LOKI Update

We fostered Loki from October 2012 to March 2013. This was Loki's second stint in foster care. Loki's story was a sad one. He found himself in a California shelter after his humans or human died. At Loki's age (8-10) years there didn't seem much of a chance for poor Loki. Finally New Ratitude rescued him and he was transported to a foster home in Washington. He was adopted pretty quickly and things seemed to be looking up for him. Unfortunately he was living in an apartment with his new owner away at work much of the day. Loki couldn't handle it and acted up (I would too). Loki was returned  to New Ratitude at the end of September of 2012, this was 4 months after his initial adoption. Loki's original foster parent could not take him in so we were asked if we could. We are retired and home most of the time so it was thought that this might be a situation that Loki could excel in. Of course we accepted even though we had another foster at the time. Well long story short we did not have any trouble with Loki and he was with us for about 5 months while we waited for the perfect forever home for him. In March 2013 it happened, the perfect fit, a retired couple who didn't care that Loki was getting a bit long in the tooth. We took him for a visit and it seemed like instant bonding. We could tell Loki was finally home. The adoption was finalized a few days later and we delivered Loki to his forever home.

We have received progress reports and photos of Loki periodically and received one yesterday. It feels really good to see how well Loki is doing and how much his adopters love him. Loki gets lots of walks, car rides and even sail boat day trips. He is leaving soon for a month long vacation on "his" sailboat. Here is a photo of Loki we received yesterday

Dallas is making himself at home

Today is Dallas' fourth day with us. He is making himself at home, gets into the toy basket for toys and is deciding which dog bed might be the best. He has tried Toby's big one, a small round one in the kitchen and one on the sofa back in the sewing room. He seems to like them all.

Dallas and the pack had some round marrow bones on Sunday to gnaw on. After all the good marrow was gone Dallas began to collect them and pile them up on the sofa. At one time he had 3 up there. He is now packing them around similar to what Jasper does. Dallas loves squeaky toys and balls and runs and runs in the yard. The running does start a cough attack though so we try to keep it to a minimum. All in all, Dallas is a puppy that is enjoying life. It's so hard to imagine that just a couple of weeks ago he sat on death row.

Dallas is not feeling too well. He arrived with a cold and some anti-biotics he got at the CA. shelter. He has been taking them for 8 days with 2 days to go along.We also are giving him probiotics. He just doesn't seem to be getting better, if anything, he may be coughing more. If he isn't better by Friday we plan on taking him to the vet for an exam.

I think Dallas is going to be a big rattie. At 4 months he weighs almost 11 pounds, is as tall as Jasper and his feet are large so it looks like he has some growing to do. When you look at him he appears heavier than 11 pounds

Dallas loves couch time with me. He runs across the room jumps up on the footstool and on the sofa and will lean against me. He likes to watch action shows but barks at musicals. He really didn't like the Liberache movie the other night...me either.

Dallas

Dallas arrived in Seattle this morning around 1:30 AM. We picked him up at 9 AM and he is now safe in his foster home. Dallas is a beautiful dog, 4 - 5 months old and weighs about 9.8 pounds. He is very friendly and is already playing with the rest of the pack. No issues yet!! Dallas loves toys, I think he has "looked" at all of them already. Dallas has a bit of a cold and is on an anti-biotic so he is napping now. He has taken a liking to Toby's bed, we'll see how that goes! Here are a few shots of Dallas.

Will road along when we picked up Dallas He was a gentleman and greated all the new dogs in a positive manner.

