In the snow

Happy Doggie New Year

Happy Chinese New Year; this year is the year of the DOG.
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People born in the Year of the Dog possess the best traits of human nature. They have a deep sense of loyalty, are honest, and inspire other people¡¦s confidence because they know how to keep secrets. But Dog People are somewhat selfish, terribly stubborn, and eccentric. They care little for wealth, yet somehow always seem to have money. They can be cold emotionally and sometimes distant at parties. They can find fault with many things and are noted for their sharp tongues. Dog people make good leaders. They are compatible with those born in the Years of the Horse, Tiger, and Rabbit

2006

Happy New Year to all.
Mr. Bentley is doing good and had his first puke in the car coming back from Christmas holidays. We went see Oma and he had just too many goodies (like everyone else). Anise is able to jump on the dryer now, to get her food. Seems he/she has been fooling us and taking the easy way by having us put her on it. You wait long enough she'll jump her self.

Bentley and...

the cats toy. Bentley is friends now with Anise and Teddy, but Mocca, as
always, is still hissing and slapping away at him. Bentley has turned out
to be such a sweet dog. Full of play and love, unlike Nikita. Bentley loves
car rides and will get his leash from the hook at the door as soon as you
put your jacket on. Here's a snapshot of Bentley stealing the cats toy.

Looking at this pic you can see the resemblance to Nikita.

By the way, Anise the stray cat is starting to put some weight on and her bad
cough is gone. She can not jump up on the dryer yet to get at her food but is able to
jump down.

Bentley

So this is the new puppy Bentley. We have had him for a week now and
he is so cute and a very good listener. So easy to teach, you tell him one time and he knows and remembers. Bentley is 10 months old and loves car rides and the cats are his big friends.
Even the new cat Anise, a small black stray that was sitting in front of our door one day, likes Bentley. Anise, we believe, belongs to one of our neighbors, the type of people that have a pet but could not care less about their pets wellness. Anise was a rack of bones, untill we started feeding her/him and kept her in the garage in a makeshift bed (box and blanket). After a month of feeding and getting rid of the fleas etc. we took Anise in the house and she now is starting to get healthier and has put some weight on. She still has this terrible cough sometimes.

Bentley (formerly called Baxter)

After lots of "surfing" the SPCA's found a very well behaved male Husky/Shepard X. His name is Bentley and he is 9 months old. A little bit chubby, so we'll give him lots of exercise. Bentley cam from Dawson Creek, BC which is located in the Northern part of British Columbia. Kind of a Husky type of area, lots of snow and lots of open spaces. More later.

Finally.....

one early morning I woke up with Nikita beside me. She was laying beside my hand
near my pillow. I pulled my arm away and she immediately grabbed my hand, biting
down hard. The excrusiating pain made me pull my hand away, but she would not let go.
Still half sleepy I moved towards the edge of the bed, she let go but grabbed my wrist right away, puncturing the top and bottom of my arm. Somehow I got loose from that too but then she kept trying to grab and hold on and got hold of the edge of my elbow. I was out of the bed now and was rushing to the bathroom, leaving a trail of blood behind me. The bathroom floor was soon covered in blood too and I started to wash of the wounds, feeling really dizzy. Nikita was just sitting on the bed, like nothing had happened and was her joyful self again. My wife helped me bandage the wounds and off we were to the hospital for a 3 hour wait. When I finally got into the ER about 4 ambulances pulled up and brought in stabbing victims from a halloween fight.(I remember now, it was the morning after halloween). So another good hour wait after I heard the nurses say: "the guy with the dogbite can wait". Geez, I had more blood on me then these stabbing victims, so I was not to happy with that remark. After sitting for a while yet, I finally got stitched up and of home I go. Its lunch time now. The dicision was already made earlier; Nikita had to go or maybe even put down. First we phoned the SPCA. but a dog that has a weird character like Nikita is not easy to adopt and it would not be right to leave someone else with this problem. We decided to have him put asleep at the vet. It was not easy for us, but hardest on our 16 year old daughter who is still trying to cope with the loss of our Dalmation. Nikita was the replacement for Bruno. So all of us visited the vet and left Nikita there. It was not easy, but became even harder when the vet told us Nikita had to stay in quarantine for 10 days. My daughter wanted to visit him during this time but I advised her otherwise. It would not have been fair to the dog to think its going home when seeing her. Eleven days went by and we finally relaxed a bit. The vet phones. We were so surprised and mad at the same time, Nikita was still there and waiting!! The healt inspector never phoned and now it was the long weekend. Another 5 days before he'd be put asleep. Like I say, we were not to pleased. Also because at $25 a day this was becoming a very expensive needle.
We have not talked to the vet since and are awaiting the bill. A few weeks went by and we really miss having a dog around us. Even the cats miss him and are constantly looking around for Nikita. So we are looking for another dog once again.

