He's a snow dog!

We finally had our first snowfall here at the house.  Marley had seen snow on the ground at Vermilion Pass, but this was in HIS yard!  Not only was there snow on the ground, his first two trips outside, in the dark, it was snowing big snow blobs!  He at snow.  He caught snow flakes on his tongue.  He ran in the snow.  He had a great time! 

Later, when it was lighter, we took his ball out to play fetch in the snow.  He had so much fun.

I posted videos on You Tube.



Marley's First Snow video
Marley and the snowball

So, it's a little strange around here

Winter is setting in.  We're getting near and below freezing temperatures pretty regularly and the rain is trying very hard to turn into rain.  Charlotte is spending more and more time inside.  She is hooked on the soft glacial soil* for her toilet though, I think, since she will ask to go outside, then come back a few minutes later.  We rarely find she's used her litter box.  We're not finding "presents" or "surprises", just not seeing a lot of litter box use.

Her appetite has increased enormously.  Where once she seemed to be happy with 2 small (1/4 cup) scoops a day, she wants her dish filled every time she comes in.  We're trying to find a happy medium between a happily full kitty and a fat kitty.  She also expects to be offered her "Temptations" treats every time she comes in, and really, really expects them when we tempt her inside by telling her we'll give her some.  Her taste for them really ramped up when we found the tuna flavor.  While she's eating those out of our hand Marley is feeling left out, so we "accidentally" drop one or two for him here & there while she's munching.  It's not unusual for a dog to want to eat cat food.  That's why her dish is on our dresser - one of the few places Marley can't reach.

One of Marley's favorite treats is licking the spoon after we give Charlotte her quarter can of wet food at the end of the day.  He still jumps up and tries to snatch the spoon.  He misses getting the "empty" can at the end of the four day cycle.  We used to let him have them and he'd lick out all the "good stuff", then chew on the can.  When he chewing getting pieces of aluminum out of the can.  It's a struggle to keep the can in my hand for him to lick the juices, but I can't let him have cans anymore.

Charlotte has shown she's not above eating dog food and dog treats when she's hungry.  In the last few days she's finished his kibble, eaten Milk Bone Minis off the table.  It IS unusual for a cat to eat dog food.  Cat food is higher in protein & fat than dog food, so they usually will pass it up.  Not Charlotte.

So, we have a dog that will eat cat food and a cat that will eat dog food.  And they still rough house together.  Marley treats her rougher than we'd like, but she will start a session at least every day or two.  Go figure.


*Our soil has a consistency similar to a hard wheat flour - more substantial than dust, less than sand.  It's really soft and easy to move.  And it only seems to hold water in the top quarter inch or so.  This area was once under the huge Missoula glaciers that carved the Clark Fork River all the way to Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho.

A bad night out

The other night it was dark when we got home from Marley's class.  Tom was unloading the car in the dark, bringing in the groceries.  He left the back hatch open the whole time as he made the needed trips to & from the house.  After a few minutes the interior lights go out.  Since Charlotte is dark gray and it was dark outside (the porch lights don't reach out that far), he didn't see that she'd jumped inside the car.  He closed it up and we finished our evening as usual.

Toward bedtime we expected her to come in.  No sign of her.  When Marley had his last trip out for the night we expected her to come in.  No sign of her.  Tom called her.  Tom offered her "crunchies".  No sign of her.  That happens some times. 

In the morning we expected her to come in, maybe even complaining, first time Marley went out.  No sign of her.  Later in the morning, still no sign.  Finally, Tom went and looked in the car.  There she was, curled up on the front seat.  She was quite happy to come in with him.

Today, while we were on mushroom patrol, she came and joined in the fun.  I got a bit worried because as I'd point out the bleeping 'shrooms, she'd come check them out.  I started to worry she might try to nibble them and we'd be taking her to the vet.  I can't imagine dealing with a cat and mushroom poisoning - they don't deal well with confinement.  She was happy to some inside out of the snow with us, though.  So, all is well for now.

Would you believe he's helping fix dinner?

Tonight I'm being lazy, fixing chicken patty sandwiches & potato crowns in the air fryer.  I cook the chicken patties on one side, flip and finish cooking.   When it dinged the first time, he ran in the kitchen to keep an eye on things.  When it dinged the second time and I didn't jump right up to take care of it, he came and barked at me.  Now he's very antsy as the potato crowns cook. 

I think it probably is rooted in self interest.  We have been gradually introducing him to "pre-wash", meaning he gets to lick the plates when we're done.  So far, he's taking it in stride ... other than now feeling entitled to them and overseeing dinner prep. 

He's spent more and more time in the kitchen when meals are being prepped.  He's learned there's food, there's sometimes "fallout" and sometimes even deliberate treats.  Now, he's taken it a step further and seems to realize that activity, with or without bodies, means there will be food.

We'll see how this behavior progress over the next weeks.

Everybody to the vet

This morning it was time for Charlotte's annual (now biennial) trip to the vet.  At a year and a quarter she weighs in at 10 pounds.  We weighed her in her crate, then they weighed her crate without her and wrote the crate weight on it so next time we can just plop her on the scale and do the math.

