We always seem to have egg babies all over the yard, on the porch, and all over in the house. Tim loves them, and since Skip has gotten older her has given up Blue, (his trusty blue Chuck-It Whistler Ball), for the soft egg baby that he now carries around quite often. Every foster dog since Moon has picked the Egg Baby as their toy of choice! It is so interesting as the ones we have all filthy, most don't squeak anymore, they have been sewn up numerous times, and are just a stuffed egg shaped piece of cloth, but what the heck! They are simple and cheap and the dogs just love 'em, so I love them too :)
The instant we got Kia in the yard and put her down after her two day transport the VERY first thing she did was pick up a stray egg baby and start running around with it, tossing it in the air, pouncing on it, and when we threw it for her she chased it down like prey and brought it right back for more. It was quite amazing! She is only about 4 months old and she is already a fast, spry, huntress, and egg babies are her prey.
This was hilarious, Kia was trying to get the yellow egg baby up to me so I could put it in the chuck it wand and do it again. She would bring it up then drop it and it would fall back down. I would say that is brilliant!
"Foster mom can you help me get this thing flying away again so I can chase it again?"
"I am doing the best I can with 4 paws to get this thing up to you."
"Oops I guess I have to pick it up again."
"Foster mom, here you go!"
In one of these videos you can see she likes Skip's ball "Blue" too. Basically she just loves to play!!!!
Finishing this post off with a sweet pic of Tim. He did really great with the new arrival, but after a couple of hours he had this look like "mom is she really staying? I hope you will still have time for me..." No worries Tim we will always have time for you.
With a full night's sleep after her big day of nothing but transitions, this was Tesla's first full day in foster care and we didn't have any plans but to hang out in the yard and let her settle in with us, our home, and our dogs(and cat:) . It was a beautiful spring day and it also happened to be Easter! It was really nice to just sit in the sun and watch the dogs goof off. If we could plan out a perfect day, this would have been it. Sun, dogs, birds singing, dogs...barking, sitting in the yard, dogs playing, a little weeding and lawn mowing, and did I say dogs running around entertaining us? Oh and at some point there were snacks, homemade vanilla ice cream, and a really good bottle of red wine.... like I said, it was a perfect day!
Hi foster mom!
Tesla would love Skip to play with her, or at least give her some attention, but Skip is not a fan...yet.
And he tells her to back off, which she did! Good girl, way to listen to your elders.
Time for some games of fetching egg babies and balls.
Tesla is always interested in everything. What a great trait to have as a puppy girl.
Skip has his ball, "Blue", and Tim has his egg baby, while Telsa runs back and forth with them cheering them on.
Tesla loves to run when the other dogs run, she is pretty respectful too, doesn't crash into them, unless it is an accident.
She likes to follow Tim and see what he is sniffing.
Oooooo good girl! Now she has the egg baby!
Hi Tim, what are you doing...huh huh huh?...
huh huh huh?.... wanna play? huh huh huh????
Birdie says she will just sit next to mom and watch the shenanigans.
Really Tim is not yelling at Tesla. They were starting to play bitey face while they ran, but this shot is really funny!
I wonder if Tesla will ever get tired and take a nap? You will have to stay tuned because there is more that we did on this sunny day, and let's just say she is a puppy, a terrier puppy, and yes she has a lot of energy. :)
Annie is such a funny girl! She loves to play with toys. She will play alone, tossing them in the air and then pouncing on them and chasing them. She loves when her person will toss toys for her in the house to chase and she could do this over and over again.
Annie found the coveted egg babies, still the most played with toys in the house. :)
And to top it off she likes to play fetch with a ball in the yard. She really is a fun girlie.
And oh boy can she do a rattie run. I only got the tail end but I can attest it was epic!
And when Annie is done with her silliness and play-time, in her spare time she likes to be a seat warmer for foster mom.
Yes foster mom? Do you need something?
"I was thinking that since I am giving you eye contact that maybe I could have a treat!"
