Timken Has REALLY Big News!

Timken has something he wants to share with all his fan club. He has been waiting for this for almost 9 months! He asked me to help him say............

Timken won't be moving very far to go to his forever home. In fact....he won't be moving at all! He has officially joined our family and we couldn't be happier! Timken stole our hearts and he fits in so well with our home and our other dogs, and our lifestyle fits Tim! We thought about adopting Tim for quite a few months before making our decision. We are so happy to have made that decision now. How awesome it is to know we will be able to keep witnessing his progress as he blossoms into the rattie he was born to be. And in turn Timken will continue teaching us how we can help him the most by going slow and having a lot of patience and thinking outside of the box. Sounds like a win-win to me.

This isn't the end of Tim blog posts so stay tuned for progress reports and see what adventures he will continue to have with our pack. There will be Timken blog posts in July as he will be doing his first official Nosework class! He and his fur brother Skip are all signed up and ready to go. Nosework is a great confidence builder and we plan to continue to help Tim in that department.

Here are some pictures of Tim's last 8 months in foster care. Looking back makes me realize how far this boy has come. He has had to work really hard to be brave and chance trusting us. He had no reason to trust humans as the only humans he knew before he came into rescue did not give him any reasons to trust them, so he had (and still has) a lot of work ahead of him to get to the place where he can fully trust and feel safe in his fur. We are so privileged to be his family and to continue this work with him.

Tim on his first walk with the pack, with that droopy unsure body language he came to foster care exhibiting.

This was the first time Tim curled up to rest in our home. At the time it was such a milestone and looking at it now I realize how uncomfortable he looks compared to today.

Tim's first interest in a toy, wow was he thin. He had no muscle mass and we remember he even had a hard time running.

Tim had a sore on his leg that he would lick and lick and lick, he was not comfortable with this cone, clearly. Our vet said to let him lick it and he felt it would clear up on it's own. That was a relief and exactly what happened!

Tim learning he loves to be outside in the yard with us. One of the places he really shows his confidence is when he is spending his time in the yard with us.

Tim had been attacked and beat up by the dogs in his previous home which was NOT a home but a back yard breeding facility. But here in our home he is safe with all the other dogs, even the visitors, and that is a wonderful thing for Tim.

This is Tim showing how conflicted he was about being near me. He still can be conflicted but nothing like he was. He will crawl all over us now and give us kisses. Sweet boy...

One of our first attempts and debacle when having Tim meet a new person. This is Tim frozen from fear. Too much too fast. We learned more from this experience I think than any other and Tim has come a long way in feeling safe to meet new people, as long as we are advocating for him all along the way.

He got to experience his first snow with us last winter!

First dog park experience, and from the bug eyes I know this was very stimulating for him. There were no other dogs that day but the new environment was plenty much.

Tim is very sweet with our old girl Jenny Boo. She is 14 years old now and Tim and her hang out quite often which warms our hearts.

Tim showing his confidence level is up now! He loves to go for walks and hikes in the woods and is now comfortable jumping rocks, streams, and climbing over downed trees.

Tim can now relax here at our home and he loves to be on the porch in the sun.

Tim has some new friends too, he had such a good time going visiting and being with other people who let him have his own timeline to get to know them.

Tim's rattiness is emerging more every day.

I love this picture of Tim and Jenny

Past foster dog Neon was a big help in bringing Tim even more out of his shell. He and this puppy girl sure had a great three weeks together.

Tim the bee hunter...

Tim getting some reassurance from dad when we were at a public park. Wonderful to know we will be his home-base forever.

Tim when he visited a friendly coffee shop. He was exhausted from all the newness and visiting, but he did really well!

Tim being fun!

Tim is now a great runner and fetcher. He has built muscle and although he is still sleek he is a ratty fetching machine and has lots and lots of moves. He is amazing!

All that fetching makes for a tired boy...

Tim is learning that making eye contact with us is a good thing. He gets treats when he looks at me.

Birdie and Tim play on a fairly regular basis now. Birdie is our fastest dog but with Tim's new physique he can keep up with her bad ass self.

Tim the squirrel hunter

Beautiful Timken, you aren't going anywhere buddy. Congratulations to all of us!

Timken's Rattiness Emerges

Timken being a Rat Terrier is hard wired to have a prey drive. But of course every rattie is unique and so there are always degrees on the spectrum of prey drive within each one. As Tim continues to get more comfortable in his fur it allows his rattiness to blossom and if you follow the blog you have seen Tim's prey drive consist of chasing and shaking soft toys, hunting bees (not the best past time :), and fetching egg babies which he is really getting adept at and can pick them off on the first bounce many times now. The other day we were out in the yard and Tim found a new thing to prey on......squirrels. As you probably know squirrels are ingenious at catching a dog's attention but they are very difficult for a dog to catch! But Tim spent a very long time trying to find the squirrel in the bushes, and I have no idea what he would have done if he could have had the chance to actually catch it. I am glad the squirrel outsmarted Tim as I don't want to think of squirrel teeth or claws going into him as that would not be good at all. The funny part was that Mr Squirrel had taken off out the side yard and Theo the cat took off to see if he could catch him. But Tim still thought he had to be in the bushes. Sweet Tim...

