DanaWilson

She's a food motivated dog. She'd eat it out of the bowl while you're still holding it if you take too long to set it down for her lol Anyway, I managed to get Ruckus to hold still enough to get a picture of his lower incisors. He was a year in February.

I read that the teeth on the bottom in the front (the little ones) wear down over time. Older dogs will have smooth incisors and younger ones have bumpy ones. Like when you lose a baby tooth and the new one grows in with bumps on it but it wears smooth after a few years. I'd take a picture of her teeth but she's a squirmer lol maybe Ruckus will let me take one of his later

Small update. She's decided to attach herself to me like a little furry shadow and she's acting a little afraid of my husband. He's 6'1" and not a delicate man. I've tried to tell him she's probably not used to men, that it could be his beard or shaved head but to try to be easy around her and not loud or scary but I think his feelings are hurt when she runs from him and hides behind me. I put him in charge of feeding her and told him to use the voice he uses when he's making fun of me (high pitched and silly). Any other suggestions to help her not be afraid of him?

She's acquired Ruckus's old crate and I pulled out a couple toys and bones I was saving for him when he wore out the ones he has now to put in there just for her. I also had an unopened fleece blanket we got for Christmas and tucked it in there after I washed it with some of our laundry so it would smell like "home." Yesterday I was doing dishes and I lost her for a minute. I guess the sounds were a little overwhelming or I was boring lol because I found her curled up in the crate quietly gnawing her bone. She also went straight in there when my husband came in from outside and surprised her. I was really pleased to see that. She's figuring out it's her safe place. This morning when I took her out to go potty she did a little play bow and danced around my feet before running off to do her business so I'm already seeing good progress just in the short time since I first posted this. Thank you guys for all the great suggestions and kind words!

We had her scanned for a microchip at our vet as soon as we caught her and the vet told us she'd call us if anyone asked about her. I don't know how long to wait to hear anything but right now I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. I'm taking her for vaccinations and a wellness check on the 10th and possibly a spay as well if she's still intact and not too young. She and Ruckus would make beautiful puppies but there are too many puppies that need homes already. Plus she's so much smaller than he is, it would be too hard on her I think. I know if we lost Ruckus I'd want to know someone was taking good care of him until we found whoever had him.

She doesn't really play yet so I'm just figuring out what makes her smile and wag her tail and letting her see Ruckus play with us so she gets it

We hadn't planned on getting another dog before Ruckus was finished with training but I'm not sorry she found us. He's definitely smitten with her as well. I'm guessing she's between 1 and 2 since her teeth are still pretty white and she has the ridges on her lower incisors. The vet will probably be able to guess more accurately though. Right now we're just working on building her self confidence. She's a treat lover so that makes things easier and she's crate trained to perfection. She's a little weird with the cat but so was Ruckus at first and now they're friends. I don't know what her story is but my guess is she either got a lot further than the surrounding 3 neighborhoods (which is the area our app covers and it's not small) or that someone ditched her either when they moved away or set her loose. In any case, she's with us now and fitting in nicely. I took this picture just now

We've been calling her Honey. It suits her sweet personality nicely.

We live in a very rural area where it's not uncommon for dogs to free roam. We don't ever allow Ruckus to do it but plenty of people do. Anyway, a little girl has been skirting our property and finally worked up the courage to approach us. She looked pretty rough, no collar and no microchip and after posting her picture on the neighborhood watch app, no one has come forward to claim her. It's been 2 weeks and she seems to have decided she wants to be our dog. She looks like a border collie and she definitely had some nice genetics somewhere because once she was clean and brushed, she's silky soft. I'm just surprised by her personality. She's quiet and calm almost to the point of being timid and she's probably only 25-30 lbs compared to Ruckus's almost 50 lbs. We aren't leaving her alone with Ruckus unsupervised because we're pretty sure she's intact/possibly in heat (we have a vet visit scheduled to look her over) I was just curious how to go about building her confidence and getting some basic training in place. Ruckus is so outgoing and boisterous, he picks up commands in a matter of days and loves everyone and everything. She's sweet and gentle and just acts like she wants to be held all the time. How do I bring out her inner border collie (if that's indeed what she is)?

We haven't done any actual training yet, but she says the content of the classes is up to us. All I really want from it is to get Ruckus to stop jumping on every person he meets. (There's nothing that compares to an excited border collie lol AIRBORNE!) I'd like him to walk nicely on a leash. He does so well when no one is looking! And I want a solid recall when he's off the leash. He does ok most of the time, but occasionally he thinks whatever he's doing is more interesting (usually involving something that smells good or watching our chickens in the coop). I'd love to be able to call him and have him stop everything and run straight to me every single time. As far as neutering goes, I'm not changing my mind. I can still see Ruckus growing in the time he's been with us. He's never purposely urinated in the house, ever. He's only had one accident and that was because the Blue was in extreme disagreement with his digestion. That's hardly his fault. He's never made an aggressive move toward another dog, even when it was making aggressive moves toward him. Once we hit 18-24 months, we'll reevaluate.

We had our obedience class orientation last night and I'm undecided on my feelings about the class. She'd told us she does small classes when we signed up and it turns out we're the only ones who enrolled in this particular one so it looks like it's going to be more like private lessons than a class. In a way, I like it because we can focus on our dog alone, but I was really wanting to get him some socialization. Also, the trainer is of the "fix them as soon as you can" school of thought and told me point blank that waiting until he's at least 2 because he's not done growing is bulls**t and that he's going to start marking all over our house and trying to either mount or kill every other dog he encounters. He hasn't shown any aggressive behavior toward the 2 dogs he's been around so far (they're a fixed male and female), but he has marked 3 times inside their house. I guess I was just hoping for some words of encouragement and validation on our decision not to neuter him at this time being the right one and what I should do about him marking.

Thank you! I'll tell them how well Ruckus is doing on their food while I'm at it. I always like getting emails like that at my job and I usually send those customers goodies for making my day

My computer glitched and it double posted and I can't seem to be able to delete it so here's a picture I made in photoshop of Ruckus driving a car

I'm sorry if I upset you guys! I overheard a conversation he was having and I thought he was talking about their new horse, but they were actually talking about one of their heifers. They know to keep Pistol away from the horses, they've already kicked a coyote and it had a weird seizure and ran off. They don't let the dogs in the pasture with them ever. I have one more question though. About a week into the transition from Blue Wilderness puppy food to their adult food, I realized that Ruckus was still having horrible gas and very runny poops and it wasn't getting better with time so I took him off it right out, returned the bag and switched him to Canidae Pure Elements. He's 1000% better on it and I remember seeing someone say that I should occasionally change his protein source. Does anyone have any opinions on how often I should do that? He's eating the salmon right now but they also have lamb, bison and duck formulas that I can switch between.

I don't see him very often because he lives an hour and a half away from us, but I did see him today. I had Ruckus with me and he and his wife both commented on how much better behaved he is than Pistol (they said he was prettier too but that's beside the point lol). They're going through some health issues with their doberman right now so maybe that will help them be more sensitive to her needs in the future. He had her working the horses recently though, so that's good. I love him but he can be very stubborn and opinionated and a little judgmental. Pistol is a great dog and I know that when he isn't around, his wife and 2 daughters baby her. If he lets us bring Ruckus to play, I think it'll be a good thing. I'm not sure when that might be though with the doberman having health problems. They think he's got a neurological disorder, poor baby