Trying to Earn His Stars

A lot has been going on lately at "Chateau Wooferdog." Rufus and Amelia keep on growing; they're now 19 months old, and still have a long way to go. Especially Rufus, who has become increasingly wary of strangers over the past few months. It's something that I have worried about for quite some time, since Buster's distemper left Rufus quarantined for three of the most important months for socialization.

Yesterday, he barked at a boy who asked if he could pet him. I told him he wasn't feeling good that day, so we'd have to sit for a minute and see if he felt like it. While we talked, he pointed out the "ranger badge" stars on Rufus' collar and asked what they were there for.

I told him, "Well, Rufus has always wanted to take care of people, and keep bad guys away. So I figured he'd like a sheriff's star on his collar."

Once Rufus had calmed down a little (there was a soccer game going on as well), the little boy got a high-five from him and a "kiss" on the forehead by way of apology. After giving him a treat and petting him, the boy got up to go. "So," he asked, "When he grows up, do you think he'll catch bad guys?"

I shook my head. "Probably not. But I'd like it if he got to help people who needed it."

The boy smiled and waved before he left. "I think he'd be good at that."

Rufus has a long way to go, and a lot of manners to work on, but I'd love to see him grow into a friendly, outgoing and happy dog. More than anything else, I want that for him.
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Crowded House

Mia, Rufus, Jasper and Amelia

Mia and Jasper are still here and both have some personality issues (extreme shyness/fear of new situations) that are going to make it very hard to rehome them. Mia is so terrified of leaving her territory she actually poops on herself if we try to take her anywhere. She will go for walks but if there are too many other people around, she tries to run away and hide. She'd be great for a reclusive person who doesn't want to have to walk a dog, though. Just give her a doggie door to the back yard and another dog to play with and she's fine.

Jasper is a big old love-a-lump and so patient with Rufus constantly jumping on him, humping him, pulling on his ears, etc. But he also has a major prey drive, so we've had to rehome one of our cats and he turns into a snarling beast when someone comes up to the back fence, even if we're there telling him "It's all right! Quiet!" He also anchors himself to the floor if we try to take him for a walk by himself. Like Mia, he only wants to go if the other dogs are going. He'd be another candidate for a lazy owner. He's not real energetic, although he does like a good run around the backyard with the other dogs.

Rufus especially seems anxious with all the other dogs around. He eats slowly and we frequently have to keep the other dogs away from his bowl so he can finish eating. He's also not used to having his toys and bones constantly taken. And having to share Mom and Dad and the bed, NOT COOL.

So we reaaaally hope we can rehome Jasper and Mia soon.

Oh! Before I forget: August Dog Rescue is dissolving, so Jasper and Mia will be available from the Collin County Humane Society (we're still fostering, but for CCHS now). Still, for the next couple of weeks, I think they'll be on the ADR Petfinder page. If you're interested in a homebody, low-maintenance dog, let us know and we'll put you in touch with whichever organization is handling it at the time.

Spread the word and help us all out! :D

Happy Birthday, Rufus!

Mr. Cornchip is one year old today! Actually, both he and Emmy celebrate a birthday today, based on the shelter's estimated date of birth for them both. We celebrated with new squeaky balls, yummy treats and a trip to the dog park with our friend Christy and two of her four dogs; a male greyhound and a female pit. There was much running around, wrestling, fetching and sniffing all around with these dogs as well as a host of various other dogs. They played for over two hours before we finally called it a day and took them home. Right now they are deeply asleep all over the futon. Rufus is lying across my shin quite painfully, at the moment.
Each visit to the dog park gives our pups a better grip on socialization and I think it's helped Rufus become less of a brat and more of a "serious dog." Amelia's a regular little referee: if two dogs go after each other, she gets in and separates them, completely fearless and focused. She's so fearless and forgiving. Yesterday, a female pit attacked Mia (she's fine) and then turned on Amelia. Today, they played together like nothing ever happened. Dogs are like kids, they have good days and grumpy days, but playtime makes everything better.
Rufus surprised us as well. Today during a brief fracas, Tim commanded Rufus "Down!" and the little fart actually obeyed at once, lying down on the grass next to us. He's enjoying Mia's salacious attention: she cleans his teeth for him! However, one thing she stands firm on: the rawhide chewies are HERS. She doesn't care about any other toy or item, but woe betide the dog who tries to take away her rawhide chewy.

