Birthday pressies, those difficult teenage years, and drawbacks of snow - Nurhan's Take:

Nurhan's take:

Anu & Scott where the only ones to make a fuss over Kin's first birthday, they bought him a box of dog treats... unfortunately Kin doesn't seem so fussed by treats as Karma used to be. Indeed often pigs ears and other treats get pushed around the floor with his nose:

In fact Kin is getting downright opinionated as a teenager. Most of his behaviour is funny, sometimes it's irritating, and occasionally I have to intervene.

The other evening, Monica,Matt, and their kids paid us a visit. Now Eira is the youngest, and she knows no fear. I think Kin decided to sort out the pecking order:

Video stops when he tried to climb on top. Now despite Kin weighing about three times as much as Eira, she didn't go down... but Kin did, by my hand as although this was rather funny, and Eira was laughing it's not behaviour that I want him to get into the habit of! Shortly after this Eira was pulling Kin back from jumping on the other two kids. It's quite entertaining watching Kin playing with them, as generally he's exemplary gentle, this is the first time he's tried anything like hopping up. Suspect that as this is something he'd do with his litter mates/other dogs he didn't realise that he's not allowed to do this with these small folk. I'd be very surprised if he tries this gag again! (I got him when he was still on his back legs, Eira was still laughing, it's quite hard to gently put a Newfie on his back {and you have to be somewhat careful as you don't want to hurt/injure him}, growled a bit and then let him up. He didn't try this again but he did run when I got near him five minutes later and I suspect that he was thinking that his human had 'lost his marbles'. Our dogs generally trust us, but we do walk a thin line not to abuse the trust).

Now we've had snow, which means that Kin's quite happy bringing as much of it into the house as he can!

Other drawbacks with snow are:

depending on the consistency of the snow and the temperature, it tends to form balls in dogs fur, the furrier the dog the more this tends to be a problem. Here you see the little chap stopped, and he's using his teeth to clear the snow from behind his right leg/paw.  A bigger problem is ice forming between the toes. This is when the snow melts and freezes between his pads, this can cause cuts, and is doubtlessly very painful for the animal. For longer trips I put on a special paraffin product for dogs that stops balling/ice between the pads, for shorter trips I just clear it off when it becomes too bad.

Jury is still out on this last picture:

 With the snow it's easy to figure out where he's been, wondering if this is an attempt to disguise his foot prints... will have to watch this potential development in canine cunning!


Going back to the idea of disciplining your dog; when he runs away he risks all sorts of hazards, he's not used to the human world's hazards, he smells another dog and wants to go say 'hi', not understanding that the road in between could prove fatal as could the farmer with his shot gun. Therefore owners have to modify this behaviour. But when you can't wait for your dog to come back and have to chase him, he then has no clue when he's greeting another dog why you roll him onto his back and growl at him, again he thinks you've gone a wee bit loopy... hmmmm what to do...

Cool lightning storm whilst out this evening, got in just before it let rip with painfully sized hail stones :-)


Lastly I'm umming and arhing with kennels at the mo. Karma was never in a kennel, but then my ex generally took him if I couldn't. A couple of my friends helped out at other times. Kin will be more of an issue. If I go away and I can't relax because of Kin then it's questionable if there is any point in going away. I will have to address these issues shortly as the ski season is about to kick off and I love skiing. I discovered that one of the kennels that I was considering had a dog die the day a friend of mine went to pick up her mother's dog, (twisting of the stomach), of course this can happen at any time, but lots of dogs get stressed when in such environments and thus it's more likely to happen. On the other side of things the younger the dog is when he experiences it the less fussed he should be about it. I can ask a couple of friends who have offered or I can bite the bullet and try a kennel. Two overnight ski trips planned for the next few weeks, will have a think what to do.