3/21/10 Last night Nancy brought me my new foster. She is a REALLY NICE Red Merle with copper trim, Purebred (well bred), little girl, with a split face, her left eye is brown and her right eye is half brown/half blue. She's the right size for a female aussie, she's 19 inches at the shoulder and about 35-40 lbs, but she's a little (just a smidge) heavy. Her coat is AWESOME!!! super soft and nice bone structure. Only "confirmation" flaw I see is her ears are set higher then the breed standard states (actually set more like Sheltie ears). Oh well, so she's not quite perfect! LOL
She seems to have lived in a house before and knew what "outside" meant. She also knows Sit but so far that seems to be it on "obedience" training. She loves the couch and bed, snuggled with us a little while last night, then went to sleep in her kennel. Nice and quiet all night. She didn't make a peep until she heard me get up this morning then whimpered a little.
She came to me without a name, so we got to give her one. After hanging out last night and now this morning I've decided that she is definitely a SPICE GIRL, sporty, punky, full of energy and BEAUTIFUL! She's a little bit dominant, and is showing Cache who's the boss this morning, and she is VERY HERDY! Already she's "gripped" Cache's rear end twice while he was playing "keep away" with his favorite toy. She didn't want the toy at all, just wanted him to move, he didn't so she "gripped" him. I honestly don't think Cache even knew it, but I saw it. She also constantly circles him.
Spice is high energy for sure, but doesn't have any toy drive so far. Cache has been playing with his toy and she has shown zero desire to take it and play with it. The squeek gets her attention, but that's about it. She has played with Cache a little this morning, it goes from play to a little aggressive, but I can call her off with little to no effort if I need to.With her being as herdy as she is I would not recommend a home with kids under 10 years old or with cats. I'm going to test her with my neighbors kids and cats just to make sure I'm on the right track with that, but I really don't think it would be a good match.
I also have a friend that goes herding a lot, I'm going to see if I can join her with Spice one of these days and see what she does with the sheepies :)
NEWS FLASH!!! Spice just sat at the door and whined to go out, and she went potty immediately! :) YEAH ANOTHER HOUSE TRAINED DOGGIE!!!!
3/24/10 just a quick update. Spice went to the vet yesterday to be spayed and have her teeth cleaned. She left in the morning with some of the worst teeth I've seen, and came back with sparkling pearly whites! I never expected to see such an amazing transformation :) She wasn't in the mood to eat last night and just layed around relaxing for the evening. This morning she ate her breakfast and seemed to be feeling better although still not interested in doing much moving around. I gave her the antibiotic (500mg of Ceph) this morning after breakfast, not knowing how she'd do with me shoving a pill down her throat, but she was fine, just toss it in and hold her mouth closed, she swallowed it easily.
If Spice is still with me come April 25th, I'll be taking her up to Pine City for a herding day :) and starting next Tuesday I'll be taking her to the Basic Obedience class at WatersEdge in Buffalo. Of course she'll also be tagging along with me to my Rally class on Monday's with Cache.
I'll keep everyone updated on how she's doing, we do have a few issues to work on, mostly "high drive" dog issues, but for the most part she's just an angel to have around.
3/29/10 I took Spice with me to my parents house yesterday afternoon. The drive over was great, she's just awesome in the car, lays on the seat, looks out the window, perfect behavior. When we got to Mom and Dad's I put her on a 40' long line so she'd have a lot a room to run and I could watch her behavior from a distance. When she heard the neighbor dogs barking she barked back but quieted down when I told her to with only a few protesting woofs. She saw some people riding their horses down the road and shot to the end of the 40' line trying to get to them, after hitting the end of the line she paced back and forth barking at them. I had to reel her in like a MUSKY just to get her to come back to me and then hold her mouth shut so she couldn't bark until they were out of site.While we were hanging out walking around my parents huge (2.5 acres) yard a rabbit burst out of the bushes, her first instinct was CHASE! again she about pulled me off my feet after hitting the end of the line in a split second...the rabbit was thankfully just out of reach the whole time! After the rabbit vanished from site it took me a good 10 minutes to get her to forget about it and calm down...we went back into the house and hung out for a few minutes then back in the truck and on our way home.
Based on her reactions to all the activity yesterday, especially to the horses and rabbit, she will need a fully fenced (NOT invisible fencing) yard in a home without small animals. However, if you are being invaded by squirls this could be your girl, she'll definitely keep them out of the yard LOL I really do think she has all the herding insticts that I suspect she has and can't wait to take her herding :) it's going to be a blast!4/17/10 Spice has started her Basic Obedience class at Waters Edge, she already walked great on the leash and knows sit, but we're working on a better Heal, Swing Finish, U-Turns, About Turns, Down, Stay and Come, it's also helping her with her social skills. I've also taught her to shake hands and other hand which she now does automatically when the treats come out :)
In the last few weeks Spice has also learned the joy of playing with rope toys! She and Cache will play tug and she'll whip the toys around "thwaping" (no better term for it LOL) herself when she's playing alone. I'm seeing less and less agitation from her with Cache now too, and they are actually playing like maniacs. I love seeing the progress of foster dogs in this aspect, initially snarky and now buds, it's a great thing!
