Love that Bob! My late gelding of 28 years old was named Bob. Bob is a righteous name. I wish you many years of happiness together. P.S. Bob is a palindrome name, like Otto.
Someone pointed that out to me today; I hadn’t thought of it before.
Yay Bob!
He looks like a great buddy! Chill enough to hang out, and eager enough to learn and take on adventures with you. What a sweet boy.
Here’s a watermarkless pic of Bob Sits from my Twitter feed, if that sort of thing works for non-Twitterers.
Awesome, I hope you two have a great time.
No, No Bob - you’re not doing it right!
Paws on the counter is Bad Dog, just like paws on the table. That’s not how you get yummy treats. You get yummy treats by Sitting and looking Extremely Adorable and Hungry. The hoomans find it irresistible if you cock your head and turn on the Cuteness Beacon. It sometimes helps to let out a low whimper, as if you are weak from famine and deprivation.
Trust me - it works!
Regards,
Leet the Wonder Dog[sup]TM[/sup]
Bob’s home. There’s good and bad to report. Wow, he’s got some energy; that’ll be a challenge. So, he listens pretty well. He seems to know sit, and stay relatively well - under a controlled situation - my kitchen. I just got him to not cross the line into the kitchen while I made dinner just by looking at him. That’s good. He seems to be completely house trained. I wasn’t planning on taking him out again until later on, trying to establish a schedule, but he just looked like he wanted to go … took him out, he promptly peed and then found a nice spot for a shit. Good boy.
The bad … the meeting with Mort did not go well. There were injuries involved. Mine. Mort sunk his goddmaned fang into my finger so hard. Christ, it looked like professional wrestling match in here.
Essentially, first meeting was Mort in is carrier crate and Bob sniffing around. There was some hissing and growling but Bob took direction well and backed down. Then while Bob was distracted I took Mort out and was holding him and everything seemed fine until I got down to Bob level and there was that energy I spoke of. I managed to get Bob by the scruff of his neck and Mort ran down stairs. Now I have a kitty door in the door to the basement so Mort can run down there anytime he wants and Bob can’t follow. Unfortunately, Mort can also come up whenever he likes. He slinked back up while Bob was lazing on his new dog bed. I saw Mort and calmly picked him up to keep him safe but Bob saw him and it was fucking on! I got Mort with two hands and my knee in Bob’s side, twirling around trying to control the situation, my glasses flying off my face. Finally Mort’s had enough and he scratches the shit out of me and chomps down on my pinky finger and he was off. I just managed to grab Bob and get him down on his side and calmed him down. But I was bleeding like a stuck pig from my finger. It’s all over the wall, it’s all over the floor, it’s all over Bob.
Why didn’t anyone tell me dog ownership would be this much fun?
By the way, what’s a good free photo host? Photobucket sucks.
I believe they’ll calm down when the new wears off. Never wise to hold onto a cat when they’re miffed. Let Mort take it at his own pace. Concentrate on keeping Bob calm when Mort is moving about.
Bob sounds like a high energy fellow. My Bob is similar. Can’t stop when he gets started!! Then he collapses in a heap. Smiling.
Good luck!
Bob sounds like a very good dog indeed. My dogs required more than a look to get them to respect the kitchen.
I used flickr and like it. No ads.
I think if Mort wants to come out and see Bob again, it’s a good sign. Let Mort set the pace. Rather than grabbing Mort, if you feel like Bob is being too rough, I would suggest having Bob on a leash. Mort will clear out if he needs to, and you can keep Bob from chasing him. You can let Bob drag his leash around with him, if you don’t want to hold him at all times. Then you can step on it, or quickly grab it as needed. As long as you’re present, it should be safe for him to drag it around.
Yes to clipping a drag lead on Bob so you can quck grab him him as needed. We put a drag lead on our Shep when he gets squirrelly, and he goes right into ‘what do you want’ mode.
Holding a frightened or angry cat is a bad idea. They want freedom of movement if they feel threatened.
Looks like letting Bob loose around Mort is also a bad idea, at least to start with. But restrain the dog, not the cat. It’ll go over better (and be a lot easier to actually accomplish.) And don’t ever push the cat closer to the dog than he’s comfortable with.
Do not leave them alone with each other until/unless you’re sure Bob won’t attack Mort. That’s a big dog, and one bite could be too many.
Painful lesson learned. I never was that much of a cat person. I’ve always treated Mort like a dog. So, anyhoo, cat door is secured. Mort has his own two room apartment downstairs to himself. I went down this morning to apologize to him and he was still a little miffed. First time he’s ever hissed at me. But we made nice. He’ll be fine. I’ll go slower with this.
Bob continues to impress me, or at least fills me with hope that he’ll be a good one. I won’t say he’s learned “down” but I got him to do it twice on command for treats - I’ll keep working on that. I’m thinking full on tricks won’t be far away. He did well with his first session of crate training. It was only about ten minutes, but he laid down and kept busy with his kibble-filled Kong. No whining. But he was starting to look a little antsy so i let him out while we were still in a positive place. We’ll continue later. I’ve got until Monday to nail it down with him.
He slept right next to me on the bed with his chin on my chest.
Bob’s keeping me busy and he’s had an exciting couple of days of freedom. Last night I brought him over to my sister’s house for a BBQ and to meet her dogs and that went very well. She’s got two little ill-mannered yippy terriers and I was afraid Willow, the more hyper one, would be a problem, but she loved Bob. She was all smiley and cooing and wanting his attention. Bob dealt with her well. Martin had a bit of an attitude. There was a prolonged period of staring and testing, but again, Bob handled it well, ignoring Martin completely when he started bothering him. By the end of the night they were dealing with each other well too. There was a puppy there too last night. A little, idunno, 4 or 5 month old black lab-or-another. So I’m glad to report that dog-socialization skills already have a leg up.
More crate training this morning. He did pretty well, for about a half-hour but I was sitting right there next to him. That’s my biggest worry. I want to make sure he’s good to go for Monday, I’m just afraid he’s not going to be ready and I get the feeling that if he want’s out of that crate, he’ll figure it out eventually.
As for Mort, still persona-non-grata in the basement. I go down and apologize to him profusely several times a day and I think he might be on the cusp of forgiving me.
Anyway … here are some better pics.
Bob’s Goofy Face
Barrymore-esque Bob
Bob in Repose
That one picture where Bob is looking out the window makes me think “Not unless they’ve learned to open doors”
I can just tell Bob is a sweetie. Congrats on getting a dog! I love having my Mauser.
Bob’s first visit to the dog park. First of all, kick ass dog park that I didn’t even know existed until today. I met some cool people and Bob had a good time. This video was shot after he’d already performed his wind-sprints - we’d been there for maybe a half hour at the time.
Oops, looks like that’s just the thumbnail. I’ll see what I can do.
He’s a very good boy!!