A transplanted Southern Californian living in North Dakota Idaho, with some insights on life with deaf dogs, a gluten free spouse, and the occasional mischievous garden gnome. Thank you for visiting and I hope you enjoy.





Sunday, November 21, 2010

More Puppy Pics

It's officially sweater season here in North Dakota.  The weather shifted from pleasant and 40 degrees to a high in the low 30's and very windy with wind chills near 0 and snow on the horizon.  We needed some doggy outerwear to keep that recently shorn tummy of the new puppy warm.  Shaak Ti's brown sweater fits her well (we got Shaak Ti a new sweater) since it's a bit longer. 
Here's a pose of the sweater modeler.  Keeping her warm this winter is going to be a challenge, but Alycia harnessed the magic of the Internets last night and ordered some more warm clothes for her. 
And not to jinx anything, but she's great in the house, ridiculously friendly to strangers, plays well with other dogs at the dog park, has been accident free in the house, and walks well on her leash.  I know this sounds like the bragging of a proud new puppy parent, but for her age, she is really, really well behaved.  Whether in the house or on her leash her default when she's not sure what to do is to sit and wait patiently, which is awesome. 

Our only issue is that she plays too rough with Shaak Ti and Tito (totally expected for a puppy her age) and doesn't understand yet that every waking moment isn't play time (again, totally expected for a puppy her age) with every dog she sees.  This is also one of the few areas where being deaf can be a hindrance.  With puppies and dogs, auditory feedback is important to communicate to/from your play buddy if you're playing too rough.  Since deaf pooches can't hear the whines, yips, or squeals from other dogs if they're being too rough, it can make the "learning how to play nice" process a bit slower.
So for now, puppy is on a leash during play time.  This enables us to pull her out of the way if Shaak Ti needs a breather or if puppy is playing too rough.  Sure it makes playtime stacked in Shaak Ti's favor (which she shouldn't need since she's a Jedi and all) but that's just fine for now. 
More pictures of puppy playing with Shaak Ti.

We got our first snow of the year last night and this morning, a nice comfortable dusting.   With a bit of luck, the next set of puppy pictures should be of the "Puppy's First Snow" variety.

2 comments:

lifeshighway said...

What kind of dogs are these. They look a bit like American bull dogs but I am no expert.

Love the sweater. Do your dogs have to wear layers?

El Gaucho said...

The new dog is some kind of bully mix (American Bulldog, pit bull, etc.) and the smaller one is probably a Jack Russel/Dalmatian/Basset/something mix. It's hard with the rescue pups since you never quite know what they are.

We don't layer yet, though we may have to, new puppy doesn't have much in the way of hair.