Who's A Silly Goose?

Tesla is that's who!

As she opens up and gets comfortable in her foster home she just gets sillier and sillier. She really is a joy forever type of girlie.

Here are a few videos to make you smile....

I love this video, it shows our progress with touch and petting with Tessi. Tessi is playing tug with me then Tim comes over for a pet and Tessi lets me pet her and scratch her rump too.

Here she is demonstrating her toy love nibbles. She has not gutted a toy.....yet, so far she just likes to softly nibble them and throw them around.

Tessi has decided she likes to show affection by mouthing and nibbling hands and fingers. She is very gentle and that is good news, but just to be safe we don't encourage this behavior. Here is an example of her doing this, and how silly she gets with it.

She loves to get in this Costco bed and spin and rub around in it. She does it about once a day. Then she will all of a sudden just crash and take a nap :)

Not only does Tessi like to nibble on soft toys, she also loves to throw them in the air and pounce on them. I have also seen her toss a tiny pebble she found on the floor and she had a blast tossing that in the air and hearing it ping down on the floor, she would find it again and repeat. She is just a very silly goose!

Stay tuned for my next post tomorrow, when Tessi and Tim take on a Woolly Mammoth!

Tesla's First Full Week In Foster Care.

Tesla has graced our household with her presence for 1 full week! What a week it has been. We have had a lot of good progress forward and things to celebrate in just 7 days.

1) Because Tessi is not housetrained we had to make sure we were setting her up for success in this dept. We have been covering a lot of ground in 7 days. We had accidents the first day, to be expected even from fully housetrained dogs, but I was missing cues and also not being diligent enough. That all changed by the second day, (because the humans got it together), and I am happy to say we have only had a couple other accidents in the house since, and as always, that was my fault, human error. But she is just a puppy and will need lots of reminders and reinforcement for going "potty" outside. She really is getting the hang of it though and knows once she is done to come to me for a treat and a "gOOd gIRL!!!!!!!"

This has nothing to do with housetraining. I just thought it was time for a cute pic of the little rascal.

2) Tessi was not comfortable to be picked up. Of course you saw in previous blog posts that she had gone for walks and hikes with us, so yes we did manage to get her picked up and into the car. But  we had to be slow and patient and we had to get creative. One thing that helped us was attaching a light line to her so that we would be able to gently pick it up, stroke the leash hand over hand, while walking slowly toward her. This helped a lot and although she did not like to be picked up (she uses all the stress signals, legs stiffen, trembling, lip licking, yawning), once we had her in our arms and were cooing and petting her she would snuggle in. She also will snuggle on our lap for an hour or more once she is there, and just yesterday she asked to be in my lap so this is nice progress. The last couple of days she is starting to come to us on her own for pets and will let us pick her up more readily, although she is still nervous about it. This will just take time and patience and I know she will learn to trust her people and be comfortable with touch and being picked up.

3) She is getting much more comfortable riding in the car. She was pretty nervous for a few days, the transport getting her here was long and she wasn't sure car rides were something she liked. But now she has learned car rides always end up with a walk, or hike, even if it is just a short jaunt! So she is beginning to settle in and will even chew on something now while she is riding to the next fun adventure. She still needs more good car experiences but I am so glad she is feeling more comfortable with riding in the car.

Tessi spying Tim just before she got down and got him to play with her a little.

4) Most importantly Tessi is learning how great it can be to be part of a family and live in a house. To eat healthy food and treats, and have safe human friends who always have her back. That is one nice thing we, as foster parents, can offer our foster dogs. Way to go Tesla!

Love her eyebrows and whiskers....

In a short 7 days she is really opening up and we are glimpsing what an awesome dog this lil gal is going to be. She just needs to go slow in some things and for her people to be patient and creative.

Sniff Sniff Sniff....

Sniff sniff sniff, sniff sniff sniff, sniff the bushes, sniff the bushes, heeeeyyyyyy sniff sniff sniff....

One thing Tessi loves to do is go for walks/hikes in the woods. She could go for hours and never tire. She will make someone a wonderful hiking buddy and we hope whoever adopts her will do a lot of walking and hiking with her because it is just so fun to watch the way she is so curious about every fern frond and leaf, every texture she walks on, every site and sound. She is curious about it all!

