Another dog, another milestone

*please excuse the long post!*

Here are our experiences with having four dogs, and how each dog is another huge milestone.

Our first dog Laura, was, you could say, a very easy dog to care for. At that time, we knew next to nothing about dogs, not to mention rottweilers! Well, all we knew was that we had to feed the dog and give it a home. Training dogs was a different language to us. So many things were unknown to us 'newbie' dog owners.

Luckily for us, Laura proved to be an easy dog to care for. She didn't need much attention, and she didn't behave badly at all. For the first 5 years or so, we didn't know much. We faced no huge challenges - no health problems, behaviour problems, etc. About 3 years ago, Rosie became more interested in the outside dog world. She learnt more and more about dogs, not just knowing what breeds they were, but more about the rottweiler itself, and she shared it with us. It was when Laura was about 8 years old when Rosie wanted another dog to keep Laura company. That's when we adopted Mika.

Mika came to us at 8 months, a healthy dog. Then soon after, by the time he was 1 year old, we had lots and lots of trouble with him. Although he was neutered, it didn't mean he wouldn't stop marking his territory EVERYWHERE! He was extremely dominant and had bullied us a lot (although now he's learnt who's boss!). Then came his eye problem - we have to clean his eye everyday with medication because he has something called Dry Eye Disease. And later his yeast infection which at first, we couldn't fight, but now we know what to do. Everytime it dies down, you can't expect his skin to be fully recovered because soon after, it will come back. The poor boy hates his 1.5hour showers now!

During the time Mika came to us, Rosie's research grew, she started wanting and learning about lots and lots of different breeds from huskies, german shepherds, bernese mountain dogs, shelties, etc.  From that research came Hana (and we can't blame her for it!).

With Hana, we learnt how unbelievably beautiful, gentle and loving a dog can be. I learnt how to groom a dog (especially shelties with all that fur!) and how grooming really promotes healthy looking fur. We also learnt the miracles of puppy birth and the craziness of taking care of a newborn pup and raising it! We also learnt the pain of losing your loved one too soon.

Enter Princess Eva the pup who so far has gotten the most love and affection from humans so far!
I learnt how to housetrain a pup and obedience train her and how to play with her and give her kisses.
Then we learnt more when she got her cowhocks and hip problem and tried to confine her to non-slippery floors and what supplements to give. We also realised that some dogs (namely Eva) are CRAZY about cars, motorcycles, vacuum cleaners, oven doors, and breadmakers!

We also learnt that each and every one of our dogs is COMPLETELY and utterly different from the rest. 

We've never had a naughtier yet sweeter dog than Eva. But owning a dog, it's all a huge learning process for everyone, I'm sure you'll all agree.

Tricky T-day

This week has been about teaching Eva about how wonderful the clicker is and also for a few more 'tricks' for you to watch!

After teaching 'Touch', as you saw on tuesday, we decided to teach 'Zen'. In Zen, a dog has to stay away from the handler's hand holding the food. Go one step further, and we've done it on different surfaces!

(almost) Wordless Wednesday #16

Many of you have been asking "What's Sheltieland?".
No. There's no place called sheltieland. If there were, Eva would be going there everyday! LOL.
The woman we adopted Hana from is a sheltie breeder and owns 6 beautiful shelties (among whom is Eva's daddy) therefore Rosie decided to call it Sheltieland :D

For our wordless wednesday, I decided to post up this picture in memory of our beloved rottie who was extremely selfish with her toys :)

Tricky T-Day

 Guess what!

Eva is 8 months old today!!!

Here's to our first tricky t-day video with both Mika and Eva!
Today we used Sue Ailsby's training practice as a guide and decided to teach them 'touch' or 'target'.

TARGET

The dog must deliberately Touch the handler’s hand with her nose on only one voice cue. The hand in position is, naturally, a second, allowable cue.

 

We're getting there! Hope you enjoy it!

Guess where we're going today? Or should I give you a little hint?

Yes! We're visiting sheltieland!!

Back to OB

We went back for our last OB lesson today.
We're wondering whether we should just do our training at home since there are no other dogs doing pre-novice and therefore the trainer cannot teach us. We might try Sue Ailsby's training levels like what our blogger friend, Katie does.

Hi! I'm Alfie :) *sniff* *drool*

 With gentle giant River

You're teeeny!!

Sit-stay. Puppy are you watching?

Tunnel!

Here's a plea for all our blogger buddies!
AC our friend is going to run the New York Marathon and she needs your help to donate the Livestrong Foundation to fight against cancer! Please read her blog and if you feel like it, please donate here! Thanks a lot!

comparisons

Greetings! Eva here! 

Life with the gal hoomans back has been exciting - full of fun and games! 

