproachful eyes whenever we put it on (see below). If you look closely at the top of the muzzle, you'll see where we stapled the damaged portion together. A couple of days after this shot, it was bye-bye muzzle.

I didn't bother to replace it, but after a nerve-shattering day of Danny's non-stop high pitched yelps and my neighbours' (so-far) polite comments of his noise, I decided to give the muzzle another try.

This time, I went in search of the one they use at the vet, you know, the one that wraps around the mouth.

Well, it's been a few weeks now, and Dan-boy can't get it off. And trust me he tried. He rubbed it against walls, carpeting, the floor, my leg,....but it didn't even budge. Now, when we put it on, he goes all limp. Place him on the floor and he'll slump down in a corner. You can place him on your lap and pat him as you browse through the paper.

Note: The dog below is fully awake.

It's like his mouth is a generator or something!

Anyway, he seems to be getting the message. When he is overly noisy or destructive, his mouth privileges get revoked. When we remove the muzzle, he becomes the quietest dog ever. If we're lucky, it even lasts the whole day.

So far, so good.

The carrot and the stick - Part I

Now that the playmate programme (for some reason this sounds kinky) is in the trash, we have resorted to other methods of keeping Danny quiet.

Danny likes toys which fit nicely within his jaws. Roaming around Pet Lovers Centre the other day, I chanced upon a Kong rubber bone.

All Kong toys have a hollow space for you to stuff all sorts of treats with. This one has two! The idea is that your dog will be so occupied trying to get at the treat that he'll forget to be noisy, destructive and a general pain in the *beep*.

...Sorry. When I say "your", I actually mean "my".

The toy itself stinks. It's made of rubber and it smells like rubber. On its own, Danny actually prefers my socks. (Yes, he does really, right out of the laundry basket too.) But smeared with goodies, it's suddenly a wonder toy.

We experimented with a few: bovril, honey,... and the winner is PEANUT BUTTER! Yup, the dog goes quite mad for it. We stuff it and then chuck it into the freezer first to make it more challenging.

Keeps him busy for a couple of hours or until the treat runs out.

Mouth- and paw-stained Danny....Yums!

Adopt a dog this weekend!

Hey all, Dog Mill Rehomers is having an adoption drive this weekend. Over 80 pedigree dogs were rescued when a dog mill closed its operations. Since then, 42 dogs have been adopted with 36 more needing homes.

The breeds include beagles, terriers, mini schnauzers, golden retrievers and many others.

Details on the adoption drive are as follows:

These dogs were formerly kept for breeding and some do have health problems. Note: no puppies available. More information on the dogs available can be found on their website at http://dogmilllrehomers.blogspot.com/.

So spread the word and help these dogs find a great home!

PS: DANNY POST BELOW!

I didn't know tissues were edible

Every morning, Danny gets one hard boiled egg for breakfast. That's a lot for the little dude especially since he weighs 9.2kg.

However, he doesn't agree.

Just after breakfast yesterday, he grabbed a box of tissues off the table. It didn't stand a chance. Danny chomped down half the contents before we discovered him.

I had no idea they could be eaten but as per Experiment Danny, they didn't do him any harm. Actually, they seem to make for pretty good roughage. (Tissues come from trees and trees = fibre, right?)

Well, whatever went in popped out in a few hours. They must have cleaned him really thoroughly too cos when dinner time came, he yelped for his food and polished it off faster than ever.

DISCLAIMER: Not recommended as alternative treatment for bowel movement.

Destructive Danny

A long time ago, I promised a naughty Danny video. I finally caught him in the act with a camera handy. Soon after, I got scolded by hubby for video camming instead of stopping him.

See the risks I go to through get live coverage?

Anyway, THIS is typical Danny behaviour on an average day.

Sanitation Officer

I can't believe it but Danny actually did something good this time.

He's paper trained, and we usually leave a thick wad of newspaper on the floor for him. When we're feeling industrious, we would remove the dirty sheets, leaving the clean ones below. On more lazy days and if it's just pee, we would simply flip the sheets over.

Danny's been observing us clean up his mess all this while. Today, I was petting him when he suddenly got up and headed for the paper. I praised him while he peed to reinforce the act.

After he was done, I thought he would come back to me but he didn't. Instead he sniffed around the area and started nosing. I thought he was doing something grouse so I told him to come but I got ignored.

Then to my surprise, he pushed up a corner of the newspaper and using his nose, he rolled it over his pee. He did it again until it was completely covered. Only then did he come to me.

I've never seen him do that before and I don't know if he actually meant to cover up his stuff, but for now the whole family's in shock.

Except for Rhoda. She thinks he's showing off.

Project Playmate Aborted

Yep, you read the heading right. We terminated Project Playmate yesterday. Sounds bad? Yeah, well, it was like Chassard all over again.

I was on my way back from work when I got a call from mom that Javier bit her when she picked up Danny's chew toy. He snapped at dad a couple of days back also over a toy but didn't break skin, so we figured we'd monitor him and see how it goes. Mom said that there was a bit of blood and she just wanted to see the doc to get a tetenus shot just in case.

