Sunshine's pool intro

We always put up a decent size pool so Blossom can swim. However, water that is deep enough for Blossom will be over Sunshine's head.

I picked up a small plastic pool so we could see if Sunshine is willing to get in.
But he wasn't. So far he will just drink from it. However I have high hopes as he was very interested in the water coming from the pumps in our pond when we first got him. I put some plastic balls in the water to tempt him.

Blossom passed out in the shade to dry out from her adventures.

Blossom's new tent

We got this tent for the dogs. It was about $37 from Costco. It has a small tunnel attached to it and came with 100 plastic balls for the dogs to chase and puncture. We only give them the balls while supervised as they are not doggy safe. Blossom enjoys hanging out in it. I have lured Sunshine inside but he darts in, takes his toy and runs back out.
The dogs are having a ball puncturing and chasing the plastic balls.


Sunshine wants in on the action.

Who gets this one?
Peace and harmony.
Sunshine enjoys a ball.

Blossom says Gimme.
Sunshine says "She stole it!"
Blossom say "You betcha!"
Blossom: Yum this is good. Sunshine: Harumph!
I've got one now!
This is fun.
Blossom: He can have a traditional stuffed toy. The balls are mine!
An oldie but a goodie.
Back to the tent again. Blossom wonders, "Where did my ball go?"
There it is!

The Aardvark Toy

It all started with the Aardvark toys ($2.50) from Big Lots. They are particularly attractive to the dogs as they have a squeaker in the body and the tail. Blossom showed up in the house with both toys.

This meant that poor Mr. Sunshine had none.

A quick redistribution.


But Blossom is not happy. She covets both toys.

Mr. Sunshine is happy to have one.

Harmony, one dog, one toy.

Wait, how did this happen?

Here mom, throw my toy.

Its getting hot out.

In the end, back in the house, a winded Blossom still has both toys. Mr. Sunshine is passed out, out of the picture.

I feel like we have turned a corner

It is hard to put my finger on it but I feel like we have turned a corner with Sunshine. Mostly it is because he now loves to come up for snuggles and pats from both my husband and myself. He is doing great on walks and doesn't seem to let anything bother him. No skittering away from trash cans, signs or anything else. Yeah!

We still don't have him coming in through the dog door but on occasion he hangs around in that area while outside after our other dog has come in. I'm hoping he is thinking about it.

He still won't go out the dog door unless asked to with a "do you want to find your spot?" And even then he is still a little hesitant but it is a big step from being scared to death, flattening himself and peeing on the way out.

I guess the best way to put it is that his body language around the house is much more relaxed and he seems happier. A couple of times I've gotten him to come through the back deck door by calling him through. Only once or twice but it is progress. In addition he comes into the bedroom right at bed time and makes himself comfortable on the bed. Previously he would hang around on the upstairs balcony. It's nice to see him making himself at home.

Breed guesses before the DNA test

My vet and I guessed breeds before the DNA test. He thought I'd find something unexpected like Rottweiler or German Shepard. I think he may have said Chow also, so if so he was right there. I think we should have written our guesses down as I don't remember his that well. Mine were Corgi, Sheltie and Australian Shepard although I see no evidence of working dog traits in him. As a result I think the results are good insight for me. I suspected the Chow but didn't want to admit it. :-)

Some things that Sunshine does that match his breed profiles

I think this will help me with understanding some of his behaviors. He's part Chow and you should have seen him just sit down and refuse to come in after his walk yesterday. Very chow like! He also barks at me for his dog walks which is just like a dachshund. We have been so impressed with his courage but the dachshund is a pretty outgoing dog so this must be where he is getting it from. He has also been really enjoying the sniffs on the dog walk. A great sniffing sense is also part of the dachshund. And finally both breeds are standoffish and suspicious of strangers. Sometimes he still looks at me (after 5 months) like who the heck are you and why should I do what you want? He is very interested in food and the breed profiles say to train a chow with food.

DNA test is in!

Sunshine's Wisdom panel came back. He is a very mixed breed with no purebred parents or grandparents. They showed minor traces of Chow-Chow and Miniature Short Haired Dachshund. As a minor breed it means he is between 12.5% and 25% of each of these breeds. He had no intermediate breeds (25%-50%) and no significant breed (>50%).

I can see both in him. But I had alot of other guesses that did not show up at all. I'm a bit disappointed in this panel. It was $170 for the professional version.
We did Blossom for $80 with the Wisdom panel home test cheek swab. She came back as half Siberian Husky and half Brittany Spaniel which matched exactly what the previous owners told us.

I had anticipated that Sunshine was more mixed so got the professional panel. However I had no idea it was more than twice the cost. I figured it would be $10 or $20 more. If your thinking of doing it I think the cheek swab $80 version is the way to go. Skip the professional version as it is way too expensive and we probably would have gotten the same result with the cheaper panel.

Some information from Sunshine's report includes:

Chow Chow traits

• Reputation as a loyal family dog. Reserved and wary with strangers.
• Independent spirit, but responds to reward-based obedience training.
• May require socialization to reduce defensive aggressive tendencies. There have been reported incidents of Chow Chows being aggressive with other pets or people.