Getting puppies out on different ground textures is really great for their brain development. Of course the earlier you start the better, but it is never too late so get those pups, adults, and seniors out in nature and let them experience the myriad of textures mother nature has to offer them!

I know it is tempting to always want to hurry our dogs along and some people even go as far as always wanting their dog to heel and never stop for a sniff. True sometimes you do need to do that kind of walking, where you are a team and you need to get from point A to point B. But it is also just as important for dogs to have some free time too, and since Tessi had been cooped up in a shelter for so long and we aren't sure what her pre-shelter life consisted of, we want to give her ample opportunity to get into her "dogness" and spend some time sniffing, hearing, pawing at, and don't forget peeing, on things :) if you look closely you will see Timken with his leg lifted, he loves to mark the bushes on the trails.

On the move and nose is in full information input mode. I can just hear her little brain calculating....calculating....

Tessi and Tim do a lot of hanging out together, they are both the youngest kiddos in the pack, with Tim at 2 1/2 yrs, and Tessi about 6 months.

Trilliums!!!!

More calculating and information gathering, MUD!

Oh and did I mention Tessi likes to graze on plants now and then. Just like toddlers she sometimes puts everything in her mouth, so she needs supervision when out in nature. Mushrooms will really need to be off limits as there are many poisonous ones to get into trouble with. But nothing like that happened on our walk, mostly she tasted grass.

She has figured out already it is fun to walk with her fur siblings in a pack, such a smart girl.

More beautiful trilliums....

She really enjoyed the mud puddles, while the other dogs went along the edge, she plowed right through....more investigating how it smells, tastes, and feels.

Hey let's check out this large cedar tree!

She decided on the way back that she could cross the slippery logs herself, she was carried over the first time round. Just needed some time to get her confidence and mission accomplished!

Skunk Cabbage!

Tessi figuring out how to get over a log, then my camera battery ran out, but I can affirm, she made it. :) After our 1 1/2 hour walk she was a tired little girl, ready for a nap in her crate in the car while the humans did some errands....

Tessi Hits All The Best Pet Care-Redmond!

Tessi is just a young pup and she has no doubt missed some crucial socialization with her long stint in a shelter in Central CA. She was in the shelter for 6 weeks before she got sprung by our angel Lynn who works with our PNW team to pull ratties when their time is up. Tessi had been on her radar a while and Lynn was so kind to stop in on a weekly basis to visit little Tessi so she would know that she was loved and cared about. She would bring treats and a blanket for snuggling and Tessi learned to trust Lynn. Makes my heart soar with gratitude that Lynn took the time to do that for Tessi. A million thank you's to Lynn B!

To try and help to make up for some lost time with socializing we have been going real slow with introducing Tessi to new places, environments, and people as she has a lot to take in moving to a new state to be in our home with our 5 house dogs.

Today we did some short, small things with her. A local public park, we took a 20 minute walk and she did really well. Some respectful kids rode their bikes by her, there were a few small dogs that were also taking a walk and she was fine with all of them except the high strung Jack Russell who was barky and scared her.  A trail in Redmond where we walked on another public trail for another 10 minutes and she did real well here too! And we also went into the Redmond All The Best Pet Care, which I highly recommend for all your high quality pet food and other cool products for dogs and cats. The other great thing about these stores is they are a wonderful place to do a little socializing with your dog, even shy or unsure dogs like Tessi is. The staff are very gentle and always have yummy treats to offer. After a 10-15 minute warm up period Tessi ventured out to walk around the whole store with Dave, and then we ended on a good note and a yummy high value chew for the ride home.

When we walked in we were greeted by one of the employees' adorable 6 month old Boston Terrier, Addie.

The girls got right to getting to know each other and Tessi wanted to stay with foster dad for the first few minutes.

Then she was ready to be on her own to get to know little Addie a bit more.

Addie loved to have her rump scratched and kept coming back for more.

Then we ventured to the play area of the store, this red rug where they have some toys for dogs to sniff and try out.

