(Ottawa Dog of the Week for March 1st/10)

“Maximus or ‘Max’ is a 4 month old German Shepherd. He is a quarter Sable and three quarters black and tan. He full of life and energy! His favourite things are shoes and playing catch with his frisbee in an open field. His best friend is my brother’s boxer Rogue. They will play together for hours on end. He is a cuddly puppy with loves to have fun and play tug of war! I simply cannot imagine life without him! ” – Max’s Mom, Tara

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Bella + 9 from Claire B on Vimeo.

Puppies make me smile – no matter what breed or size, they make me smile. This video is a compilation of photographs taken by the amazing pet photographer, Rouxby. She spent 8 wonderful weeks with a family who let her come into their lives to document Bella’s new family, 9 happy little bouncing puppies. The photos tell such a beautiful story.

An introduction by the photographer:

The other part of this process that totally blew me away was how the puppies go from being hamster-like blobs to actual individuals in the span of just a couple weeks. I know there’s evidence on both sides of the age-old nature versus nurture argument, but holy cow these little dogs each had their own distinct personalities as soon as they were coordinated enough to exhibit them.

So here’s a comprehensive slideshow of Bella + her babies. It is 5 minutes, 18 seconds long. I know that far surpasses the 30 second attention span most people have for watching slideshows online, but I couldn’t slim it down any more than this. Eight weeks of puppies is hard to turn into 5 minutes.

Re-posted with permission from Rouxby Photography.

(Ottawa Dog of the Week for February 22nd/10)

“Vitals
Name: Finn
Age: 10 months
Breed: Pug

Finn is an energetic, loving, affectionate young man, who surprises us with ever expanding personality, while testing our boundries daily.” – Finn’s Human, Robert

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A dog’s adolescence is the time when everything starts to fall apart, unless you make a concerted effort to see it through to the stability of adulthood.

Your dog’s adolescence is a critical time. If you ignore your dog’s education now, you will soon find yourself living with an ill-mannered, under-socialized, hyperactive animal. Here are some things to watch for.

• Household manners may deteriorate over time, especially if you start taking your dog’s housetraining and other good behaviour for granted. But if you taught your pup well in his earlier months, the drift in household manners will be slow until your dog reaches his sunset years, when housetraining sometimes tends to suffer.
• Basic manners may take a sharp dive when puppy meets adolescence. Lure/reward training your puppy was easy: you taught your pup to eagerly come, follow, sit, lie down, stand still, roll over, and look up to you with unwavering attention and respect because you were your pup’s sun, moon, and stars.
• But now your dog is developing adult doggy interests, such as investigating other dogs’ rear ends, sniffing urine and feces on the grass, rolling in unidentifiable smelly stuff, and chasing squirrels.
• Your dog’s interests may quickly become distractions to training, so that your dog will continue sniffing another dog’s rear end rather than come running when called. (What a scary thought, that your dog would prefer another dog’s rear end to you!) All of a sudden he won’t come, won’t sit, won’t settle down and stay, but instead jumps up, pulls on-leash, and becomes hyperactive.
• Socialization often heads downhill during adolescence, sometimes surprisingly precipitously. As they get older, dogs have fewer opportunities to meet unfamiliar people and dogs. Most owners have established a set routine by the time their dog is five or six months old.
• If your adolescent dog does not get out and about regularly and only a few unfamiliar people come to the house, his de-socialization may be alarmingly rapid.
• Dog-Dog Socialization also deteriorates during adolescence, often at an alarming rate, especially for very small and very large dogs. First, teaching a dog to get along with every other dog is difficult. Groups of wild canids — wolves, coyotes, jackals, etc. — seldom welcome strangers into their midst, but that’s exactly what we expect our dogs to do. Second, it is unrealistic to expect a dog to be best friends with every dog. Much like people, dogs have special friends, casual acquaintances, and individuals they don’t particularly like.

Establishing leadership, creating rules and boundaries will pave the way through adolescence.

Dianne Sarasin’s Quick tips e-Book will be available soon through the Ottawa Dog Blog

(Ottawa Dog of the Week for February 15th/10)

“Bella was born December 9th, 2009 and she is the newest addition to our family, Not only is she smart but a little fire cracker. When she is tired of playing she loves to curl up in her princess bed for a little nap. Who said it was the life of Riley? we have the life of Bella!” – Bella’s Human, Bobbi

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This is too cute – makes me want to go buy a robot that walks and moves and see what my guys do. I feel that it wouldn’t be the greatest idea though – at Christmas, Thomas’ little sister got a Zhu-Zhu pet and Paddington was literally stalking it. It was hilarious, but we had to put it up because she was obsessed. I wonder if it would be the same with a robot…?