Here is a link to more info on Chow Chows
http://www.yourpurebredpuppy.com/reviews/chowchows.html

Miniature Shorthaired Dachshund traits

• Alert, lively and active dogs.
• Enjoy activities that take advantage of its keen sense of smell like earthdog trials and both outdoor and indoor tracking.
• Many retrieve tennis balls.
• Because of their background as hunting dogs may engage in behaviors such as barking, scratching at the ground or digging and chasing wildlife.
• May be suspicious or fearful of strangers, in some cases as a way to avoid discomfort from being picked up due to their long-backed body.

Here is a link to more info on Dachshunds
http://www.yourpurebredpuppy.com/reviews/dachshunds.html

Adult Weight Profile for Sunshine:
• The adult weight is predicted to be between 29 - 49 lbs.

Were going to have to go back to the basic routine

Poor Mr. Sunshine just came in the house and skittered by me. Just before the vet came he was bounding up (for the first time) for pats. Now he is scared again. Poor puppy!

EDIT:I just tried luring him over and he was still looking nervous. Then I looked where he was looking. My purse was behind my chair on the floor. He was scared of the purse, not me.

The micro chip is in and it went beautifully!

The vet did a wonderful job drawing blood for Sunshine's DNA test (we are getting the wisdom panel). He also did a nice job with the micro chip. He wore DAP again and spent alot of time treating Sunshine and Blossom. This allowed Sunshine to be more comfortable with him. I also had deli turkey on a plate that I put in front of Sunshine during the microchip procedure and was feeding him constantly from that. I think he was distracted enough that it went OK.

In the physical exam of his front legs for his limping the vet things there is some sort of tendinitis going on. Were going to start some anti-inflammatory, suppliments and homeopathic, introducing one thing at a time to see what helps. I love the fact that he didn't jump right to a heavy drug. He is an east/west vet so has alternative treatments in his bag.

I also purchased a ramp off of craig's list for Sunshine. Were going to see if we can get some low chests to put at the edge of the bed so he can climb down on one first and then the other to get to the ground. He has alot of trouble going down stairs though so we may have to use the ramp.

The word "come"

I have a dilemma. It isn't really one, I just need to suck it up and change my methodology. Sunshine has deep seated uncertainty with the word "come". If I use it he turns and runs the other way. I mostly see this outside. However, we've tried it a few times in the house at distances of 4 or 5 feet while I'm dangling turkey slices and the minute "come" comes out of my mouth he veers off and or backs up. And this from a food motivated dog.

So I need to retrain myself to use "here" or "party" or "snacks". Now you may ask, why "party"? Blossom is already trained to the word "come". But I started her out with the word "party" since she would not recognize "come" even after much training. I then found that if I said 'party, party, party' in an upbeat voice and danced around in a circle she would come up to see what all the excitement is about. She is part Husky so has a strong sense of fun and play. We then transitioned over to "come" and she has been 100% with it but I only use it for emergencies like when she gets out of the yard or is headed off course at the agility ring. My guess it would be easier to regress her back to "party" than to retrain her to "here" and him to "here".

My older dog was an abused dog and with her I needed to say the word "come" in a sing song voice while smiling she had a very reliable "come". My very oldest dog was a chow mix who needed me to say it in a deep grumbly voice. He was also very reliable. Sunshine appears to need me to not say it at all. I guess in writing this I think I should use "snacks" as a "come" substitute. I have been using this to get him to come into the house or onto the back deck. To train "come" with my other dogs I always used food so for them they probably thought it meant "snacks" anyways.

Wow, Sunshine ran into the house and came to sit by me

I can hardly believe it. I was in the living room and had the back deck door open. On his very own, without my announcing treats or anything Sunshine ran into the house over to my side and sat down for some petting. After petting I gave him a snack. We have a routine where I generally lure him in with snacks. I can't stand anywhere near the door but have to go into the living room and sit down and hand them out to Blossom and eventually after much hesitation and backing out Sunshine will usually come in. That is why today was such a big success.

But alas, alak, I have the mobile vet coming to give Sunshine a micro chip, check out his sore leg and take some blood for a DNA test this afternoon. I hope this doesn't regress him to much out of this great progress.

Agility trial this weekend

There was an agility trial this weekend at a local park. We walked there during the week so Sunshine would be familiar with it. He rapidly went over threshold with the few kids on the jungle gym at a distance.

On Sat. we drove there. Sunshine refused to come out of the car. Eventually I bodily removed him and we hung out on the fringes. I think he didn't like hearing the other dogs bark. We stayed briefly at the far fringes of the park and then went on a walk over to a natural area where he loosened up. We finished the outing with a McDonalds McDouble.

On Sun. I walked back to the park with the dogs. Sunshine sat down facing away from the park 3 or 4 times as it came in view. I waited until he normalized and got up and then we went a little closer. Then repeated as he sat down again.

Eventually we got to the edge of the agility area where there was no one at all so we sat down. At first Sunshine could only watch the pick-up football game farther away. He was very nervous of the kids jungle gym area and was purposely not looking at the agility. Eventually he loosened up enough to look at the other dogs and the agility. I think his experience in a hoarding facility and then the humane society lead him to believe he wouldn't see anything nice. However he seemed to me to be amazed at how calm the dogs were and how much fun they were having. He wasn't looking at the ones on the course but instead the ones being played with by their owners on the sidelines or sitting with their owners. Once he loosened up we continued on our nature path walk.

Although I doubted we could pull off a success when Sunshine refused to leave the car, I think after Sun. we can say that it was a successful set of excursions.