Meet & Greet

Meet the Fluffy Dogs
Sat. Feb. 28th 

Doggy Bag Bakery
124 E. Wisconsin Ave., Oconomowoc
262-560-1717

11am-12pm:   Rosie & Shelby
12pm-1pm:  Ivin
1pm-2pm:     Juno, Bethlehem

Only these dogs will be attending. There will be no adoptions the day of the event.
Please see our policies on our How to Adopt page prior to coming to the event.
Please check here before going to the event, as these dogs are still adoptable,
and may be adopted before the event.


By Appointment Meet & Greet


How: Complete an application on our How to Adopt page
 indicating the dog you are interested in and the time you are available to meet.
We will need at least 24 hours to process your application.
We will confirm your appointment by email. Please do not come if you do not receive a confirmation.


 
When: Sat. & Sun. Feb. 28th & March 1

Who: Merlo, Stella, Angel, Chubby, Checker, Sandy & Princess,
Rosie, Shelby, Ivin, Geyser, Yolanda (Milwaukee), Bryce,
Keda (Green Bay),Noelle, Bethlehem, Kelwood, Beatle,
Mitch, Faith (Glenview, IL), Joy (Glenview, IL), Macaroon (Fontana), Kayla,
Ravenswood, Champagne, Fluffy, Peace, Pippin, Pink Lady, Lizzie, Tonic, Maisy

Where: Hartland
If there is a city listed after the dog's name, you would have to go there to meet the dog.
This would be at the foster's home.

Why: Why is this by appointment?  We do not have a facility.
All of the dogs are in private foster homes.
We have had events with over twenty dogs the past two weeks,
 and can not ask our foster parents to weekly drive their foster dogs to events.

This is an opportunity to meet one dog
 if you don't want to go through the typical process that is listed on our How to Adopt page.
Keep in mind that even with an appointment, the dogs are still available for adoption.
The only way to hold a dog is to complete an application, pay the application fee, and have a home visit.

Rosie, Shelby, and Mocha

As you read yesterday, Rochester was adopted.  I talked to his family last night, and he already seems to be doing well!  He's been cuddling with his dad and sister, and he's already found the door to go outside!

Rochester snoozing in the backseat on the way to meet his Furever Family.

Rosie is improving on her housebreaking.  She rings those bells like it's going out of style.  And it's really helpful with the other dogs too, because they don't ring the bells when they need to go out but they will always go out with Rosie.  She's sort of the potty leader in the house.  She's also become quite the tattle tale!  Shelby sometimes likes to steal things she's not supposed to have, and Rosie has this one distinct bark that she only uses when Shelby does it.  So every time I hear that bark I know to come running because I need to rescue something from Shelby.  I gave all the dogs baths on Friday.  Rosie was scared for about 2 minutes, but started to enjoy it when she realized it was like getting a massage.  She wasn't particularly happy about getting her hair blow dried, but I wasn't about to let a soaking wet dog outside in the sub-zero temps.

Rosie and Shelby fighting over one of the new toys Rochester's Family gave them.

Shelby has become the rascal of the group.  Her puppy tendencies are definitely starting to come out and she is taking things she shouldn't be.  Mostly my craft items, but for some reason she also like to take the dog brush, and one time I caught her with a remote.  So any potential adopters will need to keep important things out of her reach until she learns not to take these things.  I am working with her on it, but I can understand how it's confusing that she can chew on her plastic toys but not on a plastic craft.  I do know that she is teachable though, because she has learned "sit!"  She will sit on command, for a treat or not.  As far as bath news on Shelby, she reacted almost identically to Rosie.  She was nervous for a couple minutes, then started to enjoy it once I started putting in the shampoo and rubbing behind her ears.  Also like Rosie, not a fan of the blow drier.

Shelby thinks she fits in Hardy's bed.

