Monday, December 20, 2010

New Dog, What in the world was I thinking?

So, obviously, I have a new dog. My parents brought up their dog from Southern Utah. They are out of town too much to have a dog. It is a Lab cross. Lab-pit bull, lab-rott? I don't know, but the head reminds me of a Rott that I used to have. She is black and slightly smaller than Shooter. As soon as she got off leash, she jumped the fence into the turkey pen and grabbed Jack. Feathers were flying. We turned Peck out and got Jack out of her mouth, but then he disappeared. The mutt was put into the kennel while we searched for Jack. We put Peck in one of the chicken coops INSIDE the barn to keep the dog from being able to get to her. The 4 separate chicken areas are horse stalls in the barn not currently in use. Belle and Foxy share one stall and run, with a second stall for Foxy to be fed grain while Belle eats her special grain/alfalfa cube mash. Lady has her own stall and run. The Ameracauna chickens have a stall, the Silvers have a stall (Silver Cochins, Silver Wyandottes, a Buff Orpington, and two mutts), the rabbits and the Snow Owl (its a chicken)share one, the two mutt roosters and the 3 4-H bunnies share a stall and the non layers have a stall. We also have a stall as our tack room and one with the train modules that were destroyed by the flood that we just haven't had a spare minute or the desire to mess with. All in all we have 10 stalls. The mutt is now in Foxy's old stall. We just have to baby sit Foxy while Belle eats until we can get the dog trained. Its not the fault of the dog, I really did not anticipate her going over the fence into the turkey pen. Jack came back, just missing most of his tail feathers and many of his wing feathers on one side. He is now resting comfortably in the barn. He is pretty mellow and has no desire to leave the chicken coop. (He used to be excited to go out for the day)
She is very nervous around the horses. She was on a leash the first time that she met Lady. Shooter was chasing Lady and then Lady started chasing the dogs. With teeth bared, Lady went after the mutt. The mutt about drug my Dad trying to get away from Lady. This morning, the mutt followed me into Belle's stall to fill up the water trough. She took one look at Belle and backpedalled out of the stall as fast as she could. She listens well and backed off the chicken doors when told, NO! she just kept going back to a door whenever a rooster would crow (fairly often in our barn) I think that she has potential, she just needs some work. Dad would exercise her by riding in his ATV for 2 miles every morning and the mutt would run along side (Dad used to run marathons. He is now retired and can no longer run, Thanks Chemicals from Afghanistan!) Tomorrow, I will be taking her on a nice long leash run. I worry about her getting loose right now. Shooter has jealousy issues, so when the kids get out of school for Christmas break, I am letting them exercise her! Shooter has let her know that I am his person and he is not willing to share.
Well, enough drivel today.
Merry Christmas!!

1 comment:

  1. Was reading your blog and came to this entry, I write about this type of stuff a lot on my blog, you should check it out!

    -Amy
    Talented K9

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