Our favorite things: Sticks and Squeaky Toys

Rufus has done so much maturing in just the past few weeks. Being around a variety of other dogs and people has been beneficial to us all and although I have always adored my dogs, I'm getting a much deeper respect for their resilience and intelligence. My dogs are very good dogs.

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Merry Christmas!

Well, we had planned to (grudgingly) leave Rufus and Amelia in charge of the house, and head up to see Sophie's family for the holidays. The first "white Christmas" Texas has seen in many years intervened, however - shutting down parts of both highways we'd have to traverse. (Note: It wasn't a lot of snow, but we got a huge amount of freezing rain, which sheathed many of the major roads here in ice. Better safe than sorry, I guess.)

So it's a quiet, wintry day at home with the dogs and cats for us. Which suits us quite well. Rufus and Amelia got to romp around in their first snowfall today, including chasing squirrels early in the morning for Ammie and the largest ice-cubes Rufus has ever owned. It's all melting away to mud and sludge at this point, but it was grand while it lasted.

In other news, our decade-old Olympus C-5060 camera has finally died. Since we can't come close to affording a digital SLR (which is what I ultimately want, camera-hound that I am), we've opted for a Canon PowerShot SX120 in the interim. Hopefully, it won't take long to get the hang of using the new camera, but I apologize for any major lags in photographic quality.

Other than that, we wish you, your families and friends all a wonderful and loving holiday season. May your days be merry and bright, and may your nights be warm, cozy and a bit fuzzy.
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Big scare

As I mentioned in a previous post, Rufus likes to grab Amelia by the collar and drag her around. Well, tonight he got ahold of it and somehow twisted it around his lower jaw so that he was stuck and she was choking. Tim and I had to hold them both still against their panicked thrashing and cut her collar loose enough that we could roll Rufus over and get them both free. Very scary for all of us as Amelia was running out of air and Rufus' teeth were wedged in there tight. Immediately after they were rescued, both sniffed and licked each others' face as if to say "Hey, no hard feelings."

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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Rufus Learns a New Tune

While working on checking my e-mail and uploading photos tonight, I've been infrequently (as is usual around our house nowadays) interrupted by Rufus diving out the back door in a burst of spontaneous barking.

Usually, he's just menacing one of our next-door neighbour's cats. Slowly, they're realizing that he's no threat, and hopefully Rufus is realizing that he doesn't have to bark at them (hope springs eternal). Other times, he's warning away an opossum or noisy dogs or neighbors down the street. He even tried to alert our neighbour when his fence blew down in a storm. But tonight was a bit different.

At first, I thought Buster was in trouble - I learned this morning that he "yodels" when he's excited. Heading through the house, however, I noted that it was definitely Rufus' voice I was hearing. As I neared the door, the nondistinct sounds coalesced into a "bark-bark-hooooowl," over and over. It was a sound I'd heard before and recognized, but never from Rufus.

I called to him, and he stopped to look at me. Faintly in the distance, I heard the siren of a fire truck echoing in a low, wailing howl. Rufus replied twice more, then followed me inside.

Since bringing Buster home, I've been seeing Rufus acting like an arrogant, bullying snot. He steals toys and randomly jostles, shoves and chews on the newcomer, seemingly oblivious to protestations and acquiescence. He blatantly disobeys Sophie and I, throwing temper tantrums and trying to get away with whatever he thinks he can.

But tonight, I saw the Rufus that we brought home and have been living with for the past six and a half months. The same dog that I hope he'll be again after he grows out of his rebellious teenage phase. It's the Rufus that I love, and am so proud of it makes my chest ache when I look at him.

As I said before, I recognized that howl. It's the sound a dog makes in reply to a slightly different-sounding howl; the one he thought the fire truck was baying. In rough translation, Rufus' reply was, "It's okay, don't be scared. You're not all alone out here."
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Enter the Buster...

Well, we brought Buster home and introduced him to Rufus. They laid into each other for about five long minutes before devolving into a game of tag. Rufus came out the top dog, although he doesn't realize that it's now unnecessary to remind Buster of the fact every ten minutes.

