Things Rufus has eaten

Numerous shoes
DVD remote control
Plush toys
"Indestructable" compressed rawhide chews (took less than an hour)
Wooden chair made by Tim's father
Wooden TV stand
Three bras
One pillowcase
Innumerable cardboard soda can boxes
The mail
Nearly new green shirt
(10/01) Plushie
Misc. cords (Amelia probably helped a lot with these)
kitchen sponge
Copy of Games magazine (found in shreds all over the backyard)
(10/6) Grey flannel pillowcase (which Tim turned into a braided tug toy)
Few dozen socks
(10/13) A silk/sequined bag and the vintage costume jewelry inside it (his turds must look FABULOUS!)
(10/15- busy day!) 5 of Sophie's tops, a mystery cord, two socks
(10/27) Sophie's pillow. Photo below:

(11/02) Sophie's pink woolen hoodie
(11/03) Sophie's grey hoodie shirt
Playstation controllers, as well as some games and CD cases
More books and an art print
Comforter
HUGE dog bed, brand new (He managed to unzip it, so at least the shell of it is intact.)
Another Games magazine

And that's just the stuff we know about. I'll add more as it is remembered or destroyed.

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Sibling Rivalry

Well, its about a week into this new pack formation and it's not going as smoothly as it did with Buster. Emmy's very protective of the resources: food, toys and affection, so she's been doing a fare share of menacing Rufus. He's a pretty good-natured fellow but he's having a hard time dealing with not getting his toys when he wants them and having to wait to eat until she's done. The weird thing is, we've tried separating them at mealtime and Rufus doesn't like that. He seems quite upset if we close a door between them, whether he's on the inside or she is. So, for now we'll just put out plenty of food and hope that once she's had her fill, she'll leave him alone to eat and that he'll stop moping and start eating.

As for the attention-whoring, she actually bolted over Tim who was laying on the futon between the dogs, petting them both. While we know we can't influence their pack order, we CAN demand good behavior. It's just trying to enforce manners and civility while allowing them to work things out on their own that's so stressful. It's also hard on us seeing Rufus bullied. He's smart, though, and it seems that about half the time he's baiting her to get her to chase him.

It's only been a week. Too early to be too concerned I think. She's just going to need a lot of training to learn how to live indoors with a pack that pays attention to her. It appears she may have been an outside dog, because she's peeing in the house, even next to the food bin (which is fortunately a plastic tub, so no contamination.) She's also peed in the hallway outside the bathroom. For now we've set up baby gates to keep her confined to the livingroom.

Rufus seems mopey sometimes. But he seemed mopey before we brought her home. I think we'll just have to wait and keep loving them both and trying to be good role models. I just don't want to lose the happy, confident boy that our Rufus has become.

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Lonely Dog

Over the past few weeks, Rufus has slowly become more and more destructive: a sure sign of boredom and frustration. I've personally lost my only black bra, two pairs of shoes (almost a third pair but I rescued them after losing only part of the heel,) a halter top, many empty soda boxes, pillowcases, a cat bed, a wooden chair, a tv tray, stuffed animals, and who knows what else we simply haven't found the remains of yet. He has also become very recalcitrant on his walks and we've had to cut short our last couple of forays and head back home after Rufus got too unruly and wild. At home, he'd get into everything, bully the cats, nip at us and run out back and bark in order to get us to go outside and see what was up, whereupon he'd try and start a game of chase-me chase-you. We were losing patience and sanity. Obviously there was only one solution.

We got another dog.

Her name is Amelia, but "Emmy" for short, and she's probably got some pit bull or mastiff or both in her. You may notice she looks a bit like Buster, but that's not the reason we chose her. She simply charmed us and had such a good, sweet, playful temperament that we were pretty sure she could keep up with Rufus without being bullied or being a bully to him. If you follow our "Shelter Diaries," you'll have already read about her and her pal Royce. Unfortunately, Royce is still at the shelter and on the urgent list. We'd have taken them both if not for the fact that we've got too many animals as it is.

Rufus is very happy with his new sister and hopefully, she'll be a good influence on him. We'll post photos and video later. In the meantime, here are a couple from her time at the shelter.

It's our first night together and I'm looking forward to seeing her become used to her new home and her new pack. Welcome, Amelia! We love you!

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Shower time

When Rufus was small enough to fit in the kitchen sink, that was where he got his baths. As he grew too big for that, I began simply taking him into the shower with me. It was never his favorite thing, and although he is always very good and patient, he is very happy to get out of there, shake water everywhere, and roll around on the carpet like a maniac.

He's caught on to the fact that, when it's shower time, I wait for him to follow me into the bathroom (which he always does, no matter what I'm up to) and then I close the door so he can't escape. Nowadays, he stops halfway into the bathroom until he knows it's safe to proceed. Thus, after a long muddy romp in the backyard, I had to trick him into coming all the way into the bathroom while still being able to close the door behind him. Not hard, just had to put something interesting on the lid of the toilet so he came over to investigate. Ha! He was trapped. As I started forward to take his collar off, he backed up, but then stopped and with a look of resignation, waited for me to remove it.

Now, at this point, what I have always had to do was lift him into the tub. He's about 50 lbs. of muscle and long, long legs, so it's not easy to do. After turning on the shower and setting it to a dog-friendly temperature, I decided to see if he'd get in on his own. I didn't think for a minute that he would, but it was a good stalling tactic while I braced myself to hoist him over the edge of the tub.

I looked at Rufus, then at the tub and said, "Get in."

And he DID!

He still doesn't enjoy taking a shower and he still can't wait to get out and roll around on the floors, attack the towels, etc, but it was so very heartening to see him willing to do something he didn't want to when there was no treat involved other than pleasing his "mom." He stood there so good under the water while I washed him, and waited for me to get clean too (he jumped on me with his muddy feet.)

I am very proud of my funny little dog. He still has a long way to go before he's no longer a bratty teenager, but this was a really awesome step in that direction.

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