 Mocha is still Mocha.  He hasn't picked up any bad habits, so that's good.  He was unfortunately just starting to come around with Rocky before Rocky was adopted, so I'm sad that he won't be able to explore that further.  He is getting very good with "sit."  We have about a 90% success rate, obviously using treats gets better results, but he will occasionally do it without a treat.  He has about a week left on his heartworm hold, so get in your applications now for this cute little bugger!  As far as bath time, Mocha was the worst.  I like to wash the little dogs in my kitchen sink rather than the bathtub so I don't have to bend over.  Well, next time I will be giving Mocha a bath in the tub where he can't escape.  He was NOT a happy camper about getting wet.  He tried jumping out every which way, and I was struggling to hold him one handed (the other hand was trying to shampoo).  We did get him bathed however, and I was very excited to blow dry him because I was hoping he'd come out as a giant poofball.  He likes the blow drier the most out of the dogs, but unfortunately he did not get as poofy as I was dreaming about.  Just back to his normal level of poofyness.

 Mocha getting a bath.

Mocha claiming possession of one of the toys Rochester's Family brought.

P.S. Julie came over yesterday to take some new photos and videos of the pups for their PetFinder pages.  They turned out pretty well, so be sure to check those out!

Rochester has been Adopted!

Again!  I just got home from La Crosse, where his new family and I met up.  Rocky was so good on the drive up, he didn't try to jump in the front seat a single time!  He just curled up in the backseat and napped most of the way.  The drive home was pretty long and quiet though.  I can say that I did not cry this time, and if history is any indication...that means Rocky and his new family are a perfect match!  (Even if my crying doesn't have some sort of psychic prediction powers, I know that this family is his.)  So, Rocky now has a mom, dad, and a fluffy little sister!  I'm so excited for him and I can't wait to get updates!

Meet & Greet

Are you interested in meeting a Fluffy Dog?  Possibly one of my little buggers (Rosie or Shelby)?  There's a Meet & Greet this weekend, by appointment!

 
Meet the Fluffy Dogs

How: Complete an application on our How to Adopt page indicating the dog you are interested in and the time you are available to meet.  We will confirm your appointment by email. Please do not come if you do not receive a confirmation.
 
When: Sat. & Sun. Feb. 21th & 22th (My girls will not be available on the 21st, as I will be traveling to meet Rocky's new family!)

Who: Visit the Adoptable Dogs page to see who is available for meeting!

Where: Tail Waggin' Doggy Daycare
647 Industrial Ct., Hartland
262-369-8252

Rochester, Rosie, Shelby, & Mocha

I'd like to start off this post by giving a housebreaking update.  As a household, we are doing fabulously.  Rocky is still going strong, no accidents to report.  Rosie has significantly improved.  She's back ringing the bells again.  Between that and me keeping an eye on her at all times, we very rarely have any accidents in the house.  I don't recall if I've ever said anything about Shelby's housebreaking.  She is definitely not housebroken because she never lets me know when she needs to go outside, but she will go out every time I let any of the dogs out, so she never has accidents in the house.  Mocha is my troublemaker.  He doesn't let me know when he needs to go out, but he will go out about 50% of the time I let the other dogs out.  I will witness him do his business outside, then 2 minutes later he'll come inside and pee on something.  He never just pees on the floor...it's always on something...the vacuum, the leg of a chair, an exercise ball.  Those darn small dogs are so difficult to train!  But I still have a few weeks guaranteed with him, so I won't quite trying.

This past week was grooming week.  Everyone was brushed, had their hair trimmed where needed, and got nail trims.  Well, everyone who let me.  Mocha only got brushed.  He still doesn't like his face being touched, so I can't finish cleaning up around his eyes.  I also discovered that he is not a happy camper about getting his nails trimmed.  I think I managed to get one nail before I just gave up on him.  Rocky and Rosie were both stars.  No complaints about any grooming issues with them.  Shelby was also a star, maybe even a super star.  I did accidentally trim one nail too far.  She didn't make a peep.  I didn't even notice until I shifted her to get to her back paws and saw that she was bleeding.  But she let me clean her up without any fuss.  She really is such an easy going dog.

