USVI-On-Line

OK Folks, I don't have any picture to post but as I have written before we lost our 6 month old yellow lab Sophie about a month ago. The good news is that next week we head up to New Hampshire to pick out our new lab. She was born on Apr. 18th and will be able to come home with us on July 14th. Now that we have our digital camera all set up, I'll try to post a picture. Very excited. And for any of you BOsox fans I think her name will be Tessie!

Thanks CG.
And thanks for posting the picture of Pia and her dogs. They are beautiful. I amy need you to help me out when I get my pictures.
Jorge,
Love the pictures of your dogs. Wish we could get two!

jmq wrote:
You mean the nipping at the heels thing? Subsided a bit with age. Was fun to watch when he was younger trying to herd up the kids in the yard. He is a good watch dog too.

Pip doesn't do too much nipping anymore. The habits we haven't been able to break involve the garage door, lawn mower, leaf blower, and snow blower. And he chases our neighbor's car whenever they leave - only theirs and only down their driveway (he knows they won't reprimand him). They are a smart breed. It never ceases to amaze me...

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Jorge- man, you have got your hands full with those lab pups!

Everyone has such gorgeous animals!

It's great to hear y'all talk about breed habits and accept and work with them. Hubby and I see so many people who buy dogs cuz they are cute and then want to give them up for "bad" behaviors that come with the breed.

He has a client right now that was ready to give up her Austalian shepherd because of the herding-nipping habit. The client wanted a Bernese Mountain dog cuz they're cute but couldn't find one so bought the Aussie cuz it had similar colors !!!!!

His friend has a client in the process of giving up their hound because it's destructive in the house. Yup, you guessed it, no fenced yard, barely any excercise, etc, etc . They bought him cuz he was cute and they don't understand why he won't respond when they YELL commands at him .

We've seen (when we worked at animal hospitals) dogs put down because the owners didn't want to put any training effort into them so the dogs became unsocialized, unfriendly, agressive toward strangers and thus unadoptable when surrendered (aka left tied to a tree in the hospital parking lot overnight) .

What's wrong with people?!!

Lysa - there are few bad dogs, but many bad owners. Actually our first time with a pure breed. Always had mutts before. Did our research, thought it would fit, found a good breeder, yada yada. Amazing how strong the breed characteristics are.

ccasebolt wrote:The habits we haven't been able to break involve the garage door, lawn mower, leaf blower, and snow blower. And he chases our neighbor's car whenever they leave - only theirs and only down their driveway (he knows they won't reprimand him). They are a smart breed. It never ceases to amaze me...

Yup - the lawn mower. The garage door? - thats a good one. And forget about washing the car or watering the garden or lawn with the hose. Ours will run after the spray all day long.
Love to watch the Shelties compete on the agility course on the animal channel (they are always finalists in small breed) and the labs doing the "long jump" into the water.

I currently have 2 4-legged babies - Kaziah is my 4 yr. old English Mastiff and Zoey is my 5 yr. old Pug. We also had a Dal (Osjo) who passed away a couple moths back.

Here's my babies on "their spot" which just happens to be my sofa!!:



And another of all 3:



My favorit pic of Kaziah:



XOXO
Bug

Oh what a great topic…thank you CG for starting it! I love seeing everyone’s pets. If you are a pet owner/lover they are definitely an extension of ourselves.

First is our beloved Daisy who is at the Rainbow Bridge. She was a buff cocker spaniel who was with us for 14 wonderful years and she was a sweetheart!


<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~carlycof/daisy.JPG">


Next came Chester who walked down the street one night as we relaxed on our front porch and decided ours was the house he wanted to live at. After searching for his rightful owner he became "ours" a short while later and has been with us for several years. We don’t know how old he is but he is a quite the local character!


<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~carlycof/chester.JPG">



Then we adopted our first greyhound Phoebe, the dark brindle, who came from a FL track, followed a couple years later by Rocket McDougal, which was his racing name ! He came from a track in CN, which has since closed.

<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~carlycof/beach.JPG">

Greyhounds are keenly aware that life has changed for them and they soon adjust:

<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~carlycof/rocket.JPG">

<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~carlycof/phoebe.JPG">

To anyone who isn’t familiar with greyhounds they are basically couch potatoes and some “cockroach” as Phoebe demonstrates in this photo:

<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~carlycof/stretch.JPG">

Oh, I love greyhounds! Yours are so beautiful. Everyone I know who has a greyhound is over the moon about their dog. I've always wanted to adopt one but I've been hesitant because of their reaction to small children and cats. I know they "cat test" them, but still, I worry that instinct will kick in and we'll have an unhappy surprise awaiting us when we come home one day. Are yours good with your cat and with kids?

Ah, thanks! Yes, we are very happy living with greyhounds, it works well for us. Both of ours tested cat safe, but Phoebe is definitely NOT safe w/ Chester! She still has a very strong prey instinct and he is not safe anywhere near her. Rocket has gotten right up to Chester and decided he was not all that interesting so I think those 2 could be friends.SO...in short we keep them separated! Chester likes to go outside and summer is out more than in...the rest of the year we just keep Chester in a different part of the house. Our kids are BIG as in "20-somethings" but the dogs have never reacted in a poor way to small children. Funny to think of it tho....our cocker used to terribly dislike 2 year olds, I have no idea why!!! They do have some interesting "quirks" tho!

jmq wrote: And forget about washing the car or watering the garden or lawn with the hose. Ours will run after the spray all day long.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention the always-popular hose...

I posted a picture of our Champ, our lab, in another thread. He was actually a long begged for present for our youngest son, Jason.

Here are some pictures of a boy and his dog:

First, Jason is visiting Champ (who didn't have a name yet) at the breeder's, before he was old enough for us to bring him home.




Several weeks later;





The training is under way:




Still best friends: