Among the growing list of things Remus doesn't like is car rides. In an attempt to get him used to them and the inevitability of vet visits, I drove him to the vet today "just for fun" and to get him weighed. He whined and scrabbled and left scratch marks all over me, but we made it. He got cookies and treats and actually made a doggie friend with a chihuahua-doxen mix. We coaxed him on the scale and I was surprised when it stopped at 15.1 lbs. We'd weighed him 6days ago and he was 11.75 lbs. I had been hoping for what I thought a reasonable 13lbs. 15? He's averaging gaining half a pound in body weight per day. I decided to measure him then too, and he's between 16-17inches tall. He was between 12-14 when we got him 10 days ago. Sheesh! I knew wolfhounds grew fast, but thats pretty ridiculous. My puppy isn't going to fit on my lap for very much longer. I'm so proud :)
Now to get him potty trained, buh. We have great days and we have not so great days. I don't want to leave him on the linoleum any longer than I have to, because even with the soft bed he still manages to bang his elbows and ankles on the floor repetitively. Not being able to walk without tripping might have something to do with it...
Ah well, car rides, vet visits, bath time, grooming, all things Remus is getting exposed to and will eventually-hopefully-at least be able to tolerate.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Bath time!
Remus's first bath was the day we brought him home, a flea dip outside to get rid of fleas. We used the hose and he hated it. He squirmed and whimpered and tried to run away, but we managed to get him wet, lathered, and rinsed. He forgave us afterwards.
Well, it's been a week since his last bath and in typically puppy fashion, Remus has been playing outside in everything he can. He has definitely developed a doggy like oder, it was time to wash him again-this time with a non flea killing shampoo. I don't know if it's SOP for wolfhounds to hate getting wet, but Remus definitely does. He doesn't like going outside early or late because of the dew, he also hates mid afternoon because it's too hot, he's a finicky puppy--but we don't really cater to his finickyness. He goes outside every few hours, regardless of weather or ground condition, and he doesn't go back in until he finishes his business. And he is going to get regular baths.
SO first attempt at bathing, I should've listened to my gut and taking Remus outside before putting him in the tub. He'd peed about an hour earlier, but he hadn't pooped for over two. I'm in shorts and an old bikini top, the water in lukewarm stillness until Remus's four flapping feet hit it-he freaks. I try slowly pouring water over him with a cup and he completely spazzes out whining and jumping and clawing in a frantic attempt to escape the water. He's already 12 lbs, he's not easy to hold on to, and nothing is calming him down I can feel his heart thudding through his ribcage. In a terrific attempt to get out, he simultaneously craps in the water. Great, I knew he needed to go. Brian's in hysterics he's laughing so hard, which isn't helping the poor frenzied Remus as Brian's laughter ricochets off the tile floor, so I pick him up-half wet-and put him outside on the deck while I clean the tub. He howls and whines at the door with miserable puppy eyes, but I'm not having any of it. I'm already thinking of how to make this work.
Brian suggests we just wait until he gets back from class and we hose him down outside again. Remembering last time we hosed him off and how panicked Remus got, all I can think of is wrestling a 180lb dog who is still scared of water to get a bath. Hmm. Not really a good idea to train him in habits we don't want him to keep. I wave my husband out the door, ignore the pitiful bedragled look of my puppy, and head back to the bathroom. I refill the now clean tub with lukewarm water, I get a tupperware dish as opposed to a glass for the water pouring (the glass had already been cracked amidst the excitement of round 1), make sure treats and shampoo are within easy reach, put on my bikini bottoms and steel myself for round two.
I pick up Remus, giving him a treat as I carry him down the hall and into the bathroom. Instead of setting him in the tub, I step in and squat down on my heels, holding Remus between my knees. Predictably, like he does every time he's scared of something, he backs up into me as close as he can get and sits down. At least he's not freaking out, and he's succesfully soaking his rump. I offer him a treat, he's not interested-a sign he really is scared of this whole proceeding. I drop the tupperware into the water, let him see it as I swirl it around and praise him constantly as I slowly dribble the water down his front. He whines, but no spastic clawing. It's hard to soak a wolfhound, their undercoat is fluffy and soft and apparently resistant to water. It takes awhile to get him thoroughly wet, but I manage. The shampooing goes relatively uneventfully and the rinsing is over quickly. He tries to make an escape a few times, but it's more just a stand on his back legs and rest his front paws on my knee to get out of the water as much as possible. I use that to my advantage and scrub his belly. He's whining, he's shaking a little, I can still feel his heart racing away as I support his chest with my hand, but he's not being frantic and I'm not having to use a lot of force to keep him put. Progress.
I carry him outside to towel him off since our AC keeps the house cold and I don't want him to catch a chill. The sun is warm and the deck is dry as I towel him down. He revives a little and stops shaking. He dries quickly, at least his underfluff does. His long top coat sticks together like eyelashes with too much mascara on. He looks like a punkrocker. I take him down the ramp to pee in the yard, and then back inside I offer him a special treat for his courage.
He doesn't hold grudges. He was a little whiny and clingy after bath time. So much so that I sat down on the linoleum and he crawled into my lap to sleep. Usually he wants to play or get a belly rub when he clambers over my legs. This time he gave me a few weary licks, curled up his still slightly damp body, and passed out. He slept like the dead. In a few minutes I transferred him to his bed because my leg was falling asleep and he didn't even wake up.
It was more of an adventure then I anticipated, but I think we're on the right track. I'm going to be putting him in bath tubs full of water frequently, even if he doesn't get a full bath, just so he gets used to the idea. It's a bit of a challenge modifying training with an eye for the future. Sure, he's easy to control now, but he's not always going to be this small. I don't want to enforce bad habits, but some days it feels like there are just too many habits to try to establish or change. One day at a time.
Well, it's been a week since his last bath and in typically puppy fashion, Remus has been playing outside in everything he can. He has definitely developed a doggy like oder, it was time to wash him again-this time with a non flea killing shampoo. I don't know if it's SOP for wolfhounds to hate getting wet, but Remus definitely does. He doesn't like going outside early or late because of the dew, he also hates mid afternoon because it's too hot, he's a finicky puppy--but we don't really cater to his finickyness. He goes outside every few hours, regardless of weather or ground condition, and he doesn't go back in until he finishes his business. And he is going to get regular baths.
SO first attempt at bathing, I should've listened to my gut and taking Remus outside before putting him in the tub. He'd peed about an hour earlier, but he hadn't pooped for over two. I'm in shorts and an old bikini top, the water in lukewarm stillness until Remus's four flapping feet hit it-he freaks. I try slowly pouring water over him with a cup and he completely spazzes out whining and jumping and clawing in a frantic attempt to escape the water. He's already 12 lbs, he's not easy to hold on to, and nothing is calming him down I can feel his heart thudding through his ribcage. In a terrific attempt to get out, he simultaneously craps in the water. Great, I knew he needed to go. Brian's in hysterics he's laughing so hard, which isn't helping the poor frenzied Remus as Brian's laughter ricochets off the tile floor, so I pick him up-half wet-and put him outside on the deck while I clean the tub. He howls and whines at the door with miserable puppy eyes, but I'm not having any of it. I'm already thinking of how to make this work.
Brian suggests we just wait until he gets back from class and we hose him down outside again. Remembering last time we hosed him off and how panicked Remus got, all I can think of is wrestling a 180lb dog who is still scared of water to get a bath. Hmm. Not really a good idea to train him in habits we don't want him to keep. I wave my husband out the door, ignore the pitiful bedragled look of my puppy, and head back to the bathroom. I refill the now clean tub with lukewarm water, I get a tupperware dish as opposed to a glass for the water pouring (the glass had already been cracked amidst the excitement of round 1), make sure treats and shampoo are within easy reach, put on my bikini bottoms and steel myself for round two.
Round 1...Remus was NOT happy...
I pick up Remus, giving him a treat as I carry him down the hall and into the bathroom. Instead of setting him in the tub, I step in and squat down on my heels, holding Remus between my knees. Predictably, like he does every time he's scared of something, he backs up into me as close as he can get and sits down. At least he's not freaking out, and he's succesfully soaking his rump. I offer him a treat, he's not interested-a sign he really is scared of this whole proceeding. I drop the tupperware into the water, let him see it as I swirl it around and praise him constantly as I slowly dribble the water down his front. He whines, but no spastic clawing. It's hard to soak a wolfhound, their undercoat is fluffy and soft and apparently resistant to water. It takes awhile to get him thoroughly wet, but I manage. The shampooing goes relatively uneventfully and the rinsing is over quickly. He tries to make an escape a few times, but it's more just a stand on his back legs and rest his front paws on my knee to get out of the water as much as possible. I use that to my advantage and scrub his belly. He's whining, he's shaking a little, I can still feel his heart racing away as I support his chest with my hand, but he's not being frantic and I'm not having to use a lot of force to keep him put. Progress.
