March 2019
Happy third birthday to Sophie and Fena, who were born as litter sisters on March 9, 2016 (Tessa is older by about five months). Fena celebrated with Kathi, who has had her since last August, while Sophie and Tessa are still here. Fena is slowly turning into a dog who trusts. She shoves her nose into Kathi’s hand; she gives kisses to get petted, and is working on being restrained. If we had two more foster moms like Kathi we would have made much more progress with the other two.
Sophie and Tessa have moved into the house full time. Living in the garage is a thing of the past, and our cars are back under cover. Kathy has been moving sections of fence around out back yard, giving the girls their own area they can access from the laundry room. We started them with a small outdoor area and have increased it slowly so they will come back in when called. Several times we had to make it smaller as they regressed, increasing it again when they came in when called, and they have plenty of room now. The best part of this? They finally, after 13 months here, are mostly housetrained. Kathy is able to feed them from her hand regularly and in recent weeks they have begun tolerating my presence.
The day of this writing Sophie began coming to the gate during dinner and taking treats frommy hand. We think the girls can tolerate the stress of their spay surgeries, which are scheduled for March 13th. Because of their fear we began giving all three Prozac last year in May. Because Fena was doing better, Kathi weaned her off it a couple months ago, and we have been tapering down the dose on Sophie and Tessa. Their last dose should be history by the time you read this. It means they are becoming much more active, and that in turn means they are acting more like normal dogs. Now they are getting into things they shouldn’t; last night it was a roll of toilet paper completely unwound. They have begun excavating their yard, and Sophie was trying to dig under the deck (Annie showed her that trick a month ago). We’re willing to put up with that these changes because they obviously feel better.
Annie might be the most active young Samoyed we ever fostered. She is “on” almost all the time. We decided her new home must be with people who have Sammy experience, with consideration given to whether there is someone home all the time (or they have doggie day care). No doubt she will mellow with age, but right now taking care of her is like a graduate level course in dogs. Her digging is constant and our yard has new holes in dozens of places. She also will need a special kind of fence. She has escaped from our yard in places no other dog ever found; fortunately she went from one yard to another and couldn’t get past our perimeter fence. Annie is a smart girl, trainable, very food-driven, who will do anything for a treat. She is getting twice the food of our other dogs and is still underweight. We scheduled her for a spay on March 6th, but on the 5th she came into heat. We’ll wait a few weeks and try again. We hope Sophie and Tessa aren’t on the same schedule.
This month we listed Max on Petfinder, the first dog we posted there in quite a few years. We always have a backlog of applications for our Sammies so we haven’t needed it, but although many have agreed to consider a mix, none have come forward to adopt a Siberian Husky. Max’s DNA test showed he is 7/8 Sibe. He’s a great dog with a personality much like a Samoyed, but a little bit more aloof. He also has been trying to take over the alpha role from Melissa’s dog Boomer. There have been a few fights, none terribly serious, and lately they have been better friends. As Melissa says, Max’s worst trait is taking over her side of the bed if she gets up during the night.