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

Maggie May has gone home

It's sad here today. Yesterday we drove Maggie May to Salem Oregon to her new home. What a great home it will be, we are sooooo happy for her. Maggie's new family consists of 4. Kindra Cade, Jordan and Jacob. They all welcomed Maggie May with open arms.

Maggie May road the 4 1/2 hours in her kennel very well, not a peep. She rides in the car very well. When we arrived we could see that she was frightened and bewildered, undeerstandable with a new place and people. I am sure that she will be fine in a couple of days

Maggie, we wish you all the happiness in the world. Seeing these dogs land in a great home is what makes fostering these little souls so rewarding
Larry

Maggie May has great news

We are very happy to announce that Maggie May has been adopted. She has found her furever home in Salem Oregon and be living with a family of 4.
We will be driving down to Salem tomorrow, April 30th to deliver her. Her new family is very anxious for her to arrive. Even though Maggie May has only been with us for 2 1/2 weeks we are going to miss her very much. We wish her the best, happy trails.

Larry

MAGGIE MAY IS FEELING BETTER

Maggie May is beginning to feel pretty good after her surgery last Wednesday. She is under doctor's orders to not jump and run etc. She is feeling so good it is difficult to slow her down. The weather is crappy today so it's easier to keep her indoors today, so that's good. She is leaving her incision alone so we won't have to put the dreaded cone on her. Hopefully the stitches won't begin to pull so she will continue to leave the area alone. Her stitches will dissolve on their own, so after a couple of weeks all should be well without a vet visit.
Maggie loves Jasper and continues to get in a dog bed with him every chance she gets. She is beginning to play with toys more and more. She loves a stuffed dog she dug out from the toy box. Maggie has discovered the swimming pool cover and walks towards the middle, she is not heavy enough to make the cover sink so water comes through though.
Will is continuing to be a gentleman, he seems to realize Maggie is not 100% and that he needs to be careful around her for awhile.

We are sure going to miss this little girl when she is adopted.

Maggie May goes under the knife

This morning Maggie May (not Maggie Mae) went into the vet for her spay surgery and microchip installation. We were worried as she only weigh about 6 lbs. Everything went well and she is now back home. She surely isn't feeling too well yet. Maggie has been hanging out in her kennel all afternoon trying to stay out of the line of fire from the other dogs. She is under doctor's orders to refrain from running, jumping, wrestling, swimming, etc. Well, she can't do anything that would be fun, for 10 - 14 days. I hope we can keep her fairly quite as she is a real wiggle worm, and I guess wiggling is also on her CAN'T list. Tomorrow will be a better day for her, I'm sure.

I think by Saturday or Sunday Maggie May will be back to her old self. We are beginning to see a lot of changes in the way she acts. She has become very good friends with Jasper.

Will hung out today on the new Molly Mutt bed laying in the sun. We haven't been getting much sun lately so he seemed to really be enjoying him self.

Will is also a snoop. Now that we have completed the concrete strip along the fence bottom he now finds knot holes or cracks between the boards to see whats up on the other side.

Will did take another trip to the centennial trail for a walk on Saturday between rain showers. He did OK, but he is much better when he is the only dog going. On this walk he was with our other foster Maggie May and Jasper.

Maggie Mae settles in

Maggie is really beginning to feel at home in her new foster home. She has become fast friends with fellow foster Will and foster sibling Jasper. She is playing more and more but is not into rough housing. She will chase a ball, but doesn't bring it back yet.

1st photo is Will, Jasper and Maggie Mae on their new Molly Mutt bed 2nd is Jasper and Maggie Mae in their favorite cat bed.

Yesterday during the brief SUN STORM we had Maggie Mae was outside and began to bark and bark. Barking is unusual for her so we looked around to see what the cause was. We have a couple of ceramic deer in one of our flower beds that Maggie happened by and noticed. I think they kinda scared her. The deer are pretty much the same size as Maggie Mae is.  Maggie barked and carried on for 5 minutes until we picked them up and put them away. We also have a mirror in the hallway and she barks at the little dog in there sometimes.

It is very difficult to get good photos of Maggie. She is always on the move and we usually just get a blur of where she was. Maggie's nose is chocolate in color so facial shots don't usually show her features too well.

Maggie continues to do well with her house training. She does do her business most times when she goes out..if the others in the pack leave her alone long enough. Maggie's foster mom is working on her petfinders bio so she should be in there soon. In the meantime, if anyone has questions about her, leave a comment here.

More about Will tomorrow or Saturday.

Larry

Sunshine Today

Today the sun came out for around 4 hours here. Maggie Mae loves it. She runs in the grass and is beginning to try to play with the rest of the pack. Maggie is very small (a little over 6 pounds) so she still is somewhat timid when around the other dogs, especially Will, who, as I've mentioned before, is loud and a little aggressive towards her. We are waiting for Penny or Molly to lay into him. It should do him some good and hopefully there won't be too much blood or torn skin to deal with. He even pisses Jasper off sometimes.

