Archive for July 2008
Sherman is a bit bossy, constantly telling Makeeta and Moon he’s in charge. He’s been trying to get Moon to play with him (with the usual Moon results), in spite of the fact he’s supposed to play with Makeeta. I think Makeeta is sulking at the moment, since it’s a bigger step from #1 to #2 than from #2 to #3.
I think he might of actually had a little bit of training on him, despite my initial impressions. We only had two minor “accidents” in the house. After a mild reprimand and a regular schedule of going out, he’s been perfect. In fact, at least one time when he’s needed to go out, he’s repeatedly tapped the doorknob with his nose. I took him out, and he promptly went. If he didn’t know that already, he learned it on his own, and pretty darn quick.
The first week, whenever he drank from the water dish, he’d stand in it. He’s stopped doing that, and he’s learning pretty quickly about sitting and waiting when breakfast and dinner are served. It still takes both of us to feed the three dogs, to keep everyone waiting and sitting until we say “OK”.
The biggest two problems we have at the moment are that he likes to pick up things he shouldn’t (my sweat pants, shoes, books (and he can’t even read!), etc), and a case of leash aggression. He seems to be fine meeting other dogs when he’s off-leash, but on-leash, he even tries to jump Moon or Makeeta if they’re outside at the same time. This can be worked through, but it’s the most annoying, since it’ll make it harder to get him into a Petsmart-type training program.
Some days I have been thinking about renaming Sherman to Shiva. He has this wonderful habit of grabbing things. Like the dish towels off the counter (nearly bringing the blender jar down on his head. Which might broken the jar…), stealing the remote, cellphones, shoes, library books. Ah yes, library books. An amusing anecdote:
Cindy, myself and four friend of ours went out to dinner. We’re sitting there talking, when my Nextel Direct Connect phone beeps. That’s unusual, because Cindy is the only one with my DC number, and she was there. Sometimes it’s a wrong number, no big deal. So I flip open the phone, and the caller ID says “Cindy”. WTF? My first thought is someone has broken into the house. My second thought is that with Makeeta there (crazed German Shepherd), that’s not likely. About a minute later the phone beeps again. I say to Cindy “Didn’t your phone do this a long time ago, where it was sticking, or doing something weird?” She says “Yeah, I vaguely remember that.”
Then I wonder if I really latched Shermans crate correctly or not. I had flipped the door over so it opened from the left instead of the right. The left side has holes for the hinge pins, and the right side has slots for the locking pins. Flipping the door over means that you have to be more careful about getting the locking pins aligned. This thought scares me…
About 7 minutes later, it happens again. We all laugh some more, but I’m feeling a little nervous. We finish dinner, say good byte, head home. Coming up the basement stairs, we are greeted by not two dogs, but three. One looking very proud of himself, and the other two saying “Look, we had nothing to do with this, OK?”
Sherman had chewed on the cellphone a bit, and I think when I beeped him back after the second time, he dropped it. Then chewed on it some more. Still works, but it has virtually no antenna, and a couple holes in places that are not Nextel approved. Some magazines were shredded. The TV remote has a few more teeth marks in it. And 3 library books are now casualties (Cindy took them back, and had to pay $34 for one, and the other two were deemed to be still readable).
Our four friends were dying to know what we found when we got home, so I called them and related the story. One suggested that Sherman was simply calling to ask for a doggy bag…
Sherman is the newest addition to our family (pictures). He’s believed to be around 8 months, weighs in at 70lbs, and has little (if any) training. Great plush coat, soft mouth, golden eyes, and has a perfect gait.
We’ve been talking about getting a companion for Makeeta for a few months, mostly because Moon, while a great dog, has no idea what “play” means. Cindy was browsing petfinder.com looking for German Shepherd Dogs, and came across the listing for Sherman. She emailed me the link, and I immediately called Alcovy Pet Rescue, and left a message. I got a call back a couple hours later from Yvonne who told me his story. We made arrangements to meet Saturday morning at the kennel APR uses.
Seems he was picked up by Walton County animal control; someone called in saying a ‘vicious dog’ was roaming. The pound called APR to let them know they had a GSD, so they sent one of the volunteers over to do a temperament test on him. She pulled his ears, yanked his tail, grabbed his paws, stuck her hand in his mouth, and Sherman was like “Whatever…”
We traveled over to the shelter and met Yvonne. She brought Sherman out, and I knew I wanted this dog. Alert, bouncy, interested, no fear. After spending about 45 minutes with him, we did the paperwork, loaded up and headed home. On the way we stopped at PetsMart to pick up some puppy food and chew toys. He met several people in the store, including a small child, and had no issues.
When he was picked up by the pound, he must have been covered in mats. APR had cleaned him up, but there were still some matting behind the ears, around his legs, and a few other areas. His back-end was so bad they just pretty much shaved it. While at PetsMart we decided to leave him for some grooming. They gave him a bath, whacked most of the mats out from behind his ears (but missed some on his hocks). He looked good to start with, now he looks even better.
After getting home, it was introduction time. We closed the garage, turned him loose, then brought Makeeta in. They did pretty well, sniffed around, and that was pretty much that (for now…). We then pulled out Makeeta and brought in Moon, with pretty much the same results.
Once everyone was upstairs and moving around and settling in, there were a few encounters. At some times Makeeta seems to be in charge, other times she seems cowed. Moon doesn’t really start anything, but if a snarl-fest breaks out, she’ll jump in. They’ll get it all figured out before long.