Rochester, Chateau, and Ellie Mae

I want to start out today by saying what a difference the mood in the house is without Ollie.  I think we were all in a little bit of depression yesterday.  We pretty much spent the entire afternoon laying on the couch.  No one was really up for playing.  It was so quiet.  I didn't realize how much we would miss Ollie, but we do!  Attitudes picked up a bit this morning, but it'll take a bit to completely get used to not having that energy in the house!

So yes, I was a crazy dog lady for a few days.  5 dogs!  It wasn't as terrible as I was imagining.  Ellie Mae was the newbie, and she is a very good girl.  So that made it easy.  More on her below.

5 dogs this weekend!  Here they are all lined up on the couch.  From top to bottom: Chateau, Hardy, Rocky, Ollie, and Ellie Mae.

Rochester is doing well.  He misses his play buddy though.  All afternoon yesterday he was trying to crawl into my lap, which he doesn't normally do.  I can only assume it was because he was sad Ollie was gone.  This morning he started to play like he normally did, though.  So I think with time his mood will pick back up.  Ellie Mae tries to play with him, so maybe that'll help heal his broken heart.

I was crafting this weekend, and somehow Rocky got a red sequin on the tip of his nose.

Rocky wearing his winter jacket.  It's a little big on him, he slips out every chance he gets.

Rocky cuddling with Ellie Mae.  He has his paw around her!

Chateau is as wonderful as ever.  Last week I took her to the vet, and she got such compliments on how beautiful she is.  I swear, I can't take her anywhere without someone saying she's a gorgeous dog!  I'm a little upset right now, because I had a video of Chateau playing with some toys, and I can't for the life of me find it!  She's so funny when she plays.  Usually by herself, she'll grab one of the plush toys and jump and toss it in the air and catch it.  It always makes me laugh.  Hopefully the video is on my memory card at home...if so I'll update tonight.  This morning Chateau and Hardy were involved in an epic battle for one of the long plush squeaker toys.  Being about 20x Hardy's size, you'd think Chateau would win every battle...not so.  Hardy hangs on with all his might and actually ends up with the toy a majority of the time.  Chateau sure tries though!  She was pulling Hardy all over the house this morning.  My smart little guy just holds on until she gets tired or lets her guard down, then he takes off with the toy.  Then of course, she takes off after him and it starts all over again.

Chateau wearing her highly reflective winter jacket.  She didn't like it at first, but she's used to it now.

Chateau running around outside.

And now meet my new peanut: Ellie Mae!  I've decided I want to keep her as long as I can, so I'm only going to say bad things about her.  Ellie is gassy!  I mean, I don't have proof that it's her...but I started noticing it the day I brought her home.  So coincidence?  Darn it, that's the only bad thing I can think of...potential adopters, stop reading now!  Ellie Mae (I also call her Ellie or Elle depending on my mood) is the sweetest, cutest, friendliest little girl ever.  She gets along with all my dogs, and tries very hard to play with them.  Though she's still just a puppy, so if the others get a little rough with her I stop them right away.  She's not housebroken, but she is very good about going potty outside when I let the dogs out.  I also think she's picked up on Hardy's signals (he scratches at the front door when he wants to go out), so she will walk next to the front door before she needs to go.  If I'm fast enough, I can get her outside.  If not, she has a spot next to the coat closet that she seems to like.  I don't have any concerns getting her housebroken soon though, it only took a couple days for her to figure out the front door trick.  I'm also working on crate training her, and it's going very well.  I threw her for a little bit of a loop yesterday though.  Because I had the 5 dogs this weekend, I had her using Hardy's crate.  But now that Ollie's gone, I moved her to his crate.  So she still goes to Hardy's crate first.  But she's getting better.  This morning she accidentally crawled into Rocky's crate while he was in there!  My heart skipped a beat thinking he would snap at her...but he didn't make a peep!  I just coaxed her out and everything was fine.  She does whine a little when I put her in the crate for the night, but it only lasts for 5-10 minutes and then she's silent until it's time to get up in the morning. 
Right now I'm focusing on getting Ellie Mae house broken and getting her used to having people touch her ears, paws, and teeth.  She's pretty good about letting me touch everything, but as soon as I get near her with a scissors she runs away.  Something we need to work on.  After that, we'll start working on some of the standard tricks.  I think she'll pick them up quickly.

