Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Trapped



Well, the little Houdini seems to be successfully confined, at least for now.  Max had gotten out of the pen half a dozen times throughout the day, so was available to help Ron with his laundry and other chores, while Melitta yelled "No Fair!" from the pen.  A puppy can get caught on a fence when climbing out, and dropping to the floor from 42 inches up can't be good for the feet and pasterns, so I created a (hopefully) SECURE pen for them.  It's 4 feet wide and 8 feet long, smaller than the previous configuration, but completely covered.  Seems to keep the pups confined, BUT crawling around in there to change papers is not a lot of fun for me.  Oh well, this is only temporary.

The contraption on the right is not a device for torture, but rather a homemade "stacking stand". The pups stand there with front feet on one end and back feet on the other, while I feed them small treats, teaching them to hold their feet in place for show dog stacks.  Works amazingly well, and when I stacked Max without it this morning he stood perfectly still except for his wildly wagging tail.  He certainly has a show dog attitude!  They're learning to have their bites checked too, and this weekend can begin lead training when the weather improves.  Just not enough room in my house for lead training.

Watson is headed off to the Vet today to have his ear rechecked and his foot rewrapped.  Yesterday evening we found a piece of the metal "spoon" poking through the wrapping, and by this morning the wrapping had totally shifted.  Hopefully this does not set him back almost 3 weeks on the healing.  Fingers crossed.  He's been such a good patient and never fusses with the wrapping.


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