Training: I'm working on "sit" with all the pups.  So far, I think Rosie is the only one who doesn't get it.  Mocha, Shelby, and Rocky will all sit on command 100% of the time with a little treat motivation.  When I don't use treats,Rocky is still very good, and Mocha and Shelby are at about 75% of the time.  I'm very proud of all of them.  I like to give them treats when they come in from outside (dual purpose: they are more likely to let me know they want to go outside and it gives me a chance to make them sit for a treat), so they get plenty of practice every day.

No pictures this week as between my day job, craft work, grooming, and the cold I didn't manage any good ones.  But I promise if you adopt one of these furballs, you won't need to wait another week for my pictures...you can take as many of your own as you want!

Rochester, Rosie, Shelby, & Mocha

There are 5 dogs in my house.  I'm not going crazy yet, but I fear I don't have long.  Someone help me out by adopting a dog (or 3!).

As you may have read in my previous post, Rocky is back and is better than ever.  His short stint in an adoptive home really seemed to have helped his shyness toward new people.  There's a silver lining in everything!  He's doing extremely well back with me.  He's stopped marking his territory now, so that helps my sanity the most.  He's having a ton of fun playing with Shelby and Rosie, so he's not even being super needy with me.  He still has his moments where he feels he needs to have a paw on my shoulder, but it's not as often as it was a couple weeks ago.

Rocky found his comfy spot on the couch.

Update: Well that didn't take long!

Rosie loves having Rocky back.  Sure, she enjoys playing with Shelby, but now she has two buddies! Those three run around the house like crazy.  In fact, as I'm writing this they are chasing each other all over the place.  If this continues all day, I'll surely get a good nights sleep!  :-)  Rosie is getting better with her housebreaking.  She seems to not be ringing the bells anymore, but she does go sit by the back door when she wants to go out.  I'm also getting better at noticing her signs, and she's a very good listener when I jump up and say it's time to go outside.  When I open the door, she's always the first one out.  She does her business, then hangs out until I call the dogs back in...and she comes running back inside.  No arguments from this girl!

BOOP!

Doesn't this remind you of one of those 90's Glamour Shots poses?

Shelby is finally warming up to me!  Almost exactly 2 weeks after I brought her home, she finally felt comfortable enough to crawl into my lap last night.  She was so cute I just wanted to cuddle her...but didn't for fear of scaring her off.  While she was there, I combed her hair.  It wasn't tangled, but it just needed a brushing.  She was very good about it.  Then I also noticed she had 2 pieces of hair in her eyes, so I trimmed those.  She didn't mind at all.  And now I can see her beautiful eyeballs all the time.  As a related side note to potential adopters...Shelby has permanent puppy dog face.  So she will probably get everything she wants from you.

Playing tug-of-war with Hardy.

Permanent puppy dog eyes.

Mocha is doing well this week, after his heartworm shots.  The vets loved him, and all said how cute he was.  I'm not having too tough a time keeping him calm.  The one issue he has is with Rocky. Their dominant male personalities just don't go together.  Well, Rocky doesn't mind him so much (probably knows he's 20x Mocha's size and could kick his little butt in a fight), but Mocha does not like Rocky even a little bit.  So any time Rocky gets too close, Mocha growls and stands up.  That's the only real time I have to calm him down.  And fortunately for me, Rocky is a good listener, so I just tell him to go stand somewhere else and he walks away.  Mocha has really gotten more comfortable with me over the last week.  He has no problem laying in my lap now, and even prefers it over laying next to me.  I do comb Mocha's hair as often as I can, because he's such a fluff ball.  He doesn't mind it, unless we find a tangle.  Then he gets (rightfully) upset.  He also does not like his face to be touched.  I like to clean the dogs' eye boogers every night, but it's a real struggle with Mocha.  He also has really long hair that blocks his beautiful eyes, so I'm in the process of trying to cut it.  I think I have one eye fairly cleaned up, but we're still working on the other one.