She's nice & healthy.  She didn't seem too upset by what was going on, even when she was restrained and when she got her 3 shots (she gets rabies shots since she spends a lot of time outside and she hunts).

Her crate smelled of pee - not sure if it was old pee that her body heat warmed or if it was fresh, since I gave her no opportunity to use the litter box before we left.  I just scooped her up from a nap and put her in the crate.  Either way, the towels get washed and put back in the crate for next time. 

Surprisingly, she didn't protest or resist going back in the crate when Dr. Hopkins was done with her.  Not surprisingly, as soon as we were home and she was out of the crate (in the house) she took the next opportunity to go outside.  Surprisingly, she was in her nest box on the porch when we got back from post office.  I had expected her to disappear over to the garage or out in the ferns somewhere for several hours.  Maybe she's really appreciating the warmth of the house.

What about Marley?  He is getting used to the car barrier.  We just couldn't risk him jumping from back to front at a bad time.  He'd just stand on the front edge of the back seat, then suddenly he'd be in flight to Tom's lap and feet.  Having Charlotte crying in her carrier seemed to let him know how much "worse" it could be for him.  And letting her loose in the car with him ... NOT GONNA HAPPEN.  Never.  No way.  That could get us all killed.

We did take Marley inside to weigh him.  Our vet has a nice, big walk-on scale with digital readout.  He's now at 51.8 pounds.  He's 6-1/2 months old.  He's going to weigh more than Max (about 70 pounds, mostly hair, tall and lean) and maybe more than Una (about 80 pounds).

Looks like this is going to wind up being a small cat, big dog family.  And that's just fine with us.

Charlotte is staying in more ... most of the time

As the nights consistently drop into the mid to low 30s Charlotte is spending a lot more time inside with us.  She'll go out and be back within 5 minutes or so.  She'll be gone a while, then show up shortly after we turn on the porch lights (we do it to "call" her in the dark).  She's started seeking more physical contact again, too.  Lap time.  And under the covers time.

Last night she not only spent quite a while under the covers with us, she stayed while I made a potty break.  When I was settling back in I felt to see if she was still there, then petted her a little.  I moved my hand away and almost immediately she reached over to pull my hand back to rest on her shoulders.

I plan to work on getting her used to her harness, then add the leash.  Maybe that will be a way to get her outside, and keep her too.  Of course, it's almost impossible to hunt on a leash ...

Marley Goes to School

Yesterday Marley started six weeks of school.  He's been placed in an adult class despite being only 6 months old.  Because there is one trainer at the Ponderay Petco store, she's gotten to know him a bit at the 3 sessions of Puppy Play we've gone to, and she told us this class would be the best match.  She tries to match dogs by energy level, even more than size or age at the Puppy Play.  His classmates are about a year old.  One is a border collie, but we're not sure what the third dog is.  She's not real happy with other dogs getting really close to her. 

Day one we worked in separate spaces.  Rebecca set up spaces by arranging the benches to provide both seating and separation.  This allows room to work, and keeps the dogs from getting in each others space, reducing confrontations.

We worked on name recognition (when you say your dog's name he/she must look at you to be rewarded).  This is a basic skill to be built upon.  Nearly all training says you should say your dog's name before giving them a command.  By rewarding looking at you, they learn that if you say their name something good is going to follow.  I had started working on this (but with "watch me") just a couple days before.  He's pretty good at responding to his name.  We work on it a bit throughout the day at home.

We worked on sit.  We're sort of backtracking here, since she wants us to use "stinky" (lots of smell) treats to lead him back into a sit.  We're doing it her way because of it being a building block of other training later on.  Marley's been a good sitter since he came home with us.  He just needed a name for it.

We worked on "target" - we call it "touch" and have been working on it for quite some time, so we worked on moving the target (palm of hand) to various places to give him a bit of challenge since he already knew it.

And, last but very much not least, we worked a bit on come.  That is one we really need lots of work on.  In a training situation he was doing well, up to a point, out in the yard before the mushrooms shut us down.  So, this is where we'll concentrate most of our effort.  This is a basic, vital, and sometimes life-and-death skill.

Speaking of "stinky" treats, we're about to find out how hot dogs affect Marley.  If they make him fart stinky farts we'll look for something else (like cook up some meat & cut into tiny pieces for training treats).  The important thing is that the treats are so good that they will convince him that doing what we want is better than chasing the cat, driving off the deer, following a scent ...

Update:
We attended a one-hour leash manners class a couple hours before the Sunday Puppy Play session.  We're learning how to let him learn how to keep the leash loose.  We practiced in the training area, then spent time walking around the store so the pups could learn to keep their attention on us and their leashes loose.  It was up to them to learn, not up to us to actively teach.  That means we stopped if they reached the end of the leash & pulled, we rewarded when they stayed close and when they made eye contact.  By the end of it Marley was almost heeling, and the goal was just to "walk nice" and not pull on the leash.  He's a good student.