CEILING UNLIMITED

Nate continues to do well in spite of my many mistakes.  Rather than try and fill in all of the details of the past few days, I thought I’d just hit the highlights:

A friend came and stayed with us for a couple of days after Christmas.  We sat around looking at Nate and thinking of different names for him.  The top choices were Dallas and Titan.  Honorable mentions were Ajax, Jack and Sebastian.  I’m still trying to get him to come when I call him Nate, so I sure a name change won’t happen anytime soon.

New Years eve, on the way to a party, we find a puppy wandering the randalls parking lot with no collar or tag.  So we take her back to our house, put her in a crate next to Nate’s and leave.  So, not only does he have to be in a crate while the other pups are allowed to roam free, now he has to be in a crate next to a stranger he won’t get to meet until the following day.  This doesn’t however, keep him from trying to strike up a conversation with her for most of the night.

Either on the night of the 1st or 2nd, Nate tastes a frog for what I believe to be his first time.  I believe this is the first time because my pups have tasted frog once or twice before and have learned to leave them alone.  Nate showed the enthusiasm of a puppy who has never frothed at the mouth after licking a frog.

I got to witness Nate resource guarding first hand a few days ago.  Trying to work on the computer and hold on to Nate is not easy when you’re sitting on a chair with wheels on a tile floor.  So I put the other pups in another room and sectioned off the kitchen so that Nate and I were the only ones and I gave him a kong to chew on.  He was very happy.  So much so that he actually chewed off the top half (it was an old kong).  Since I didn’t want him to swallow it, I commanded him to drop it and he told my left shoe what he thought of that (no damage, but he is incredibly fast).  So I traded a bigger kong for the smaller, mangled one.  He liked that option better (so did my shoe).

During one of his meal times, I fed him out of my hand instead of putting his food on the floor.  He seemed to take to it well.  I may try this again in the future.

Nate finally got to meet the new arrival (her name is Ebony) in the back yard.  Other than wanting to give chase when she ran, he showed no interest or desire to hurting her.  Still, Nate is 85 lbs and Ebony is probably 15-20 lbs.  Ebony shows no fear of Nate whatsoever.  So for the time being, if they’re out together, I plan on keeping Nate on leash.

I’ve taken Nate running a couple of times and he seems to enjoy it.  He’s been in the crate a lot lately due to the holidays and I think he is beginning to resent it.  He also doesn’t like being kept from the new puppy.  I believe keeping them apart is best for the puppy.  She hasn’t learned the rules about jumping up on a dog 5 times bigger than she is.