Liza just had to figure out what Tim was doing so she took some time to search the bushes too.

Tim tries to see if he can figure out where that squirrel went from further away.

Tim still looking thinking maybe Mr Squirrel changed his location to the other side of the yard. Nope Tim, he was long gone about an hour ago.... Good looking boy!

Timken Has a Sleepover With NR's Sylvia!

Sylvia who is fostered in Yakima, WA got to come stay with us for a night and 2 days while her foster mom and sis went on a fun 2 day trip to Canada. Because Sylvia has some very similar trust issues like Timken has we wondered how she and Tim would do together. Also we were very curious as to how Sylvia would do away from her foster family as she has been with them for 3 months now and had not spent a night away from them.

We were so proud of Tim to be sweet and gentle and welcome Sylvia to his foster home. She was nervous and wanted to stay out on the porch as long as she could, but Tim joined her on the bed she found and she let him sit next to her for quite some time. Tim is on the left.

Here you can see little Sylvia standing looking in the doorway. I was hiding behind a partial wall and just had the camera sticking out to snap the picture.

Sylvia working up the courage to look inside the doorway. She did manage to come in about 8 ft on her own but quickly decided she was safer outside for the time being. Here she is looking in. I zoomed in so you could see her cute self.

About 6 hours in we felt she needed to come in the house. She was not happy when I had to insist she come in but she did end up letting Dave pick her up, even though she was terrified, and she did snuggle in the blanket next to him for quite some time. She is so sweet, she wants to trust, like Tim, but just needs a lot of time and going slow to get there.

Here is Sylvia snuggled in her favorite type of bed.

Tim and Sylvia were fine in the same house. Tim let her be as did the rest of our pack, so all in all things went very well.

Sylvia sure was happy to get back to her foster mom and sis. She did not have near enough time to warm up to us, although she did wag her tail a couple of times and we could see she would like to trust us if we had more time. Such a good girl. Head over to her foster mom's blog as there will be some news she is going to be sharing soon about little Sylvia! http://yapitude.blogspot.com/search/label/sylvia

Another Quick Neon (now Rowan) Pupdate

Rowan's mom wrote "We took her on her first long hike this weekend. 7.5 miles through the woods, and she loved it. Didn't even slow down by the end..."

 

"... although they were both tired dogs last night."

Still Life Of Three Ratties

I couldn't have posed this photo if I tried! I didn't even have my camera near but they actually stayed this way while I got up slowly from my chair and slowly walked over to get the camera. I took this one shot and then they dispersed. Lucky me!

Skip in window, Jenny left, Tim straddling Jenny (Tim does this quite often and we don't know why, but it sure is cute!)

Timken And Birdie

Timken has been in foster care with us 8 months now! People ask me all the time if our personal dogs and foster dogs all get along. Our personal dogs are pretty darn tolerant of all the foster dogs we bring in the house, although there are times we can tell that Skip would rather not have new dogs sharing his people and laps but all in all we manage the dogs so everyone is getting along.

Birdie on the other hand really likes the male dogs the best. Tim and Birdie had not really played too much until a couple of weeks ago. For one Birdie is deaf and this seems to alter the way she plays. Then Tim is awkward in his initial play and so the two just never really matched up for a play session that went very far. But then one day everything aligned and they started to play. Birdie does a lot of jerking and fairly rough playing. (When Tim played with past foster dog Neon they didn't play quite so rough.)

There is a lot of verbalizing in these two videos all coming from Timken. He even took on some of the jerky movements that Birdie does. They also did well with each others cut off signals too, Birdie does the sneezing then shake off routine. Tim usually does just the shake off.

It is always something to remember that it can take dogs a long time to get to the place where they will play (and sometimes they never do). When adopting a dog as a companion to a current dog, setting the expectations for play too high is a pitfall I see many adopters fall into. As an Adoption Coordinator I like to talk to applicants about what realistic expectations look like when adding a second or third dog to the family. My viewpoint is if the dogs live harmoniously in each others space then I am good with that. If from time to time they break out in play, then that is a bonus.

Here are three adorable pictures and Timken and Birdie waiting nicely together to get a treat :)

The background barking in the first video is Skip and the barking in the second video, (toward the end), which ends the play session, is Liza. The two of them have made barking at passersby and the mailman their personal jobs when out in the yard. :)