High Sierra Topix

After a year, it was time. 5 1/2YO rescue lab. He was a backyard dog but he took 5 of the 6 toys I put out and put them in his crate. Gonna take a few days for him to calm down, but he's fine.

Congrats to you and Simba... Careful; they grow on ya!

Simba stayed in his open crate most of the day yesterday. Today he explored the house and the backyard. He's now mostly out of the crate and playing with his favorite toy.. The duck They said he was aggressive when I got him.. Not an aggressive bone in his body; he just wanted attention. Well, he's got mine.. He was a little afraid of the utility room (where the food and water are.) We're over that now.

Tuesday, the pool...

Congrats Russ!!!
Hope you and Simba brings each other many, many years of joy and happiness.

Hey Russ,
That's a fine looking lab! Never met a yellow lab I didn't like. He's got a big, duck-sized mouth too. Do you really train them with stuffed Mallard toys? We use the real thing around here:
Wolfie is more of a squirrel dog. BTW, can you tell us why this mallard rolled upside down both on land and in the water? We found him that way, but went ahead and ate him anyway, and we are fine, or at least, not any weirder than before. Again, congratulations on your new friend Russ! Ian.

I have 10 ducks in the freezer. I have to convince Simba that he can swim. Fell in the deep end and I had to pull him out. His new neoprene vest came today, so we'll try again while it's warm.

He can do the shallow end.

Harlen wrote: BTW, can you tell us why this mallard rolled upside down both on land and in the water? We found him that way, but went ahead and ate him anyway, and we are fine, or at least, not any weirder than before. Again, congratulations on your new friend Russ! Ian.

Depends on where you found the Mallard. If at a refuge, he was shot and trying to escape. Ducks also dive if shot wrong. Then you have to follow the feather trail. Simba has a great nose, so that will be helpful in the tules, and the raccoon attack the other night was interesting. No pics of that as it was 2:30am on a pee break. Doesn't seem worse for wear after the attack. Havahart trap is out every night now. Could be a skunk or a raccoon in the cage. I know how to deal with it.

Hey Russ, that's a nice back yard. These dogs are like our children. We have a choc. lab x German shorthair pointer, half the size of a regular lab. He's 13 and within the last few months and a cancerous tumor removed from a hind leg, then had 10 days of severe pain from arthritis in the spine. He's been a good dog-sweet tempered, obeys about 20 commands. We thought we were going to lose him when he was sick. Vet had him on 3 pain killers and something else to prevent the pain killers from destroying his liver. He was shivering with pain or laying totally still in bed when the meds were working. I just laid with him, petting him very gently, trying to nurse him through the pain.

Now that he's recovered, he goes nutso at nighttime. He bangs on our door to get in the room with us. If we let him in, he keeps trying to jump in bed with us-will not stay in his own bed. When we put him in the garage, he gets so anxious that he knocks over and tears apart everything he can get his jaws on. Put him in the new little backyard we have now-he digs a hole underneath it and roams the neighborhood. We bought a crate for him tonight; we'll see how that works out. I'm afraid he'll howl all night and break off all his teeth trying to gnaw his way out of it. Too bad Caesar Milan lives too far away to come give the dog some canine psychotherapy!

All my dogs were crate trained from the beginning and they do howl and whimper the first few days. Once they realized I snored, the crate became a safe place. When I had the pool built, I made sure it had a "beach" shallow end because, well, Jack Russells don't float very well, but he could still enjoy the pool and Samantha just jumped right into deep end to get her tennis ball. I did end up getting Bubba a floatie with a handle so if he did get to the deep end, he could float and I could pull him out.

Nice to see Hershey!

Great to see the photos and stories about your dogs.
Never had an outdoor dog. We just lost our sheltie (Jerry Garcia) in April after almost 9 years. Life without a dog sucks.