Dog pulling sports

Check out these four videos of our dog pulling activities.

A. Dog scootering: (i) the gear, (ii) the action!



B. Wagon pulling: (i) hauling veggies, (ii) hauling me!





We're looking forward to trying skijoring this winter.

Happy Trails to Kaylah (Daisy)

What a beautiful day! Kaylah did well biking again. I later trimmed her nails and groomed her face, butt, and feet. She was patient for all of that.





Tonight, neighborhood friends adopted Kaylah and renamed her Daisy. Look at how well Daisy's curly hair matches her new mom's curly hair. It wasn't easy for my husband to take this photo of them, because our dogs Bear and Terra kept trying to sneak into the shot.

Congrats Daisy! It's been fun fostering you. We look forward to seeing you around the neighborhood. If you ever need a pet-sitter, you know whom to call.

Kaylah's settling in

Here's a video of Kaylah biking with my husband again this morning:


Just now while I was sitting at the computer, Kaylah plopped her head in my lap for a snuggle.

I now have confirmation that she's not deaf. She was in another room, and I called her name and whistled, and she came trotting over to me. Excellent.

Great News!

A couple of applications have been submitted for Kaylah, and hopefully she'll get to go home with a family soon.

I crated Kaylah in my bedroom today while I was at work in case she had more diarrhea. Turned out that she didn't, but she willingly went into the crate and quietly laid down in it. What a good girl!

She's starting to display more of a personality. Today for the first time she came up to me a few times to say hello. When I let her out of the crate this afternoon, she play-bowed to my toy poodle Terra and barked at her to try to get her to play. And she briefly chewed on a few dog toys tonight.

Kaylah is now sitting more reliably on command with a combined vocal+hand signal. She's getting better at the sit-stay command, too. And tonight, she pulled our red wagon around the block outside. I later tried to see if she would sit in the wagon while my dog Bear pulled it, but she would have none of that and jumped right out. One downside of the day: she pooped in our living room again tonight, but at least it wasn't diarrhea anymore.
Tonight as it's getting close to bedtime, Kaylah went right into her crate and curled up. She seems very cozy in there.
I see many poodles and doodles online that need new families. I wish that more of them were looking for new homes in the Madison area, because I've heard from multiple other families here that would like to adopt a dog like Kaylah. If you are interested in adopting a dog like her, keep checking Petfinder, because Fluffy Dog Rescue and other organizations regularly have poodles and doodles to rehome. In addition, the Pefinder classifieds section and Craigslist both have poodles that families want to rehome directly. Here are a couple more photos from Kaylah's adventures today.

Kaylah's day

Tonight before bed, Kaylah had her first wagon pulling lesson. She caught on quite quickly and pulled it around our condo's parking garage twice. As with most dogs learning to pull a wagon, she is bothered by the shafts that bump into her on the sides, but our dog Bear learned to tolerate that after a few days.

Check out this video of Kaylah in action!


Fluffy Dog Rescue brought us two big bags of grain-free dog food for Kaylah, so her new family will be well-supplied for several weeks. We had success tonight feeding her remaining pills of the day hidden inside sausage chunks.

Kaylah had diarrhea last night in our living room. Today during lunch, I noticed her about to go again and rushed her outside just in time. Our own dog Bear is 100% housetrained except when he has diarrhea and can't control it. I'm assuming/hoping the same is true with Kaylah, because otherwise she's done all her business outdoors. Her new family will want to train her to signal when she needs to go out, which will help in situations like this.

We had visitors over tonight and Kaylah behaved well. When she begged at the dinner table, we tied her up on the other side of the room. She lay down quietly there while we ate and then enjoyed a walk around the block with us afterwards. She chewed on a bone this evening for the first time that we've noticed. Looks like she's starting to get more comfortable here.

Thoughts on Kaylah from this morning

• Kaylah sat when I asked her to before breakfast! She now sits sometimes on command if she's looking directly at me when I speak to her, especially if I gently tap her butt as well.
  
• I tried soaking Kaylah's food overnight with pills in it. That's how I get our little dog Terra to eat her pills. I knew from yesterday that Kaylah likes soaked, mushy kibble. However, Kaylah refused to touch the whole bowl of mush when it had pills mixed in. I've received two helpful recommendations from other Fluffy Dog folks with more pill-feeding ideas:

1. Advice: Make a little meatball with canned food and put the pill inside. They usually swallow it without chewing. Or wrap the pill in thin lunchmeat. --> I tried something similar next this morning. I took slices of sausage and put a pill in the middle. Kaylah at the first one in one gulp. However, she then carefully chewed up the remaining ones and spit out the pill. Clever girl. Hmmm. Maybe I'll try the sticky canned food idea, too.
   