At one point today, I tried to teach Rufus to share his toys. I let him pick the one he wanted, then gave Buster the other one. Rufus would abandon his toy to steal Buster's, so I'd just pick it up where he dropped it and hand it to lil' Buster after he absconded with the other toy. This merry-go-round continued for quite some time...

They still argue, mostly because Rufus is rather dense when it comes to the "okay, you win" part. The rest of the time they get along really well, though; and the cats are quite happy now that Rufus has someone his own size to chase around.

Rufus found this face-pull hilarious: Me? Not so much, thanks.

Guard Dog

So, it was about 7:00 am a couple of days ago...

I should have been fast asleep. In fact, I was fast asleep. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I heard a sound that didn't fit in with the whole natural-for-7 o'clock-on-a-weekday-morning scenario, and my eyes snapped open. Before I could even lift my head from the pillow, I heard Rufus' now-familiar warning bark coming from the backyard. Then I heard the @#*&%(*& weedeater.

Apparently, the lawn guys that do my neighbor's yard have figured that the best way to beat the summer heat is to begin when the sun's not up yet.

I called to Rufus, closed our bedroom window, and headed for the back door. By that time, one of the lawn guys was wheeling an industrial mower into our neighbor's backyard, clearly amused by the knee-high ball of fur menacing him on the other side of the fence. I wouldn't have been smug, though; Rufus has no fear whatsoever of lawn mowers, and by his body language, was debating whether he ought to consider the fence optional. He'd only met my neighbor a couple of times, but he was sure this wasn't her, or her cats.

When he saw me come out the door, Rufus visibly straightened; his ears and tail flicked up as high as they could go, and he hopped back and forth excidedly. At this point, I was trying not to laugh - he was basically saying, "Yeah! You'd better stay over there, mister strange-guy, or me and my dad will straighten you out, but good!" Striding across the lawn, I tapped the Woofer gently on his shoulder. He stopped barking and glanced over at me.

"It's OK, Rufus. You did good." I nodded at him, then at the back door. Apparently, he wanted to impress the interlopers with how awesome a team we were, and he quietly ambled back into the house with me. Since he'd worked so hard, I gave him an early breakfast, closed the dog door (to block out the noise of course, *ahem*), and headed back to bed to try and get my last 30 minutes of rest for the day.
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Dog With a Mission!

(But without a clue...)

We've read in several books that dogs have more fun if they have a "job" to do (appropriate to their breed). With Rufus'... er, well-diversified bloodlines, there are quite a few tasks to choose from. Our relative distance from any substantial water-source (along with his odd fear of his wading pool) bumps him from dock-dog work, and there aren't any sheep or cattle nearby for us to (well, legally) herd. And Schutzhund is right out, until someone gets a lot better attention-span and discipline. Which leaves the sled dog in his husky genes, and the war dog in his shepherd blood. Hey, carrying stuff can't be too bad!

Thus the mental conversation in my head went at the local pet store, at least. The end result was that Rufus got his first official backpack! Now he can adventure with us in style, and feel like he's holding up his part of the work. Or at least holding a couple of his toys, some poop-scooping bags and a treat or two.

Although he frequently lapses into episodes where he thinks his backpack is some clever "solitaire-tug-of-war" toy, most of the time Rufus seems to really enjoy it. Once he's a little stronger, I might add some weight in the form of a couple of freezer-packs to keep him cool. Given the volume-to-weight ratio of water, though, I may be toting the refreshments for the forseeable future.

There's plenty of room for him to grow into his trusty backpack for now. If he keeps on enjoying it, I might trick it out with some fun "adventure dog" stuff. Looking at the basic pattern of it, I'm thinking that when the weather gets cool enough, I may have to try my hand at making him a suit of hundepanzer (dog armor) as well - if only for a photo shoot.

Happy Summer, 2009!

Rufus demonstrates what a calm, responsible dog he is deep down inside:

Hopefully, everyone is having as good a summer as he is.