Earlier this last week the yard guys came to do "spring cleaning" and they unhooked my dog chains from the steak in the yard. We didn't notice this when we let the dogs out and within seconds Spice figured out she wasn't attached and took off! We chased her down and caught up to her when she came upon another dog, that dog wanted to play, Spice not so much, but it gave us time to grab her and get her home. Yet another reason that she will only be adopted out to a family that has a securely fenced in yard, even though she is a good girl in the house, she gets a little rowdy outside. She will also not be a good canidet for taking with to the dog park or walking off leash in the woods/trails.
I don't want to end on a bad note with her, she's just too great of girl to have that be last thing I say, so I'm also very pleased to announce that she is no longer kenneled at night or when we are gone! She is so good in the house that we have decided to let her stay out all the time (except for breakfast and dinner times). She waits for me to get into bed at night and as soon as I say OK she jumps up and snuggles in for the night right next to me :) She's such a lover!
Oh! this morning I gave both dogs a good brushing again and decided it was time for their "Paw-dicures" which I hadn't done for Spice yet since she's been here. I worked on Cache and let her watch me which I do with all the fosters, for some reason this seems to really help, Cache is totally relaxed and just sits there with no fuss and I think it sets the tone for the new kids too. So, I went to clip her nails, no problem she just sat and relaxed, then scissoring the wild hairs on her feet, also no problem, then the clippers to clean out the hair in her pads, she didn't like it too much, I think it tickles them for the most part, she tried to pull her paw away, but after I told her to stop it she was great, just layed there and let me finish :) She really is such a good girl!
4/25/10 I took Spice Girl herding this morning. Kim, the instructor thinks she's been allowed to "chase" live stock at some point, but hasn't ever been offically herding prior to today. Spice was a good girl, she did better then I expected her to, and Kim said she has potential as a herding dog. I took some video of her on the sheep, and I will be taking her back to Kim's next weekend to the "Herding Fun Day" for round two.
I'm having troubles uploading the video to my blog, so here is the link to it on my YouTube page:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwwbfePSOcs
5/9/10 Where do I start? Well, I took Spice to the herding fun day on 5/2, along with Cache and my friend Amanda and her dog Lanie. We left the dogs in the back of the truck which has a topper on it, and somehow this sneaky little girl managed to open and escape twice! while we were watching the demo's and the other dogs working sheep. Both times she was quickly caught and put back in the truck but we're not quite sure how she got out. Finally after an almost 3rd escape, another UMASC member let me put her in an extra kennel that she brought with her in her van for the rest of the day :)
When it was Spice's turn to see the sheep she did good, but there was probably close to 30 people standing around, talking and watching, and Spice is such a social butterfly that she was almost more interested in visiting then chasing the sheepies. I have a short video clip (actually Amanda has it) that I'll be trying to either upload here or I'll put it on my YouTube page again for all to see.
Spice has 2 more weeks of Basic Obedience class left at WatersEdge, she's doing really good on the Healing, About Turns (I turn to the Right go back the way we came), her Sit's are perfect and fast!, she doesn't like to Down without a treat, but with a treat she lays Down nicely, her Stays (both Sit and Down) are getting really good, even with squeeky toys, laser pointers, balls rolling past her...yes, Dan is EVIL LOL...and she has learned to Stand although we're still working on Stand and Stay :) Once we are officially done with Basic Obedience I will be taking her with me to actually partake in Rally class on Monday nights just to keep her going on her training.
I really need to get video of her "Talking" to me, she does it all the time and I still haven't figured out what exactly she wants. She just sits here, stares at me and starts to tell me stories (she's doing it right now!) it's super cute and keeps me laughing :)
She got to meet my neighbors kids, James and David were a little too much energy for her to take, she almost nipped them while they were running around and screaming (like little kids do), but Mary (she's 11) was fine. Mary is my little dog trainer in training, she likes to come over and help me teach the dogs new things and when I say to do or don't do something she listens to me.
I've also taught Spice to Wait, so when I go to put the dogs outside, I have her sit next to the door, I tell her Wait, put the chain on her, and she doesn't actually go outside until I say OK. She's about 95% on this one, but I do have 2 men that live with me that aren't exactly "dog trainers" although they try to keep what I do consistant :)
That's all I got for now, stay tuned for more updates and pictures as I'll be continuing to work with her until the right forever home can be found!
I am looking to adopt an Australian Shephard, and Spice sounds very cool, my only concern is the cats. We have a small hobby farm, with horses, and are looking for a dog to go trail riding and such with us. we have barn cats, but also a house cat, and since I would like to have Spice indoors and Outdoors with me, it is a concern. I was wondering what she actually does around cats.
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