2. Advice: Get a pill grinder from a drug store. Grind all the supplements and mix with 2 Tablespoons liverwurst and 1 Tablespoon yogurt. Pop any liquid capsules to mix in, too. Fold this paste into the kibble. Add more liverwurst and yogurt as necessary to disguise the taste. Apparently grinding up the pills helped another foster mom. --> This sounds like its worth a try as well. Thanks for the tips.
3. Finally, I talked with the doggie daycare that had Kaylah for the past week. They found something that worked: they mixed Kaylah's pills in with grain-free canned dog food, but not with her kibble. She ate most of that. They then gave her dry kibble mid-day, and then more pills with canned dog food again at night.
   

A blog reader asked for more info about the bike attachment for exercising dogs. We have two different ones, a Springer and a Walky Dog. You can often get them for much cheaper online than from the manufacturers directly. Here's more info about them:

• Springer: http://www.springeramerica.com/
  
• Walky Dog: http://www.thedogoutdoors.com/dog-bicycle-accessories.html
  

Notes about Kaylah's hearing from the rescue: "Often dogs "shut down" when they are adjusting and this will be displayed by ignoring you. On the other hand, it would be good to test her a bit by clapping your hands etc behind her head and see if she turns." I do think that Kaylah can hear dogs barking, so she doesn't seem to be deaf.

Today as my husband opened the door to leave for work, Kaylah bolted. She raced all the way to the other end of our cohousing community's shared backyard and then ran around the side of a building. We ran after her. Luckily, when she saw me running, she ran over to see what I was doing. I squatted down and called her, and she came right over, and I snapped her leash on. Phew! We'll have to be more careful now that we know she's an escape artist! Our dog Bear used to be like that, too, but we've trained him not to do that anymore using body blocks and making him sit until we say it's OK to go out.

Kaylah out for dinner

Kaylah ate well for dinner tonight. I tried soaking her kibble for a few hours ahead of time, and she seemed to like that.

One thing you should know about Kaylah is that she doesn't seem to respond much when we talk to her. I'm not sure if she can't hear well now because of her ear infection, or if she's just an independent lady, or if she needs some time to adjust to all these new changes in her life. It's a bit strange when we call to her, whistle, and gesture trying to get her to walk 6' across the room towards us, and she just stands there, sometimes not even looking at us. During the 34 hours we've had her now, she's rarely responded to our voices.

Later this evening, we took the three dogs over to a friend's house for dinner. Kaylah did great at the dinner party. She lay down and napped next to us for most of the evening. You can see that in the left photo. In the right photo, she was chillin' next to Bear, who was trying on "new" thrift store booties in preparation for winter.

This afternoon's outings

Three dogs is a lot for one household, so I decided to take all of 'em to the Dane County Humane Society in Madison today. I've had enough!

Just kidding... at least about having enough. Kaylah has been very easy to take care of and fits right into our home.

Actually, I went to the humane society because it has a thrift store for pet supplies. I went there to get Kaylah a new collar and leash, since the ones she came with clashed (hot pink and hot green - yuck!) I was also hoping to find her a Gentle Leader or Easy Walk harness of her own, but I couldn't find any of those today. I did manage to find her a nice matching black collar and leash. New family, I will send you home with both collars and leashes. I recommend dropping by the pet thrift store sometime if you're in the Madison area. The stuff for sale is mostly gently used and varies a lot depending on what people have donated, but they have a wide selection of collars, harnesses, leashes, food bowls, toys, pet clothes, and more. Nothing has prices, and you make a donation to the shelter in exchange for the stuff you take home. Here's more info: http://www.giveshelter.org/sitemgr/shelter_news13

I left the doggies in the car in the shade with the windows cracked while I shopped. It was a cool day, so I wasn't worried about them overheating. Kaylah seems to love curling up in the backseat of our car. She happily lay there for the car rides today. Since the dogs were so good in the car, I stopped by the Quann Dog Park on the way home to let them play. Kaylah and Bear raced around together and with other dogs and had a great time. Kaylah sure is fast! My little toy poodle Terra spent the whole time trying to keep up with me as I tried to keep up after the big dogs. This time, I let Kaylah run free, since I knew I could keep an eye on her and eventually catch her in the big fenced field.