Ellie and Rocky cuddling on my lap.

Ellie hanging out outside.  She prefers a sweater in this cold weather.

Miss Ellie Mae.  What a doll!

Doesn't it look like she's smiling?

Ellie lounging on the couch with me.

Ollie has been adopted!!!

Yep, you read that right!  My mischievous boy just left with his forever family.  They had actually met at the Meet & Greet last weekend, so I already knew they'd be a great match for him.  And sure enough as soon as he saw them, he started pulling on his leash to get there.  I think he knew that they were his people.  They are going to be great together.  I look forward to hearing updates!

A couple pictures of Ollie from the last week to share.

Dog Pile on the Couch!  Ollie on top, Chateau on the left, Rocky in the middle, and Ellie May (read more about her tomorrow) on the right.

Ollie, Chateau, and Rocky showing off their winter gear!

It's hard to look tough when you're fighting in bubble jackets, but Rocky and Ollie don't care!

Rochester, Ollie, and Chateau

What a week!  The furnace in my house went out, I took all 3 dogs to a meet & greet, and we had our first real snow!

So, yes...my furnace went out last Wednesday.  Thankfully, when the previous owners built the master bedroom addition, they gave it it's own furnace.  So the dogs and I camped out in there until I was able to get someone to come look at the main furnace on Friday afternoon.  We had fun though, lots of cuddles on the bed.

Cuddling with all the dogs while the rest of my house slowly freezes.

My bed has been taken over by dogs.

Rocky sure made himself comfortable, even resting his head on my pillow.

Chateau curled up in a pile of blankets.

Ollie doesn't like sitting still for long.  He mostly laid in my lap.

Saturday we went to the Meet & Greet at Tail Waggin' Doggy Daycare.  There was a great turnout!  All 3 of my babies had a lot of interest.  Ollie, of course, with his bubbly personality made sure to say hi to everyone who came near us, whether they were there to see him or not.  Rocky was of course shy, but he didn't bark at anyone!  I was very concerned about that going into the day, but he did extremely well and I was very proud of him.  He even came out from behind me and let a few people pet him!  Chateau was surprisingly uninterested in the whole event.  Sure, for the most part she'd say hi to people and let them pet her, but rather than walk around like Ollie and Rocky, she preferred to lay in my lap.  Overall I think all 3 did well and I hope we see some forever homes come out of it!

Saturday was also our first real snow!  I was a bit afraid that the fosters would hate it, seeing that they come from a place where they don't often see snow, and even when they do it doesn't stick around long.  But they ended up having a blast!  I wanted to get their reactions, so I grabbed my camera before I let them out...they were not amused at the extra 30 seconds in their crates.  But as soon as we got outside they were running and jumping and sniffing around at the snow.  Chateau especially was enjoying it.  She was running down the sidewalk, sliding around the sidewalk, barking at the other dogs to play.

Ollie taking his first steps in the snow.

Chateau and Rocky (in the back) taking their first steps in the snow.

Chateau running along.

Ollie sniffing around.

Hardy wanted to go inside (he's tiny and gets cold very quickly), but Rocky and Chateau just wanted to play!

Ollie is still not sure if he likes it.

Chateau action shot!

A successful first winter potty break!

And now for some individual updates.

Chateau is officially off heartworm watch!  Yay!  I know I said I was going to take her for a run over the weekend, but the snow really deterred me.  She didn't really need the extra workout anyway.  She ran around in the snow all weekend, plus we were all worn out after the Meet & Greet.