I carry him outside to towel him off since our AC keeps the house cold and I don't want him to catch a chill. The sun is warm and the deck is dry as I towel him down. He revives a little and stops shaking. He dries quickly, at least his underfluff does. His long top coat sticks together like eyelashes with too much mascara on. He looks like a punkrocker. I take him down the ramp to pee in the yard, and then back inside I offer him a special treat for his courage.
He doesn't hold grudges. He was a little whiny and clingy after bath time. So much so that I sat down on the linoleum and he crawled into my lap to sleep. Usually he wants to play or get a belly rub when he clambers over my legs. This time he gave me a few weary licks, curled up his still slightly damp body, and passed out. He slept like the dead. In a few minutes I transferred him to his bed because my leg was falling asleep and he didn't even wake up.
It was more of an adventure then I anticipated, but I think we're on the right track. I'm going to be putting him in bath tubs full of water frequently, even if he doesn't get a full bath, just so he gets used to the idea. It's a bit of a challenge modifying training with an eye for the future. Sure, he's easy to control now, but he's not always going to be this small. I don't want to enforce bad habits, but some days it feels like there are just too many habits to try to establish or change. One day at a time.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
First week :)
Remus was 8wks and 2 days old when we picked him up from the breeder. He seemed a little skinny and he had fleas, but he won my heart by heaving his tufted leggy body into my lap and passing out on the drive home. He whined a little when he woke up, consented to a belly rub, and then promptly fell back asleep. He was already over a foot tall at the shoulder and had no concept of where all his limbs were at any given time. I saved him from sliding head first off the backseat onto the floor multiple times. The breeder said he thought he'd be a wheaten, that is a red-blond, when he grew up. For now, his baby underfluff was a pale gold but the thin straggling overcoat was dark grey. He had a pale sploth on his chest and a dark mask over his nose and eyes. His ears were (and still are) huge. They lay flat against the back of his neck when he's relaxed and they flop forward when he's interested or excited. He was a skinny, fuzzy, awkward lump of cuteness, dwarfed by the giant kennel when we first brought him home.
We brought him home Saturday, gave him a flea bath before we took him inside and applied Advantix. I took him to the vet that Wed. When I had called the vet, the receptionist practically squealed in delight when I told her I had a wolfhound puppy. They had one other adult wolfhound in the practice, but no one had ever seen or worked with a puppy. An adult wolfhound was more than any of the other practices I had checked into could boast, and the enthusiasm of the staff on our arrival reassured me that I had chosen the best place. Remus was given cookies, toted around by the vet techs, and had his picture taken multiple times. Still a puppy at heart, the excitement wore him out by the time the exam was over and I had to fill out paperwork. After whining that he couldn't get back on the padded bench in the lobby by himself, I picked him up and plopped him down where he stretched out in true limb splaying wolfhound fashion and passed out. I was nearly as tired as he was, having had to go to a training event at work early that morning and rushing home to get him to the vet on time. I finished the paperwork and woke up my sleepy puppy for the ride home.
He had the luxury of going straight back to sleep in his kennel, I tried to pick up the house a little and organize all his puppy papers.
Remus spends most of his days now sleeping, when he's not sleeping he's hyper, and then he goes back to sleeping. He sleeps 8-10hours a day, plus whatever he sleeps at night. The vet weighed him in at 11lbs 12ounces. In the past few days his eating amounts has increased by a quarter cup and his skinny body is finally filling out some. He's always going to be lanky, but right now he's all knees and elbows with floppy ears and a whiplike tail he chases until he falls over.
Falling is something Remus does constantly. With big paws and long legs, balance is something he hasn't quite mastered. Whenever he's playing, or even just running around, he invariably trips over something or knocks himself off balance side ways and lands with a thunk on the ground. He rolled head over heels down the small embankment behind our house chewing on his toy just the other day, much to the neighbors' delight.
We're trying to socialize Remus to the neighborhood kids, and when at the vet we let him sniff other dogs. Since he's so young he hasn't had his last round of Parvo shots or his rabies shot yet so we stay away from parks and PetsMart. He's intimidated by pretty much everything, even though he's already three times the size of the chihuahua who lives two doors down and half the size of the other dog. That's one of the reasons I like wolfhounds though, they are the opposite of aggression (unless hunting), vastly preferring to take the path of least resistance. He's as laid back as they come.