I haven't heard Kaylah bark at all until she barked several times at a little corgi in the park. I think she barked because she wanted to play, because she and the corgi raced around and around in circles for a while after that. Kaylah came back to check on me twice but generally ran around having the time of her life. When it was time to go home, I had to track her down to put her back on leash. She didn't come when I called her name or whistled. She will benefit from obedience training and learning to come on command with her future family.

So far, we haven't seen Kaylah play with any of the dog toys in our house. I brought home a shopping bag full of all sorts of toys from the thrift store and dumped them out on the floor just now. Bear thought this was better than Christmas played with several. In fact, he's chewed up three tennis balls already. Kaylah and Terra both ignored the toys and went to the bedroom to take a nap. This picture is of Kaylah napping in my closet, sporting her new black collar.

Trip to the farmers' market with Kaylah

We took our pack of pups along the Wingra Bike Trail to the Madison South Farmers' Market this morning. My husband biked there with Kaylah using a dog-bike attachment. Though she was distracted by squirrels, by the end she ran alongside the bike. Our own Fluffy Dog "Bear" pulled me to the market while I sat in our red wagon and then pulled our veggies home. See what exciting things Fluffy Dogs can do?

On the way back, Kaylah went wading in Wingra Creek. Afterwards, my husband gave her a bath. He says that Kaylah did really well in the tub -- she held still, let him scrub her with shampoo, and was very polite for the bath.

More about Kaylah

• Preliminary evidence indicates that Kaylah may be housebroken (yay!); she hasn't had any accidents in our house so far. We've been letting her run around freely inside our house with our other dogs. She woke up this morning with our other dogs around 7am and went out to pee with them.
• She is generally calm and quite polite. She has not chewed on anything in our home.
  
• Kaylah was unfazed when we vacuumed the house.
• I recommend that Kaylah not go to a family with small caged mammals, because she is very prey-driven. This is based on how interested she is in chasing squirrels and rabbits in our neighborhood. We'll still have to see about cats.
  
• I took her for two walks this morning with two different anti-pull tools (Gentle Leader headcollar, and Easy Walk chest harness), and she did well with both.
  
• Although Kaylah heartily gobbled down her dinner last night, she didn't eat much for breakfast, and it was hard to get her to eat the 16 herbal pills she's supposed to have to help her ears. She spat them out on our carpet along with some of her kibbles. She licking peanut butter when I gave her some, so we tried hiding the pills in peanut butter, but she spat them out. We ended up putting them in the back of her mouth a couple at a time and trying to get her to swallow them, and she gave quite the struggle.
• Later in the morning, she let me use scissors to cut some crusty hair off her underside where she pees. We should keep that area trimmed.
  
• She is very calm indoors and curls up on the rug when we're not paying attention to her. Very cute. And she's a real cuddle-bug. She soaks in the love when we scratch the side of her head, leaning in and looking oh-so-happy.
  

Dinnertime and obedience training part 1

Things we learned from Kaylah at dinnertime:

• She eats her food slowly and politely.
  
• She begs at the table. She sat within inches from us at the table and stared at our every move as we ate. We've decided to train her to lie down and stay to prevent the begging.

After dinner, we started training Kaylah.

• We asked her to sit, moved a treat (a piece of cooked turkey) backwards over her head until she sat, and then gave her the treat. That worked well, and she is getting more reliable with the "sit" command. She also knows to sit if you touch her butt.
  
• She takes treats gently.
• It was more difficult getting her to lie down on command, but we'll keep working at it.
• She kept trying to jump up onto our couch. We pulled her off it five times and then finally laid a chair up there to keep her off. We don't allow big dogs on the furniture at our house, and Kaylah sure wants to be up there. I can totally envision her snuggling with somebody on a couch while they read a good book or watch TV. When we pet her head, she leans into it and cocks her head sideways and really enjoys it.

As I'm typing this, she is curled up on the floor next to me like my other dogs. I appreciate that she settles down nicely when it's time to be calm.

The shelter described her as a goofball who loves to play, but we haven't seen that side of her yet. I actually don't think that any of the ASPCA "canine-alities" describe her very well: http://www.aspca.org/adoption/meet-your-match/meet-the-canine-alities.html -- I would describe her as a mellow, friendly girl indoors and highly inquisitive and social outdoors.

Kaylah's dog park expedition

We took Kaylah to a huge dog park for a hike, with a group of three people and four dogs. She was friendly with all dogs and people she met there.

Because Kaylah does not yet know me well, and she has not yet learned her name or the come command, I figured that it would be difficult to call her back to me. Because I wanted to let her run around, though, I let her loose at first while she dragged a long lead. She ran and visited with other dogs but did stray far away, and I didn't want to lose her, so I caught her by the long lead and put her back on a leash.

