Growing pains

I'm sorry, this is going to be a big whine-fest, so if you don't want to listen, just look at the picture of the pretty pony at the end and go on your way.  I promise, I won't be offended.

So we got this dog.  She's very cute.  And she's very happy to have a home.  She's very sweet.  She's also, well, a dog.  I have always avoided having a dog.  Kind of the same reason I don't have a large piece of property and do my own care for Violet.  I probably could have afforded it at one time (maybe not so much right this moment), but I didn't really want the responsibility.  I've enjoyed being able to go where I want to when I want to.

I think when I thought about us getting a dog, I kind of had imaginings of having this great companion that I could load up in the truck and take with me, to the barn, to friend's houses, to the beach, etc.  I'm not thinking this is that dog.  I have to remind myself this is the boy's dog, not mine.  It was a promise I made to him about 8 months ago.  When we get settled, he can have his dog.  And he is just as happy with her as could be.

Me, maybe not so much.  Maybe I should start from the beginning of the weekend.

So, we have some crating issues.  We bought a nice sized (not too big, not too small, just like all the training articles say) wire crate with double latched doors.  We put a nice fuzzy thick blanket in it, and some toys. Wednesday night, she cried and cried and cried after being put in the crate.  Thursday I put some treats in it and she actually went in the get them, but pretty much stayed away from it.  Thursday night there was some crying, but not too much.  I brought home the iPod and played Tchaikovsky's "Peter and the Wolf" for her on repeat and that seemed to help.  Friday morning I took her out and played a little bit before work and the boy was up, so she was happily napping with him watching the news when I left.

This would be the first crate.  Notice how the corner is busted wiiiiiide open.

Then I got a text that said that he put her in the crate to take a shower and when he came out she was happily laying on the couch, and that he tied the crate shut.  Fantastic.  I go home at lunch, where she greeted me in the kitchen.  She had destroyed the crate and chewed the leadrope that we were using as a leash to pieces, as that was what he tied the crate closed with.  But other than laying on the couch, she didn't really seem to do anything else.  I had nothing to bend the crate back and secure it so I had to leave her loose in the kitchen/living room.  And so I compulsed.  All day.  I left at 5 (early this time of year) and got home before the boy to find a very happy dog.  She had found a bag of roasted peanuts and tore the corner of the bag off, but didn't eat any.  She found the pretzels, but seemed only to smash those into the carpet.  She found a bag of training treats that she finished off.  Thing it, to get to those, she had to get up on the counter.  Like...walking around on the kitchen counter.  From there she appears to have run around on top of my brand new dining room table.  Where there is a scratch in the leaf.  My brand new table that I'm still paying off that I have used exactly twice.  And she peed on the floor.

And this would be what is left of my leadrope.

So now we know she cannot be loose in the house.  I won't put her in the bathroom, because I know she will eat through the door.  Can't put her in the garage because there's too much stuff.  So crate it is.  I hate it, she hates it, it's a joyful thing.

So Friday night date night is getting a new crate.  This time we chose to try the big plastic ones that look like a carry case, but oversized.  It's what I can afford, and the holes are small enough that she shouldn't be able to get her teeth in them.  I looked at ordering a heavy duty metal crate, but good lord, I am not spending $400-$800 on a metal box.

We are trying to prevent this.

Saturday I got up, let her out, fed her and put her back in the crate before leaving the house at 6 for my lesson.  When I got home, all was good, she was happy, Daddy was happy.  He went to work, I got dogsitting duty.  She was content to lay in the sun.  We played catch a lot.  We took a nap.  It was actually kind of nice.  Of course, I can't get caught up on my TV shows because the big cable box is in the den, where she is not allowed, so I have no choice.  Kind of being held a bit hostage here.

Sunday I was there with her on my own all day.  She was good in the beginning.  I left the door open and she could come and go outside as she wished.  We played catch some.  She's full of energy, so I was trying to keep her occupied.  She napped in the sun a bit. Then I went inside to go to the bathroom.  I come out and her collar is gone.  My yard is not that big.  She doesn't appear to be a digger, but just in case, I walked the yard over and over and over.  No collar.  Ok, we'll just go inside and get a bath.  She doesn't like it, but she tolerated it.  I walked the yard again, still no collar.  So now she can't be outside unattended.

Before she made the collar mysteriously go POOF

Then, last night whilst talking to my mother on the phone, Roxy decided she should climb the chainlink fence to get to the wood stockade fence behind it that is blocking her access to the little yippy dog across the back.  She's never seen this dog, but apparently, it must be saying some fantastic things, because she sure wants to.  So while I'm on the phone with my mother, I call out "oh no you don't, you little shit!" and have to haul her 55 pound butt off the fence and in the house.