Mocha the champ after his heartworm shots.

I needed to keep Mocha from playing while I did some house cleaning.

Three of my cuddle bugs (Rosie, Shelby, and Mocha)

Meet & Greet

Are you interested in  meeting a Fluffy Dog?  Possibly one of my little buggers (Rochester, Rosie, or Shelby)?  There's a Meet & Greet this weekend, by appointment!

 
Meet the Fluffy Dogs

How: Complete an application on our How to Adopt page indicating the dog you are interested in and the time you are available to meet.  We will confirm your appointment by email. Please do not come if you do not receive a confirmation.
 
When: Sat. & Sun. Feb. 7th & 8th,  Noon until 2pm

Who: Visit the Adoptable Dogs page to see who is available for meeting!

Where: Tail Waggin' Doggy Daycare
647 Industrial Ct., Hartland
262-369-8252

Bringing a New Dog Home

Due to some recent events, it's become clear to me that some people don't understand how long it takes a dog to become comfortable in his new home.  So I have posted a couple links on the sidebar which give very good advice on how to work with your new dog to make him as comfortable as possible, as quickly as possible.  Every dog is going to acclimate at a different pace.  Some dogs may meet you and immediately be your best friend.  Other dogs may take a day or two, yet other dogs may take weeks.  And while the dog is getting used to his new surroundings and his new family, he's probably not going to appear to be as trained as his former home may say he is.  A) he's nervous and B) he's testing his boundaries.  Pay extra attention to your dog the first few days after you bring him home.  When I bring home a new foster, I leave their leash on them for at least 24 hours and wherever I go, they go.  This keeps them within eyesight so I know exactly when they might have an accident or I know exactly when they start to chew on something they shouldn't.  This immediately shows them that I am the alpha and I set the boundaries.

Are all the dogs I foster trained by the time they are adopted and leave my house?  Absolutely not.  There are dogs that go through my care so quickly, I don't even think they're fully comfortable with me yet by the time they leave, much less learn commands.  There are some dogs that no matter how much I try, they just don't seem to understand.  Some dogs pick up commands more quickly than others and some of them might have had training prior to entering the foster organization.  This all affects what they learn while they're with me.  I work with all the fosters every single day on crate training, house breaking, sit, and down.  Leash training is less consistent because of the winter weather.  I keep the definitive guides updated with what each dog knows and is working on.  I have no reason or desire to lie about training, and if I think one of them is trained and I realize later is not, I will update the guide to the correct status (if you recall, I recently did this with Rosie's house breaking status).

I am not doing this to get as many dogs as possible adopted.  There is no goal or quota that I am trying to meet.  If that was the case, I'd say all my fosters are perfect and would list every one of them as 100% trained.  That would just result in a lot of unhappy dogs and families.  I do this because I want these dogs to find their perfect family.  And a perfect family for one dog might not be a perfect family for another.  I am 100% honest in my posts about these dogs, and I am happy to answer any questions (before or after adoption) that anyone has.  Just remember, if you adopt a dog that I have claimed is house broken, or knows to sit on command...give him time to acclimate to his new surroundings before you say he isn't trained.

As a related side note - I took some video of Rochester this morning doing sit on command with no treat motivation.  I posted it in his definitive guide.  Check it out!

Rocky's Back!

Yes, you heard that correctly!  My Rocky-bear is back and available for adoption!  This is not a case of a bad dog or a bad family, they just weren't right for each other.  I stand behind Rocky 100% as a great dog and to the right family he will be amazing.