I discovered that if I use a Gentle Leader on her muzzle, she walks nicely without pulling as hard. She still walks up in front and pulls, but it is much easier to walk her that way, and I think I will continue to use the Gentle Leader with her in the future.

She did great in the car. We put her in the way back with our other big dog and didn't hear a peep out of them the whole way. Speaking of making a peep: when our two other dogs barked on multiple occasions today, Kaylah did not join in the barking, which I appreciated.

Kaylah arrives

We've had Kaylah for 2.5 hours now. This is what we've learned about her:

• Summary: Kaylah is a friendly dog who gets along well with kids, adults, and other dogs. She pulls hard on her leash and needs basic obedience training.
  
• She is polite with everybody she meets, human and canine. No sign of aggression or fear. She doesn't enthusiastically rush up to greet people. She has a calm, polite presence and happily lets people pet her.
  
• She is great with kids. She played outside with our neighbor's kids aged 5-12, and she did fine with all of them. She let them pull on her hair/ears and didn't complain. She dragged the older ones around the yard on her leash. She is more careful around little kids than our own big dog, but she does not know her own strength. She towed around kids (even pulled them over a couple times) when she was on a mission to go somewhere on leash.
  
• We took her to a neighbor's house to see how she reacts to cats. She was highly interested in the cats, not in an aggressive or predatory manner, but she walked right up to a couple of them and stuck her nose in their face. One cat rolled over and batted its paws at her, and she stuck her nose in to get a deeper whiff. I pulled her away. I can't tell whether to recommend her to a family with cats or not. We may have to try again sometime for longer to see if she pursues the cats or will eventually settle down and ignore them.
• She doesn't seem to know her name or any commands other than sit. If we have her full attention and say sit, she will often do it. She does not know how to lie down, heel, or come on command yet.
• She pulls hard on her leash. Instead of walking along the sidewalk, she was very distracted by things along the path and kept trying to dart off to investigate them.
• She is obsessed with squirrels and rabbits along our walk and pulls hard towards them.
  
• We hooked her up together with our big dog who's trained to pull a a person on a scooter. Kaylah pulled very well in harness, but she kept getting distracted and leaving the trail to go sniff things, so we didn't get very far on the scooter. Given how hard she likes to pull, after some training, I think that Kaylah would be good at sports involving pulling (dog scootering, skijoring, wagon pulling).
  
• When a neighbor brought his dog over for a visit, Kaylah politely said hi, then went upstairs for a while. Before the neighbor left again, she came down to say hello again.
• She seems accustomed to being allowed up on furniture. She's tried jumping up on my bed and couch already. I had to pull her back down. She now seems to respect that I don't want her up there.
• Even after showing her where the two doggie water bowls in our house are, it looked like she was about to drink out of the toilet once until I called her away.
  
• After playing outside for a couple of hours, I brought her in and asked my dogs to settle down in their beds. Kaylah settled right down next to me, too.
• Kaylah let me clean away her matted eye gook. She let me handle her feet and pet her all over her body.
• Overall, she seems like an awesome dog who needs training. She's a sweetie, and I can't imagine why anybody would have given her away.
  
• She seems totally unfazed by all the new things we've been introducing her to. She's met about 20 people and 7 dogs this afternoon and has been great with them all.
  
• NOTE: She sheds a little bit. I haven't noticed much hair falling off her in the house, but I can pull hairs off her body. I wouldn't assume that she's hypoallergenic.
  

Welcoming Kaylah

If you're looking for a new friend, please consider Kaylah from Fluffy Dog Rescue. We will be fostering her in Madison, WI starting Saturday Oct. 16th to help her find a new home. Visit Petfinder for more information about Kaylah, and we'll post updates as we learn more about her.

We've heard that Kaylah is a friendly 1-2 year old standard poodle mix who got along with everybody at the shelter where she was turned in. She was referred to fostering to help clear up her chronic ear infections, which Fluffy Dog Rescue thinks we can do with a grain free diet and natural pills.

We have two rescue dogs of our own: Bear (a doodle that we adopted from Fluffy Dog Rescue several months ago), and Terra, an older toy poodle. We will test Kaylah with kids and cats to let you know how she reacts around those. We do agility, biking, dog park visits, dog scootering, and wagon pulling with our dogs and will find out if Kaylah likes those activities.

We'll also let you know if she's housebroken, how much she sheds, how well she walks on a leash, how well she rides in a car, and what commands she knows. If you have any questions about her that you'd like answered, please post a comment.