This is not good.  Understand, I am 43.  My mother is 70.  In our history, we had exactly 2 dogs, and they lived in the yard.  We are not dog people.  We are cat people.  On top of that, my mother is going through this "if you do not choose to drop everything and come here and spend all your spare time with me, then I see where your priorities are, and they are not me" thing, since I got engaged.  It's truly been very trying, because I'm the "good kid", but we can get to that story another day.  Her reaction to "we got a dog" is that means I will never be able to come see her again because I am now tied to the house, and she sees where she stands...

Then of course she adds on the whole thing that we don't give up pets in our family.  And that is true.  Once you get a pet, they are part of the family forever.  This is the part I struggle with.  There is no way I can handle a destructive dog that will not stay in the confines of the yard.  It still remains to be seen how she really is with other dogs, but as of right now, I cannot see taking her anywhere.  At the same time, she is a love.  She's so sweet with us.  She is one big wagging tail, and seems to be full of such joy when she's playing.  And likes nothing better than laying across your lap on the floor at the end of the day.  And she makes her daddy happy.

So I would say we are having growing pains.  Except I'm the only one that seems to be in any pain...

Because this is supposed to be a horse blog, and she's the cutest redhead ever.  And so very happy.

A New Addition

Over Valentine's weekend, my SO finally got me to cave and go to the Humane Society to look at dogs.  "We can just look."  Cause, you know, I'm a cat girl.  Never had a house-dog before.

Yeah, so you know how that always turns out.

They had a promotion going on.  $14 adoption fees.  It was the end of the weekend.  Not much was left.  What I did discover is that 95% of the dogs there are pit mixes, because the others get adopted.  Now, I have no problem with them, I know some fantastic ones that are the biggest babies anyone has ever known.  And I also know the struggles the owners have in that they are truly a misunderstood breed.

He fell in love with one named Anya.  Bright brindle and white, sweet girl who wagged her tail at anything that moved.  We went back and took her out.  She took to me. This was not a good thing, as she thought that meant she could leap on me from behind me on the bench.  And she was 60 pounds of pure muscle.  Then she started playing with the boy.  And she played with teeth.  Not saying she bit, because she didn't.  But her first reaction to playing was to open her mouth, and I don't like that in any dog.

So Anya went back into her kennel.  Sweet girl who needs a home with another large dog and plenty of room to run to expend some of that energy.

So we went back the next weekend, because the boy just wanted to double check.  We walked the runs again, and this time he wanted to see Anya again, a similarly colored male named Roberto, and a plainer, slighter, darker one named Roxanne.

Roberto came first.  He was a sweet boy.  Has been in the shelter for quite some time and has some hair loss issues (he had mites), but seemed to be low energy and calm.  He also seemed to give not one fuck about either the boy or I.  So, sweet boy, not quite the one.

We tried Anya again, same issues and she went back to her place.

Then came Roxanne.  Like I said, slighter of build, although just as muscle-y, and another quiet one.  But she came up to me and put her head in my lap for some scratches.  Then she hopped up on the bench next to the boy and sat leaning on him.  Just sat there.  Um, yeah, you've been chosen.

I did not plan on having a dog.  Not a dog that I could not easily take to the barn (she wants to play with the little dogs, and there may have been a problem in the past with treat aggression between her and a former foster's dog.)  Not a dog that isn't at least kind of fluffy.  Not a dog this soon (I thought maybe we would get married first.  Or he would be more settled in his job.)  And not a dog that I will have to tell my mother is a pit-mix.  Because she does not get it.

But we had been chosen.

So we began the chore of gathering up all the stuff we did not have.  The boy had some toys from a former dog, but that's it.  Crate? check.  Doggy bed? check.  Gates to keep her off my brand new, horrifically expensive couch? check.  Bowls? check.  And understanding with the boy that this is HIS dog?  Check?

Wednesday we went and picked her up.

Meet Roxanne ("Roxy")

She hopped right in the truck, happy to be going somewhere.  She mostly just sat on the seat and looked out the windows.  Only tried to get on the center console once, but listened when told no.  We took her a walk around the block immediately at the house, where she pooped (Had my bag, yay me!).  She pulls and the boy does not know how to correct that.  I've done some reading, and it seems you do the same thing for that you would do for horses, STOP.  Let them pull against themselves, and they will realize that if they pull, they don't get to go anywhere.  We will be having some obedience lessons in the future, but for now, that seems to be working.  I'm sure there will be plenty of posts about how we have no idea what we are doing.

Roxy and her daddy, bonding.