Looks like our work around eye contact is having some effect. ;) Amazing
what behavior changes one can get with just a little positive
reinforcement, consistency, and a really smart rattie!
In a previous post Tim Loves To Fetch His Egg Babies you got to see how Timken loves to play fetch with his egg babies. But have you ever tried to throw an egg baby??? It is not easy. They are really light weight and don't go too far unless you really get creative with your method. I found that throwing it underhand-backwards got Tim the most bang for his buck, but after a few months of this my shoulder is really sore. A couple of weeks ago in my weekly Yoga class it was all I could do to hold a Downward Dog because I realized I was really in pain. So then I started throwing overhand and front-underhand which just got other parts of my shoulder and arm sore. Dave is in the same boat and as a mechanic he kind of needs to have full use of his shoulders. The thing is we love to play Tim's game of fetch with him and so it goes.
A couple of friends have asked us if we could use a Chuck-It to help with the egg tossing and I explained that Tim was terrified of the Chuck-It and I had to put it away. We used to use it with Skip and his ball, Blue, all the time, but when one of us would pick up the Chuck-It Tim would not want to be anywhere near us.
Welllll..............that was then and this is now! HA! Dave asked me today if we should get the Chuck-It out again and see if Tim would be okay with it now. It has been put away for about 4 months. I was skeptical but our shoulders are getting worse so I agreed we should see if Tim would tolerate it at all. Tim did great! He didn't balk at all! It was as if we had always tossed the egg babies with a big orange Chuck-It. And the great thing is we can really get the eggs to soar across the yard and Tim can get more exercise and really open up his running stride. Pretty awesome isn't it?
I had the camera ready. Tim is looking at the Chuck-It with interest and not moving away from it.
Hey dad why don't you stop holding my baby and toss that thing?
A little Timken lean but he is still curious.
Looking pretty comfortable with his baby on a long orange thing.
The baby did get tossed and here is Tim, he brought it right back to go again.
He is mesmerized by this orange arm holding his baby.
What a cute boy!
Skip was excited to see the Chuck-It again and has decided that fetching Egg Babies is pretty dang fun.
And here is Tim, now he gets to chase his baby all the way across the yard. Yay!
Tim has really been getting athletic with his Egg Babies, soft toys, and also food treats. I discovered he had graduated from just fetching to being okay with catching things that were falling down from above. Not that long ago this would have been a bit scary for him and in the first few months he was with us, this would have completely undone him, even our arms moving to throw something was scary.
But as he is allowed to go at his own pace he continues to blossom and although this probably doesn't seem like that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, I can assure you for us and Tim this is huge progress. Our arms and shoulders are tired from throwing the egg baby so many times as he wants to play this new game from the time he wakes up to the time he goes to bed. lol. As long as we are sitting in the yard or in the living room he will quietly bring us an egg baby and put it at our feet or very nearby and wait patiently for us to throw it for him to fetch or say the new magic word "catch" and he will sit on his haunches and prepare to grab it from the air. He can get pretty acrobatic with this and I got some if it on video and photos, lots of video and photos but I tried to pare it down for the blog post!
When we say "catch" Tim will sit and wait eagerly for us to throw it up in the air for him.
Tim has a very keen way of focusing on the ball when he is in "catch" mode. Here you can see his concentration.
After many attempts and successes at catch with lots of fetch thrown in for good measure, Tim finally tires himself out...for a while, ha ha.
I recorded quite a few "catches", like 25 of them which is just a small portion of the actual amount he will do in a session! He could do this for hours. But when it is time for mom or dad to stop he is very sweet and just goes to lie down
This was the next day, he was at it again :)
I love how Skip photo bombed most of these pictures :)
Skip, in back, was rolling on his ball.
It is very emotional to think of how awkward Tim was when he first came into our care. He was not even able to run, had no muscle mass, in fact he even had a hard time walking, his back legs seemed to bow out and he was not in tune with his body at all. But look at our boy now!
Stay tuned as Tim---along with his furbro Skip---have something very awesome to share with you. They have started a whole new en devour and have brought mom and dad along for the ride.