How We Met Rufus

It was back in February of this year, February 19th to be exact, only a couple of weeks after Tim and I had begun our volunteerism at the Irving Animal Shelter. I (Sophie) had wandered to the back kennels where the small dogs and puppies are kept, and noticed this adorable little fluff ball curled up all sad and lonely in his kennel. Naturally I had to take him out for a cuddle, and L____, one of the staff who helps run the place, told me "That little guy needs to be fostered," and gave me a meaningful look. The puppy, whose kennel card read "Rufus," snuggled up and sighed against my shoulder.

Now, up to this point, I hadn't owned a dog before, save for a dog that my family owned (but I never really did much with) when I was a kid. I have always been rather cat-obsessed. Insanely cat-obsessed, to be honest. But I thought, Well, he's cute and he's so quiet and cuddly. It'll be fun! Tim and I had a brief conversation that consisted mostly of, "Well, I'm game if you are," and that evening we took our new foster puppy home.

He was only about five weeks at the most and as the reality of this tiny, helpless, noisy and poopy creature sank in, I began to freak out a little bit, like any new parent. We put him in a laundry basket with a heating pad, blankets and a soft toy or two and kept him next to the bed. He slept fitfully and I kept reaching down to soothe him. By the second night, he was sleeping between us. Yeah, we're suckers.

We also read online that we were supposed to be crate-training him, so we went and bought a wee little kennel. It was soft-sided and made for a great dog-carrying satchel. He still slept in the bed, though. We also began what was to become a four-month long saga of housebreaking. Again, the kennel was abandoned although we did get a kiddie yard-fence thing and set it up in the kitchen so that at least he was penned over the tile floor. It wasn't long before he could jump the pen side and so every homecoming was a game of "find the pee spot."

Rufus got the idea of going outside but he didn't seem to understand that we weren't telepathic. He would go to the back door and wait for us to notice him there. When we didn't, he just did his business right there. Needless to say, I got very good at keeping an ear out for the sound of him wandering around by the back door. (Getting a doggie door solved that problem in a day, but we didn't get that installed until May.)

But back to the early days: we were just fostering him, you know? A couple of weeks after we started taking care of him, I took up up to the shelter to let him play around with some of the other puppies. A lady and her husband were up there, having had to return a dog because their other dog, a female somethingorother, was too aggressive toward it. But the lady fell in love with Rufus and wanted to see if her dog would accept a male dog instead of a female. A few days later I brought Rufus over and we let our leashed dogs meet on the grass. Her dog sniffed him, he turned to play with her and she attacked him. I was so horrified I couldn't move for a minute. Luckily, she didn't hurt him and puppies are made of rubber, so he was fine, if frightened. Obviously that definitely didn't work out.

Our next attempt was with one of my co-workers and her boyfriend. They took him for a night and by 6 am the next morning, I had a message on my phone from a very tired sounding co-worker saying they just weren't ready for a puppy.

The third attempt was with my manager who absolutely fell in love with Rufus. She took him home for a couple of nights but her old cat was NOT having any of it and was actively menacing the dog. We took him back and then she gave it another try, thinking maybe she didn't give the pets long enough to call a truce, but again, no dice. She was really sad to have to give him back and I still bring him up to visit her at work when I can.

At this point, about 2 months had elapsed. We had neither crate-trained nor potty-trained our puppy, spoiled him by letting him sleep with us, and taught him some tricks. I told Tim, "Well, we've pretty much ruined him. I guess he's our dog now, huh?" Truth is, we loved the little punk, exasperating as he could be. Even our four cats had come to accept him, begrudgingly. I took him up to the shelter, had him microchipped and registered, and formally adopted him on April 6th.

One thing we did early on was try to rename him. We thought "Rufus" was a pretty goofy name so we called him "Mischka" for about a week. Tim pointed out that since his papers and his profile online said "Rufus," we should keep calling him that, so we did. Now he knows that as his name and frankly, its grown on us. Rufus the Doofus became Roofer, which has become Wooferpuppy. His formal name is Rufus P. Cornchiphead (or Cornchip Ears, owing to the shape of his ears in his puppyhood.) He was being an adorable brat one day, and I laughed at him and said "I love your stupid little cornchip ears," and that made Tim laugh and the nickname stuck.

The photo at the top of this entry is misleading. That was done in April. He's much bigger now and his stupid little ears are halfway standing up like chicken wings. Rufus P. ChickenHead just sounds rude, though, so we'll stick with the cornchips.

Rufus and "Mom"