Will ALMOST Gets EATEN

Will is driven by food. He knows which cabinet his bowl is kept in, he knows what's next when the microwave beeps and he knows that he has to eat in the laundry room behind a gate. The reason he has to eat by himself is that he is a very speedy eater and when finished he goes to the other bowls to see if there is any food left in them. We have a very old Lab mix that is blind, deaf and very wobbly on her legs. Food is about all she has at this point so he is pretty protective of it. She is a very slow eater so the other dogs finish and then wait for the Lab to walk away from her dish before finishing. So the other night Will decided he didn't want to wait and actually stuck his head in the Lab's bowl while she was eating. Bad idea, the Lab, blind and deaf as she his, caught Will and bit him. Good thing Will is quick and he was able to get away with out too much blood being spilled. I hope Will has learned his lesson as he might not be so lucky next time. I think Will is one of those small dogs that thinks he is BIG like this.

I think maybe Will need to check out the mirror to see he is just 11 pounds.



Will gets LOST!!

The lawn guy came about 1 today and applied whatever he applies. He told us that it was granules so it would be safe to let the dogs on it in a couple of hours. So we did. Soon we noticed (actually we didn't notice) that Will wasn't around. Well this wasn't good says us to us. We were about to start looking for brown and white hairy spots out in the road when we heard some whining from the pool house. You may remember from a previous post that Will is like gum on your shoe, just one step behind you....always. We checked the pool house and yep there he was.

It sure was lucky he had one of these so we could hear him!

Will is Bummed Out Today

Today we are keeping the pack indoors as we wait for the True Green guy to come and give our lawn it's treatment. Will is not happy with no yard time and is pacing around and keeps looking out the french doors to see what's up. Will is a real California guy, just loves the sunshine. All week the dogs have had limited yard time as we are also working on getting the swimming pool open. We have added a bunch of nasty chemicals to the pool and have had the cover off during the day. I usually have a short fence around the pool to keep the dogs from falling in, but haven't installed that yet. The fence doesn't keep them out only draws their attention, or at least what attention they have.

Will continues to improve and is really beginning to be very loving and cuddlie (sp). He loves to burrow deep under blankets, dog beds, pads and whatever. He gets under the dog pad on the sofa after dinner and stays there until his bedtime around 11. Well, staying there is a relative term, whenever there is a noise outside, ALL the dogs jump up, carry on (lotsa noise) and run outside. At bedtime he goes in his kennel, under the blankets, of course, heads to the rear of the kennel, stops moving  and immediately falls asleep. He does not make a peep until the morning. In the morning he is really hungry but waits for his foster mom to finish her treadmill work, when he hears it stop he is ready to eat. Will eats very very fast, even though he has a dish that contains obstacles.

Toward the end of the month I think we will be getting a second foster dog. Lord only knows that the 5 dogs we already have aren't enough. There are soooo many of these critters that need help we decided we have room for one more. These guys don't ask for anything, but attention and love so how could we resist. The new foster is a male pup, we are naming him Dallas. So stay tuned for Dallas' story.
Larry

Gentleman Jim

Will is changing!! For the better even. Less barking and carrying on.

Will is beginning to play with certain toys, he does not share them, but that is next..I HOPE. Will is a cute little guy and only wants to have attention and be loved. We are trying to do both and it seems to be paying off. He always wants to sit in a lap and give kisses. In the evening he will burrow in to the dog blankets on the sofa and nap for hours. At bedtime he willingly goes into his kennel, gets under his blankets and we don't hear a peep from him until morning, We have had Will 2 months now and while he is different than most of our other fosters he is a great dog. Will make some adopter a fine and loyal pet.

Even though the weather has been pretty nice the last couple of weeks we have not uncovered and opened the swimming pool yet. This makes it nice for the dogs as they love to run on the cover, bounce up and down and make the water magically appear. All the dogs, except Will that is. He seems to stay out of the wet stuff when he can. Both he and Molly, our JRT love to go to the end of the pool and wait for a ball to be thrown. Molly must be a bit smarter than Will as she waits in the shade of the diving board while Will waits in the full sun,  go figure.

All our dogs love to chase small varmints, birds and bugs. When a bird lands on the power wires next door all our dogs stand and watch until the bird flys off. Luckily this day it didn't rain as they all could have filled up with water and drowned. Left to right; Jasper, Penny, Will and Molly.

Larry