On the down side, they are much stricter than hu-dad! They always say 'NO' to me! 

I wonder what I'm doing wrong?

They told me I look like my mom.

I guess you can see the similarities ... kind of 

I guess it's ok to look like her. She's really pretty :)

But apart from the looks, me and my mom are also alike in that we both love food ... A LOT. 

Our personality, on the other hand ... we are just complete polar opposites.

I'm out-going, crazy, noisy, naughty, you know all the bad stuff.

And my mommy on the other hand was very calm, sweet, not that noisy, and well-behaved, but unlike me, she was quite afraid of sudden movements and loud noises.

Well, I guess the hoomans are just gonna have to make do with me right?

Too bad hoomies!

Oh, and did you know! 

It seems Uncle Mika has taken a fancy on doing tricks, or at least Rosie said that he's much cleverer than me! Now, he can do paw, high five, stand on two feet, stand on two feet and walk backwards, and shy! 

It seems he's going to take over my tricky t-days for the time being, not that I mind.

new camera

We got Rosie a new camera since she had been asking for one since ... forever.
She told us that even THE DOG (Eva) has her own personal camera which takes daily pictures of her!
After much searching and researching, and wanting lots and lots of expensive cool cameras, we settled on a Canon S90 which can be considered as one of the best compacts around.

Under low light we managed to get some nice pictures of Eva.

~Paw~

Eva is also currently learning some other tricks such as turn (doing the spinny thing) and shy.

Go get the ball!

Face shots

Sorry we missed wordless wednesday but hope these pictures make up for it and for tricky t-day too! lol!

We also took Eva to the vet to get her nails cut and it turns out that Eva does have a mild case of Hip Dysplasia. The vet also suggested to take another xray in 2 months time to see if we want to consider the surgery which can only be done before 1 years old. However, we don't really want to put Eva through that risk and no guarantee that everything will be alright in the end.

Back home!

We came back home to see little Eva looking more grown up and Mika was so happy to see his beloved Rosie too. 

We're still quite jet-lagged but hopefully will be better tomorrow! Our sundays will be jam-packed with tons of activities for Eva - this sunday is our last OB class, next sunday we are going to the beach, and the sunday after that will be Dogathon!!

I bought Eva quite a few toys from England but she seems to prefer lightweight stuff like a rubber frisbee instead of balls, bones, and kongs. 

You know you want it! Come and get it!

You can't catch me!

Her favourite frisbee.

She should just advertise for Aerobie Doggie Discs :)

She has grown into such a nice young lady now! 

It's been awhile

I've finally managed to get internet for a little update here.

First of all, thank you everybody for your beautiful condolences to Laura. You really made us all cry.
I think she's happy and resting in the rainbow bridge now.

My trip in England has been fun. I met up with Lian twice and got to see her shelties, including the newcomer Ms. Sipzie!!! It was a very exciting experience and I learnt a lot of neat tricks from Lian too :) We'll be back on Tuesday, so in no time Eva will be learning new stuff for tricky t-days!! 

This is Sipzie. Isn't she a beauty?

The Knights Shelties 

from left to right 

(Seagull, Sizzle, Sing, Sipzie, Saturn)

While walking in the common, guess who I met?

Rem ... is that you?? The first newfie I met :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back home in Malaysia, my husband has been faithfully doing all the "dogwork" I do with Eva like the daily grooming and obedience training :) 

Her fur has grown even more, and her face has changed again. Every day she starts looking more and more like her mommy.

She has also decided to claim her position as Lady of the house.

Laura has gone to join Hana

~From Rosie to Laura~

I'm sorry I never got to say bye to you
And feel your fur in my face.
But the heavens open up to you
Where you'll find your happy place.

Thank you for being so gentle and patient with little Eva no matter how much she annoyed you.
Eva loved you the most - you were really a grandma to her. No matter how grumpy, she always wanted you.
You showed everybody what a rottie could be. You proved those pessimistic ones wrong.
I will remember our love for food and those times when you swallowed but didn't chew, we were so worried you'd get indigestion.
I will remember your terrible sense of smell but you could always tell when it was chicken feet for tea.
Would we have another dog that would respond to "Do you want to go out?"
When you pricked up your ears and tilted your head, you were the most beautiful.
I'm going to miss your fierce bark and that non stop noise you made until the people went out of your sight.
I don't care if they say you are not a show dog. A show dog may be pretty on the outside but on the inside, do they have beautiful heart? But you do and that's what made you so special.
Thank you for making my doggy dream come true. I think you were the best first dog anyone could ever have.

Run free and wild in the rainbow bridge, my darling.
We miss you so much.

RIP Laura

(10 March 2000 - 1 July 2010)

She left us peacefully in her sleep without suffering. That's the most we could ask for.