Rocky got another haircut last week.  You can see it in the pictures above.  I trimmed his head hair and I think he looks SO handsome now.  I think he feels it too.  He also got many compliments at the Meet & Greet about his improvement with his shyness.

Ollie is over 1 week without an accident!  He's been getting so good about indicating when he needs to go out, and I'm doing better at giving the dogs frequent breaks also.  So I really think I'm close to pronouncing him housebroken.  I really want to see, with the snow and the cold temps, if he keeps it up before I make it official.

Adoption Event - Meet one of my Puppies!

Special post today!  

I just got an email that Fluffy Dog Rescue is going to do a meet and greet this Saturday, November 15th!  Location is Tail Waggin' Doggy Daycare in Hartland.  Time is noon-2pm.

So come on out and meet Chateau, Rocky, Ollie, and many other adoptable dogs!

Rochester, Ollie, and Chateau

I want to apologize in advance for my lack of pictures this week for everyone except Ollie.  Not sure what happened there.

So yesterday my sister held a birthday party for my nephews.  I was originally planning on taking 2 dogs (I thought 3 would be way too many to handle, and definitely not all 4).  I was going to leave Hardy behind, because he always goes and I thought the fosters could use some outside interaction.  I decided Chateau would be the other leave-behind because of her heartworm situation.  I didn't want her to have an opportunity to get too riled up.  So I was planning on taking Rocky and Ollie.  Well, at the last minute I decided to leave Rocky behind too.  I was just afraid that with so many people he'd never met, plus there would be kids running around, that his fear of people would really upset him.  So I just took Ollie with me.  And let me just say, he was the most well behaved dog I could have ever imagined.

 

We started our trip early Sunday morning.  I put Ollie in the backseat (I have a sheet back there to protect the fabric).  About an hour into our drive, Ollie started to get whiny, so I let him jump into my lap.  I was also getting a little sleepy at that point, so I decided to stop for some Starbucks.  Luckily we were passing one with a drive-thru, so I didn't have to leave Ollie.  Well the girl at the drive-thru window just fell in love with Ollie.  His little tail was wagging, and I helped him stick his head out the window so he could get a head pat.  She also offered him a Pup-uccino (a cup of whipped cream), which he enjoyed very much.

Ollie enjoying his Pup-uccino

We eventually made it to my sister's house.  She has a dog of her own (named Molly) who happened to be out on a potty break when we arrived.  She was very excited to meet Ollie, and he was very excited to meet her.  Even though Ollie did his business outside, I made him wear his diaper just as a precaution.  It ended up not being necessary, as he didn't even attempt to mark his territory.  I was quite impressed!  The party was pretty busy, including 4 kids.  Surprisingly (or maybe not...I'm not a kid expert), the kids were not particularly interested in the dogs.  They acknowledged them but didn't try to play with them.  They were too busy playing with each other.  But Ollie and Molly really wanted to play.  I had Ollie on his leash, and my sister had Molly on her leash as people were still arriving and we didn't want any escapees.

Ollie and his new friend Molly

Ollie's not quite sure if he wants to play

When it was time to eat, my stepmom took over Ollie watch.  She is in love with Ollie, and continually teases my dad that she's going to adopt him...my dad refuses (they already have a dog at home).  At some point, my dad ended up holding Ollie.  I know he enjoyed it, even though he denies it.  He even commented how well behaved Ollie was being.

Dad and Ollie bonding

Ollie surveying the party

Almost immediately on the way home, Ollie was whining about being in the backseat again.  But I didn't want him on my lap for the whole drive, so I let him sit on the passenger seat.  It wasn't his ideal situation, but he accepted it and just took a nap for most of the trip.

Ollie hanging out in the front seat

In other Ollie news: he's gotten very good about going to the back door when he needs to go outside.  We need to work on him realizing that I can't be there immediately, but we're progressing!