I had a friend over when Rocky came back last night, and I had warned him ahead of time that Rocky is a growler but that he wouldn't hurt a fly.  Well Rocky must have known I said that and set out to prove me a liar...he didn't growl or bark a single time, and even went up to my friend within minutes to get his head pet.  I was honestly in shock.  I had never seen Rocky do that, even with me.  So maybe this experience has brought him out of his shell even more.

We're currently in a little bit of a territory marking dispute.  Mocha vs Rocky.  I'll give it another day or two tops before that settles down.  I'm also going to have to remind him to let me know when he needs to go outside.  Rocky seemed to forget that last night, but if I called him to come outside he still goes with no problems.

As far as getting along with Mocha and Shelby (he had spent about a week with Rosie prior to leaving), so far it's going pretty well.  It was questionable last night, as those two are very in your face and that's not the type of dog Rocky is.  But as of this morning, they were all playing together.

So I think that's all I have to say for now...If you notice, I now have 5 dogs (4 fosters and Hardy)...so for the sake of my sanity...someone please adopt one!

Rosie, Shelby, and Mocha

What a wonderful week!  For having 3 relatively new dogs in the house, it's been pretty easy going.  There has been some drama in my foster world this week, but nothing I can't deal with.  It may lead to some good news too, so stay tuned!

Miss Rosie has been with me for about 3 weeks now, and she is finally starting to come out of her shell with me (thanks in part to Shelby).  I have discovered that she is not fully housebroken (definitive guide has been fixed).  Rosie does this thing where she'll pee a little bit, walk around, then pee some more.  Well, I had been discovering little pee spots in the house and I was attributing them to Ellie Mae.  I thought it was strange that they continued to show up after Ellie left...so I connected the dots and realized it was Rosie all along.  (Apologies to Ellie for thinking she was having accidents those last couple days!)  This doesn't change the fact that Rosie does still ring the bells on occasion.  Sometimes I think she either forgets or doesn't make it in time.  Either way, we're working on it, and the last couple days have gone very well.  Rosie has been much more cuddly with me lately.  While she's never really had an issue laying by me, now it seems more like she does it because she wants to be near me rather than doing it because I'm safe.  One negative about Rosie: the last week she's started to bark in the morning.  Granted, it's only after my alarm goes off, so I really should be up anyway.  But she wasn't doing it before, so it's something I'm trying to figure out.

Rosie, looking regal.

Miss Shelby sure has a personality on her.  She loves to play play play.  She will occasionally break long enough to let me pet her.  But then it's right back to playing.  I really have to give her props too, she's the only foster I've had who has gotten Hardy to play.  90% of the time she's playing with Rosie, I assume because they're both relatively young and similar sizes.  But she does play with Mocha and Hardy when Rosie is resting.  One of my favorite things to watch is when Hardy grabs a squeaky toy and lays on the dog bed, Shelby will just walk over and grab it.  Rosie will be interested, so she'll walk over to Shelby, Shelby will drop the toy and start playing with Rosie, Hardy will sneak in and grab the toy and go lay back on the dog bed.  Shelby will see this, stop playing, and go grab the toy.  Then it starts all over again.

Hi mom, I'm adorable!

TAKE A PICTURE OF MEEEEE!

Ok mom, that's enough pictures.

Mr. Mocha is a doll.  He is such a laid back dog.  He spends most of his time just chillin', watching what's going on around him.  While Shelby and Rosie are on the floor wrestling, Mocha will take a nap on a pillow or on the couch.  He occasionally hops down, grabs a toy (he likes the biggest rope toy I have for some strange reason), and hops back up.  As of Thursday morning, he has started to get more comfortable with me.  He actually crawled into my lap and laid down while I was eating my breakfast.  Sure, maybe he just wanted to be close the the dish in case I spilled, but I like to think he wanted to cuddle.  One thing about Mocha is that he is heartworm positive.  It's not good news at all, but I have to be honest and say I'm excited I get to have him around for another month.

I'm cute and tiny and I love to climb!

Look how fast I can run!