Libi (aka: The Rat) Weeks 10-12
Week 2 started with:
1) Puppy trying to die
2) Sisters wedding and having to leave puppy home with house sitter
3) Overnight mountain bike race that puppy had to come with me to
4) Bird into
Given that there are items 2, 3 & 4, you can guess that item #1 didn’t work out the way she intended. We still have no idea what she got into, or ate, but all of a sudden she had liquid diarrhea, and vomited the largest amount of food I’ve ever seen come out of a dog. I seriously don’t know where it came from. She must have been saving it for a day or two, because it was a ginormous vomit. She then proceeded to lay around lethargically, refusing to get up, and not even looking at me when I walked past or went to pet her and check on her. I figured that was the end. My little dream dog lasted all of 2 weeks, and now she was going to die. The P-word was the only thing on my mind. Of course, it was a Sunday evening, so emergency vets were our only option. By the time I finally found one that was open that we could get in to, she suddenly got up, got a big drink of water, and then wanted to play. From there, she just returned to her normal self playing and running around and eating and drinking like nothing had ever happened. I still have no idea what she got into, but it seemed to pass in a few hours and that was that.
The next weekend, we had to leave for my sister’s out of town wedding weekend. Trying to figure out a house sitter for a 10 week old puppy that isn’t house broke and doesn’t sleep through the night is a rather daunting task, but along came my friend and grave yard labor a deliver nurse, Venita. A God send! Someone who loves puppies and is used to not sleeping at night anyway!
Once we got back from the wedding, I figured it was time to start some bird introduction. The first thing I did was take her out back to the orchard with a live pigeon that I had wrapped its wings, so it wouldn’t flap and scare her. I brought the puppy over, set the pigeon down, and the pigeon immediately wiggled out of its wrap!
WHOOPS! Grabbed pigeon as fast as I could before it flapped and risked smacking my pup in the face, and I tied its wings over its back old school way (no pigeons harmed with this method) and put it back down for her to investigate. She was curious about it, but didn’t really know what to do with it. She pushed it around with her nose for a few seconds, then lost interest. I dragged it around a bit to try to get her excited, but each time, she just kinda pawed it a little, sniffed it a bit, and then went off to find a stick or something more entertaining. So I untied pigeon’s wings and let him fly back to the coop, and Libi picked up her leash to walk herself back home.
Over the next week, I’d take her out back, and just fly some pigeons out of my hands so she could chase them. I’d catch a pigeon from my bag, call her over to see it and tease her with it a second, then toss it out front of her so she could see it fly and chase it. She doesn’t chase much. She seems to know almost instantly that she cant catch it, and just stands there and watches it fly. I hope this doesn’t bite us come gun intro time, but does mean that my stead-to-wing training should be fairly simple.
For her 11-week birthday, she got to join me at an overnight mountain bike race. Now, I am not a big camper anyway, so trying to figure out how to camp in my car, with a dog, with a crate that needs to get let out every few hours was a bit of a chore. But what the heck. A few really fun things happened that weekend:
First, I learned that my pup is RIDICULOUSLY social. Whatever Skedaddle Setters does to raise these pups must work, because she was 110% sure that she could march up to any human and get them to pet her (she had a 100% success rate with that one) or any dog and get them to play with her (only proven wrong on that one by one shit head chihuahua mutt). Side note: No, I don’t let her just run up to any one/dog/thing she wants. If she expresses interest, I do wait for permission from the person that either they want to be puppy mauled, or that their dog is friendly and would like to meet her. Don’t be “that person” that just assumes everyone wants to be approached by your dog, even if they are an adorable 11 week old setter.
Second, she had her first time sleeping through the entire night. Perhaps because she was exhausted, or perhaps because I couldn’t figure out a configuration with crate and human in the back of my little car and ended up letting her sleep in my bed, but whatever the reason, she slept through the entire night!
View from the podium ceremony.
A very tired race pup.
Third, I remembered why I loved camping. Late nights hanging out with friends. Whiskey on a cold night. Quite mornings filled with turkey gobbles. Shitty breakfast and coffee. It totally rekindled what I used to love about sleeping outdoors, and I am super excited to add “Build a camping kit” to my list of summer projects. Because camping or not… you should have hot breakfast and good coffee.