Maggie is beginning to get into the toy box and do some playing with the toys. She likes balls and hooves, but best of all she likes going into the closet and get one of these to drag around.  
Maggie Mae will be going to the vet on April 24th to get spayed, her H/W test done and microchip inserted. Must be a busy time for the vet as we have to wait over a week to get in.

Maggie Mae arrives

Late yesterday afternoon Maggie Mae rolled into Seattle. Maggie came up from Fresno CA. She is a Rattie/Chi mix and very small, weighed in at 6.4 lbs. Maggie is beginning to settle in, she has had her bath this morning and will get a flea preventative treatment tonight when she is completely dry. We have introduced her to bully sticks, which she seems to like. This afternoon she is resting as I think she is suffering from transport lag. Transport lag is similar to jet lag without the jet. She seems to be house broken, but doesn't like the rain too much.

Maggie Mae has not been spayed so we will be making a vet appointment to get that done next week. Look for her on Pet Finders soon.

Will has been on his best behavior since Maggie arrived. Kinda scary! We did check him over carefully to make sure another dog hadn't  taken his place, but it looks like it is Will. No barking, well not too much, the only thing he has done was get in Maggie's kennel at bed time, curled up and wouldn't come out for a long while. Will also got a bath today , a bully stick and will get his flea preventative treatment when he is completely dry.

toe nail trim day

Yesterday was nail trim day for the 3 Ratties. That's 48 nails and a few dew claws. All 3 of the Ratties don't like it much, Penny is the worst, screams and carries on. Rickie didn't attempt doing Molly the JRT as she figured 3 dogs was enough for one day, As a matter of fact Will, the foster, didn't quite get all the way done.

Rickie had dreaded trimming Will as he is usually like an EEL when trying to get him to do something he doesn't like or want to do. Will's nails are also black which makes it difficult to avoid cutting them too short and hitting the quick.

All 3 of the dogs went on a fairly long walk on the Centennial Trail (which is asphalt) to file down the rough nail edges after their ordeal.

Will did pretty well on his walk. We had decided that it might be better for him to go without any of the other dogs as he had been a handful last time when we took all 4 together. Yesterday he met several bicycles and was OK with them. He also met 3 dogs, 1 on a leash and two loose. He didn't pay too much attention to the 2 running loose behind their people, but the small dog on a leash was a different story. He began to bark (loud) as soon as the dog approached and didn't stop until the dog was 25 feet past us. Of course I had forgotten his treats so I couldn't get him distracted too well. He was better than last time though, so I think talking to him in a calming tone as the dog approached helped.

Taking Will for a walk is a long process. He must look at everything and pee on every weed, stick and blade of grass more than 2 inches high. Will also is very interested in bugs that are in the bushes, having to "nose" them and investigate.
Larry

RAIN

BOY is it

around here today.

Will won't go out so we are teaching him how to use one of these.

Jasper seems to have the right idea. When he goes out to pee it's in the middle of the gazebo where it's dry.

I hope our swimming pool doesn't overflow.

Rembering our Fosters

We have been fostering these little stinkers since Sept 2011. This was shortly after we adopted Penny from New Rattitude. Since starting we have had 11 fosters in the house. Thank heavens!! not all at once though. We also had two more for short stays, Susie, for 1and 1/2 days and Murray for 3 hours. We picked them up and then delivered them to their next stop.

We love each and every dog we have had here. It is really hard to let them go and the longer they are here the tougher it is. So far, the hardest has been Buda, our first, Chelan and Loki. Chelan was here 4 months and Loki 5 months. Both ended up in wonderful homes and we are very happy for them. So far we have only adopted 1 foster, Jasper. He is a special little guy and rules the roost around here.

Our first foster was Buda. He was with us Sept. to Nov. 2011. Buda now is living in Sumner WA.

Next was Gus. He was with us Nov. and Dec. 2011. Gus is now living in Sedro Wolly WA. Gus's name is still Gus.

Next was Pinto. He was with us Dec. 2011 to Feb. 2012. Pinto is now living in University Place WA. His new name is Chance.




Next was Jasper. He came to us in Jan. 2012 and never left. Jasper is still named Jasper.

Next was Sybil. She was with us Feb. to Apr. 2012. Sybil is now living in Seattle WA. Her new name is Kiki. We dog sat her for a week in Feb.

Next was Timber. He was with us Apr and May 2012. Timber is now living in Portland OR. His new name is Timberwolf.

Next was Hannah. She was with us in  May 2012. Hannah is now living in Lynnwood WA. Her new name is Cali-Hannah. We dog sat her for a month in Jul. and Aug. 2012.

Next was Micah. He was with us in Jun. 2012. Micah now lives in Port Townsend WA. His new name is Murray.

Next was Chelan. She was with us Jul. 2012 to Nov. 2012. Chelan now lives in Portland OR. Chelan's name hasn't changed as far as we know.

Next was Loki. He was with us Sep. 2012 to Mar. 2013. Loki now lives in La Conner WA. Loki's name is still Loki.

Our present foster is Will. We have had will since Mar. 2013 and he is still looking for furever home. We hope he gets what he deserves.

Larry