Bigger and bigger

Nikita grew into a 80 Lbs dog when she reached 7 months. Her agression grew
with it. From a very cute puppy she unfortunately became a very untrusting dog.

She would take something from you, a sock or slipper and protect it like it was a piece of meat. She would growl very loud and scare you so much you would not dare to make a move! Even after all this we took her on holidays in the car with us to
Edmonton, Alberta. Stayed in a motel for a few nights. One night she had the wife, the woman who all the time fed her, cornered in the bathroom. With tricks and cookies we finally got her to give up. So when coming back home, we had Nikita neutered, thinking this might be helping calm her temper down. Not so. She bit the wife afetr coming home from the vet. We excused her for this since she was al drowsy from the anestetic. Weeks went by and she seemed to tame down a bit.Even "Teddy" did not mind anymore. She somehow trusted Nikita with her life.

Nikita

We named her Nikita and she loved chasing the cats. The cats did not like this too much so they'd be hiding under the couch most of the day. Soon the male cat "Teddy", a big grey/white cat got used to her and let Nikita put her whole head in her mouth.





She would wack Nikita in the head with her paws (no nails luckily)and Nikita would love every minute of it.

Bruno

Bruno reached an age of 14 years and was very good looking for that age.
Unfortunately her bladder could not function right anymore and being an inside
dog that caused a lot of problems. After talking to the vet it was diagnosed she
must have had a tumor in that area and sadly but painless to her she was put
to sleep. We know Bruno will make lots of friends in Doggy Heaven.

Husky / Doberman X

After Bruno, we aquired a real cute Husky-Doberman X breed. She was 8 weks when we got her and an eery coincidense was that she was born the day Bruno was put a sleep.


Now this dog was big as a puppy and very playfull. Agressively playfull with lots
of play biting and always chasing your hands and feet.

Dalmation

This is Bruno, a Liver spotted Dalmation. Bruno is very gentle but oh so stupid.
We have had her since 4 months and it has been very hard to learn her anything.
Dalmations loose their hair all the time, so vacuum cleaning is just about
a daily occurance. Here are some pics from her during the summer while bbq-ing.

German Longhaired Pointer

The German Longhaired Pointer is a very rare breed in North America. Its origin is from Germany.
They are very good water bird hunting dogs. Exceptionally friendly and a great pet if not used for
hunting. They love the water and will dive to up to 10 feet under water to retrieve.



GLP's are easy to train and good listeners. The following pictures are of "Niner" a GLP I owned since 8 weeks. Like I say a very obedient dog. She for instance with the "Stay" command would sit and stay 300 yards away and come when you'd call her.
She also was trained to get the paper from the "papertube" at the corner of the road at our house. After that she was trained to get the mail from the mailbox. She would open the mailbox door and retrieve what was in it and bring it to the house. Never would drop one piece. After a while she got familiar with the sound from the mailcar engine and asked to be let out when she heard the car coming. Very, very smart dogs.
Sometimes too smart because she started to bypass the mailbox and just would run up to the driver in the mailcar who would give her the mail.
She passed away some time ago and I always wanted to have another one but they are hard to find in Canada.