Except when he's playing. His baby teeth are sharp and he thinks hands and feet are chew toys that move. We're working on getting him to stop nipping us, offering a toy in place of our extremeties and letting him chew on that. His teeth don't hurt all that bad now, but he's getting bigger. He also loves to jump up on me when I sit down and lick my face. Thats ok when he's still barely 12lbs, but if and when he hits 180, I can't exactly have him jumping up on people-he'll weigh 60lbs more than me.
Most important on our list of training is the infamous housebreaking. He's doing ok, most of his accidents a result of us not realizing he can't hold it anymore. He goes outside with enthusiasm and I'm pretty sure he's realized that going inside is a no-no. He'll sniff around and whine in between playing with his toys now and then I know it's time he gets outside. I try to always take him outside after he wakes up because he usually needs to pee. We have a ramp on our backdeck steps because wolfhounds shouldn't do stairs, especially when they're young, because it puts too much strain on their forelegs and can cause joint problems and eventually arthritis. He's mastered running up the ramp, but he tends to just slide down it because he can't get traction on the wood. Brian's getting traction strips to put on it. It's cute to see Remus go sliding down till he tumbles off the bottom, but I doubt it's really helping his joints.
Posts will get shorter after this one, and I hopefully will be including pictures soon. Remus has been with us for a week now, and is 9wks 3days old today, he'll be 10wks on thursday. He's growing so fast!
He slept most of the way home
After his flea bath
He had the luxury of going straight back to sleep in his kennel, I tried to pick up the house a little and organize all his puppy papers.
Remus spends most of his days now sleeping, when he's not sleeping he's hyper, and then he goes back to sleeping. He sleeps 8-10hours a day, plus whatever he sleeps at night. The vet weighed him in at 11lbs 12ounces. In the past few days his eating amounts has increased by a quarter cup and his skinny body is finally filling out some. He's always going to be lanky, but right now he's all knees and elbows with floppy ears and a whiplike tail he chases until he falls over.
Falling is something Remus does constantly. With big paws and long legs, balance is something he hasn't quite mastered. Whenever he's playing, or even just running around, he invariably trips over something or knocks himself off balance side ways and lands with a thunk on the ground. He rolled head over heels down the small embankment behind our house chewing on his toy just the other day, much to the neighbors' delight.
We're trying to socialize Remus to the neighborhood kids, and when at the vet we let him sniff other dogs. Since he's so young he hasn't had his last round of Parvo shots or his rabies shot yet so we stay away from parks and PetsMart. He's intimidated by pretty much everything, even though he's already three times the size of the chihuahua who lives two doors down and half the size of the other dog. That's one of the reasons I like wolfhounds though, they are the opposite of aggression (unless hunting), vastly preferring to take the path of least resistance. He's as laid back as they come.
Except when he's playing. His baby teeth are sharp and he thinks hands and feet are chew toys that move. We're working on getting him to stop nipping us, offering a toy in place of our extremeties and letting him chew on that. His teeth don't hurt all that bad now, but he's getting bigger. He also loves to jump up on me when I sit down and lick my face. Thats ok when he's still barely 12lbs, but if and when he hits 180, I can't exactly have him jumping up on people-he'll weigh 60lbs more than me.
Most important on our list of training is the infamous housebreaking. He's doing ok, most of his accidents a result of us not realizing he can't hold it anymore. He goes outside with enthusiasm and I'm pretty sure he's realized that going inside is a no-no. He'll sniff around and whine in between playing with his toys now and then I know it's time he gets outside. I try to always take him outside after he wakes up because he usually needs to pee. We have a ramp on our backdeck steps because wolfhounds shouldn't do stairs, especially when they're young, because it puts too much strain on their forelegs and can cause joint problems and eventually arthritis. He's mastered running up the ramp, but he tends to just slide down it because he can't get traction on the wood. Brian's getting traction strips to put on it. It's cute to see Remus go sliding down till he tumbles off the bottom, but I doubt it's really helping his joints.
Posts will get shorter after this one, and I hopefully will be including pictures soon. Remus has been with us for a week now, and is 9wks 3days old today, he'll be 10wks on thursday. He's growing so fast!
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