I don't really have much in Rochester news.  He's still doing great.  He's still getting better about being more independent in the house.  The other night he decided he wasn't going to listen when I told the dogs to come down to bed.  I was too tired to argue, so I decided he could sleep on the couch for the night.  Well I woke up at some point, and of course Rocky was laying right next to me in my bed.  The little stinker.

I have some big news for Chateau...her heartworm watch ends this week!  So get your applications in, folks!  A dog this well behaved and this good looking is not going to stick around long!  Not to mention she's housebroken!  She's also getting her energy back, and boy does she have energy.  I think I'm going to take her down to the trail and take her running this weekend.  I bet she will love that!

Rochester, Ollie, & Chateau

Today we're going to start with good news/bad news.

The bad news: I'm still sick.  :-( Fortunately I feel a lot better than I did last week, but I'm still suffering from some sinus pain.  Hopefully that will go away soon and I will be back at 100%!

The good news is threefold:

1) I believe we're kennel cough free! No more goose honk coughing.  No more unusual coughing at all.  

2) We have been accident free for 4 days, and have only had 2 accidents total in the last 7!

3) Ollie is starting to wait by the back door when he wants to go outside!

Rocky is still doing amazingly well.  Biggest improvement of any of the dogs I've fostered so far.  He's getting so much more comfortable being by himself than he was when I first brought him home.  He's consistently content laying on the couch while I do chores around the house.  He's also getting better at coming inside when I call him.  This weekend I was able to give all the fosters baths, and because it was a bit chilly out I decided to dry them with my hair dryer so they wouldn't get chilly.  Rocky was ok in the bath...not great, not terrible.  He did jump out of the tub once and I had to chase him around, but he was good after that.  He was not a fan of the hair dryer, however.  I pretty much just had to follow him around the bathroom with it until I felt he was dry enough.

Rochester's bath time!

Ollie, as mentioned above, is doing amazingly well!  Not only is he not having accidents, but he's letting me know when he needs to go outside!  I'm not ready to say he's completely housebroken yet because it's only been a week, but I think he's close.  For some reason this week, Ollie has been extremely needy in terms of needing to lay on my lap or next to me.  I'm not sure if he wasn't feeling well, or if he was just feeling sad or maybe even cold.  But all week he's been very pushy about laying near me...to the point of wiggling between whichever dog beat him to the spot and me so he is next to me.  He hasn't been mean about it at all, though I think Hardy especially got annoyed by him, because that's usually his spot.  Ollie was very good at bath time.  He didn't mind the bath at all, and after initially being afraid of the hair dryer he got used to it and let me dry him almost completely. 

Ollie taking a bath!  I could not get him to look at me!  He was having fun playing in the water!

Chateau is still doing well after her heartworm shots.  She's almost out of the woods, only about a week and a half left.  She is getting her energy back and wanting to play, so that's still the most difficult part about her.  I won't let her play with the other dogs, but sometimes she'll go grab a toy and play by herself.  Chateau was not a fan of bath time.  She huddled in the corner and even tried to climb out of the tub at one point.  She wasn't opposed to me washing her, it seemed.  I think she was just more afraid of being in a slippery, enclosed space.  She did, however, LOVE the hair dryer.  She was such a little diva.  Holding her head up so her hair blew in the wind.  She even lifted her paws so I wouldn't forget to dry her belly.

Chateau not enjoying her bath.  :-(

Some bonus pictures today!

 Proof that Hardy and Ollie can get along when they want to.  Hardy managed to get the spot next to me first, and for once wouldn't move for Ollie.  Ollie made it work.

 

Chateau and Rocky keeping watch.  It still cracks me up that this is how Chateau is comfortable.

The dogs managed to push one of the couch cushions out a little bit, and Chateau thought it looked like a wonderful place to relax.

And I almost forgot...I had a bit of snow last Friday.  The dogs loved it!  I couldn't get them to come back inside!