We got to the house, where she got a drink of water, and we both sat on the floor in the living room with her.  All she wanted to do was lay between the two of us.  After about an hour, I said something about how I wished she would go get in that expensive bed I bought.  About 5 minutes later, she did.  And there she stayed until bedtime.  

She loves her bed.

We put her in her crate, which she was not too happy about.  She cried.  We closed the door (she is not allowed in the bedroom area of the house.)  Both of us tossed and turned all night, worrying about her.

In the morning, she was fine and wiggling from front to back with happiness to see me.  I took her out, got her breakfast, and we sat together while I ate my cereal.  The boy got up and stayed with her all day since he was off.  They played some, but he wasn't feeling well, so not too much.  I played ball with her when I got home.  Then she slept a lot of the evening.

She pulled her blanket out of the crate for a comfy place to lay while we were getting dinner ready.

She went back in the crate with no issue last night.  I left Tchaikovski's "Peter and the Wolf" playing on repeat to keep her company, which she seemed to enjoy.  We heard not a peep.  She was happy to see me in the morning, and we went outside after breakfast and played catch and met the neighbor puppies.  She really is a good girl: house trained, loves people, doesn't bark hardly at all.  And she's really cute.

Dis be her "Lab" ear

She shape of that melon, though, is undeniably pit

She and Daddy watching the debate

Pretty girl is happy to have found her family.

So that is how I ended up with a pitty pup.  Not something I planned, but she's ours now.  Welcome to the family Roxy-girl.

Oh, and in honor of finding our girl, I went ahead and paid Anya's adoption fee.  She will be a good dog for someone, just not us.

Rocking Horse Winter II: Part II

The second half of the day on Saturday was spent judging the Prelim divisions.  I got the opportunity to judge the skinny one stride combo called "the Palisades".  I had seen both Melissa and Marcy school through this before and knew that for an inexperienced horse or rider, this could be tricky.  You really have to get a compressed bouncy canter to it with good impulsion.  And it's skinny, so it could invite runouts.  It was late in the course and was actually the last combination before the end, so I was expecting that maybe some horses would be tired and there might be some issues here.

Not. A. One.  Seriously.  What I learned watching this is that people only had trouble if they tried to adjust in the middle.  If they had the right canter going in and just stayed out of their horse's way, the horse would figure out how to get out.  There was one rider that got two strides because they didn't have the impulsion going into the first.  But just one.  It was pretty much the opportunity to sit back and watch a lesson over and over.  By really good riders. 

So be prepared.  I was able to put my camera on burst and got pictures of everyone.  I whittled it down, but there are still tons of pictures.

Jennie Brannigan on I Bella

241 Clayton Fredericks riding FE Subiaco

247 Sara Kozumplik Murphy on Sebastian 

249 Jessica Pheonix on Bogue Sound

Let's take a brief break from the picture spam and look at this series of pictures of Buck Davidson on Sleigh Ride.  In particular, pay attention to his leg.

271 Buck Davidson Summer Sleigh Ride

Yeah, pretty amazing, right?  Never moves.  In any of the 17 jillion pictures I have taken of him.  He did ride like 6 in Prelim alone or something.  I guess that's what happens when you ride 30 horses a day.  Anyway, back to the picture porn.

275 Mrs. Lesley Grant-Law on Dassatt Laman

274 Mr. Leslie Law on Voltaire de Tre

Sorry, the Leslie/Lesley Law thing always gets me.  And when they are both on course at the same time, it causes confusion.  Sometimes they are called Mr and Mrs, and sometimes "the female Lesley Law" and "the male Leslie Law".  Thank goodness they are spelled differently.  I can just imagine the confusion with mail in that house...

273 Hannah Sue Burnett on Van Goettching

276 Maya Black on Mowgli

302 Buck Davidson on Lisseycasey Cougar

300 Allie Knowles on FE Crosby

293 Laine Ashker on Jolly Good Sport

292 Jennie Brannigan on Twilightslastgleam

328 Buck Davidson on Dutch Harbor

295 Hannah Sue Burnett on Cooley Dream

297 Jessica Pheonix on Maserati One

333 Leslie Law on Bounce

And at the end of the division came one I was anxious to see.  Elisa Wallace moved her mustang Hwin up to Prelim.  So let's see how the little grey bombshell did with the distance...

330 Elisa Wallace on Hwin

The distance ran a bit long for her, giving her a longer spot on takeoff to the second, but they seemed to get through it fine.  I like the way she slipped the reins so Hwin could make best use of herself to get over.  This is a great little horse.  

So there you go.  Another show down.  The next one is next weekend (Mar 4-6), and then we have a month break.  I will only get to judge one day again this time, but the one in April, I will do both days, since Violet will be competing.  We'll have to see how they are about letting me move around, because I want to see how she goes.