Tessi decided this area was safe and she didn't want to leave the red rug for at least 5 minutes while she made sure all was ok in the new place. Smart girl!

She started to look around and get curious, looks left...

...looks right...

Oh hi foster mom, I am still a little worried but I am getting comforted by foster dad.

Addie's mom came over to let Tessi have a sniff and she stayed on the red rug and took a sniff.

The treats came out and after a little time of not being too sure, she did take the treat and eat it!

Oh yeah this lady is real nice, I think I can come off the rug for some more lamb lung.

Dave steps off the rug to see if she would follow. Nope not ready.

He just stood there and waited to see if she would choose to move forward and she did get brave.

But she quickly went back to the rug to sniff out some more toys and be on her safe island.

Then she decided to check some things out on the shelf. She is on a 10' line so she went pretty far out on her own!

Now she is 10' feet out and even a little behind and out of sight of the red rug. Time is all she needs to get her bearings.

Well this stuff smells good, I will take one of everything.

Then Tessi and Dave walked together around the whole store! Here she is checking out Addie's bed by the window.

What a good experience she had and then we made sure to get her to the car and into her crate with her yummy chew. Yay Tessi! So proud of this little sweetie.

Recall Is Fun! & Did She Take A Nap? (First Full Day In Foster Care, Part 2)

After relaxing in the yard and watching the dogs have a blast we decided to putter in the yard. We had some lawn mowing, a little weeding, and some bark hauling to do. We let the dogs all have access to the whole acre and one thing I always like to do when we are all out in the big yard is to practice recall with my dogs.

I always tell applicants for our New Rattitude-PNW rescue dogs when we do our phone chat that recall is the most important thing to work on with our dogs and it is never too early (or too late) to start! Make it a game, meaning it is just a fun exercise and food is always involved and you will have eager dogs looking forward to hearing their names called. Starting where there are no distractions is so important and it is important to remember, there should not be any pressure. Here your name called, come running, get a treat. Heck I don't care if all the dogs come running when I call any of their names. That works for me! (and you will see that is exactly what happens) For our foster dogs it makes it easy because they see the resident dogs running and getting a treat so they just naturally follow suit. Tesla was a champ with her first recall lessons.

Tesla's ears just look like they are ready to hear her name don't they?

 In this video, the dogs all hover around me because they figured out I filled my pockets with treats. Hey no problem! I actually always like them to know before we get started that I have treats and will be doling them out at some point. Then they are more apt to focus on me in between doing dog stuff. You have to make it easy for them to be successful!

We practiced with Tesla not too far from me, so she would get to see how the game is played. She is a quick study!

Here you can see how when I call Tessi (this has become her nick name now) all the dogs who were in earshot come running too. That is fine with me, I always reward any dog who comes running when I call out.

Working from a distance! Good job!

I tried calling her when she was trying to get Skip to play. Good girl! Got her attention!

And here I purposely waited for Tessi to go out of sight before calling her name and she came running! 

There are all sorts of games to be played to strengthen recall, get creative. Try to not call your dog's name several times. When you are practicing, call the name once, either your dog comes or doesn't come. If she doesn't come, just wait until you know she is in a place where you will be more interesting than what she is doing. Be sure to have treats that are of high value to your specific dog. Hard biscuits might not be enough to get him running to you. Make his paycheck worth his while. Meat jerky, small bits of cheese, cooked chicken or roast. My dogs are pretty food motivated so I use Ziwi Peak a lot or The Real Meat Co jerky treats, or string cheese, or home made treats with salmon or sardines. The ideas for recall are endless and so is thinking up yummy treats to use as reinforcers!

Did any of this running around and exercise make Tessi tired enough to take a nap? What do you think?

Ahhhhhh, it was so nice to see that she wanted to lie down and that she felt comfortable to pick one of many dogs beds scattered throughout the house! She picked the bed that all the foster dogs seem to like, "the best bed!".

The eyes finally closed...... but still not completely relaxed...

Oh good, a very relaxed position. Yes she did take a nice long, well deserved nap... precious girl.

Tesla Hangin' In The Yard (First Full Day In Foster Care, Part 1)

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. :)