Mom has this habit of making a molehill out of a mountain. When I reached home, the back of her hand was scuffed with several teeth marks, and even though it had been over an hour since the bite, blood was still oozing out of her hand which was starting to swell.

Mom got an antibiotic shot on top of a course of strong antibiotics and was told to come back in a couple of days to check if it was healing or getting infected. As of this morning, it had swelled to the size of a golf ball.

I contacted Javier's owner and told her that it wasn't working out. She apologised but the best, best part was when she told me that Javier had bitten her and her mother before when they touched his toys or food. Ya, thanks for telling me now.

All the smses and phone calls where she gushes over over how cute his is and what a sweetie he is and she couldn't tell us that Javier has aggression issues? Seriously, I don't know how people can be so irresponsible to put their dog up for adoption and not brief the new owner on important things like behavioural problems and fleas. Oh yes, Javier had fleas and almost passed them to Danny. Just one of those details she forgot to mention even though she knows full well we have another dog.

Another little detail she left out was that Javier was behaving aggressively towards her new baby and that's why she had to give him up. Her reason previously was that she and her husband were going to travel more for work and they don't have time for him.

HONESTLY!!! That was a downright blatant lie!

The irony is that I was more concerned about how he would react to Danny. Danny, however, had a load of fun (except when it came to toys, which Javier would take from him) and I'm now quite confident that Danny doesn't have any social issues (except for his fetish for humping other dogs).

Through this, we also realised that naughty, noisy Danny is really quite a good-natured dog deep underneath it all.

That being said, Project Playmate is dead and won't be ressurected. Danny and his owners will have to contend with him being a bored, only dog.

Oh yes, in celebration of his reinstated status, Danny promptly tore open a packet of biscuits and helped himself to 3/4 of the contents.

That boy works fast.

Trouble in Paradise

I don't think Javier likes Danny very much. Not that Danny isn't to blame. Cheeky Danny spent the first day trying to hump him and steal his toys. If I were stuck in the same house as a thief and serial molester, I'd growl at him too.

Unfortunately, that isn't the only problem. Javier seems to have quite a possesive streak. He's decided that he likes Rhoda and follows her wherever he goes. Danny isn't that into following people; he prefers nosing about for trouble.

The result is that after a couple of days, Javier decided that Rhoda was his "property" and growls whenever Rhoda gives Danny any attention. One night, when Rhoda wanted to bring Danny down to sleep, Javier growled at him. His growls got progressively louder when he was ignored and Danny actually got scared.

When I came out of the study, Danny made a beeline for me with his ears pinned back and the unmistakable look of "Oh help! Save me!"

To his credit, Danny hasn't growled back. Well, not yet anyway. Most times he just stares at Javier with the "Boy, you're strange" look and scoots off.

There was only one time Danny growled at him, and that was when Javier made off with his toy. I got it back for him and that was it.

Dan's also fine when other family peeps pat Javier. He snots a bit or looks for something naughty to do but that's it.

I guess they both need time to settle down to this arrangement. We want Javier to be happy and comfortable with us, but at the same time we don't want Danny to feel that he's being invaded when all things considered, he's actually been quite welcoming to the new little guy.

Hmm, we'll see...

Mirror Images

In an earlier post, I had pics of Danny copying Javier's actions. The next day, we let them loose, and they ended up doing a "mirror".

Look straight

Look side

Look all the way to the side

Heh!

The new dog in town

We have been thinking of adopting a new dog for a month or so now, one because Danny likes the company of other dogs and two, to (hopefully) have a good influence on the little rascal. We debated long and hard whether to get one as we were quite convinced that Danny was capable of corrupting any good boy.

Eventually we decided that Danny seriously needed a friend and I poked around a few sites. We wanted an adult dog so that his character would be less corruptable who could get along with other dogs. Size was no issue as Danny has proven that he is quite comfortable with dogs of any size, however, my bro and sister-in-law are quite scared of local specials, and my mom still wants them to visit so we had to rule those out.

Several websites had adoption posts but many of these "adoptions" came with fees, which reads like selling to me, so I avoided them.

After a few hunts, I chanced upon Pets Channel's adoption site, where we found Javier, a four-year-old silky terrier. A few emails with his owner and Javier was dropped off at our house for a one-month trial.

Danny and Javier seemed to get along right off the bat. However, when he realised that his owner was gone, he moped about for a good hour before cheering up a little.

Wanna see how he looks like?

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Well, here you go! Isn't he a sweety! He not only looks sweet but he IS sweet too.

He's a placid, gentle dog, unlike Hurricane Danny. But like all terriers, he can be a force to be reckoned with. Danny found out the hard way when he tried to hump Javier.

Danny's a smart cookie but he really needs to work on his EQ.

We tied Danny and Javier apart so they each had their own personal space but could still interact if they wanted to.

The funny thing with Danny is that whatever Javier did, he just copied.

Everybody sit

Everybody down

Everybody look left

If this keeps up, there may be hope for Danny yet!