New Home For Tilly

We were finally able to place Tilly with a family. And the entire process was rather unique and suprising.
Yesterday, we found out that the birth mother that had viewed our profile had chosen us. Needless to say we were very excited. And since we had 5 dogs I wanted to touch base with our dog trainer, Christie, on how we could prepare our dogs for the eventual new member of the pack. I told her that we would probably still have Tilly as we really did not have much success in finding a home yet.
Then about 20 minutes after I finished speaking with her I received a call from a lady inquiring about Tilly. She was looking for a dog for her children and went into our vets office to see if they knew of anyone that was looking to find a home for their dog. They mentioned Tilly and she called.
We spoke for a few minutes, mainly my filling her in about Tilly and her past. She was fine with the information and so we scheduled a time for that evening to show her Tilly. We met that evening and they just loved her immediately! I spent some time with the kids having a good few lessons on what they could do to help her adapt to her new home as well as what they should NOT do.
We even took her to her new home and set a time to go by that weekend to follow up on how she was doing and to make sure the environment was working well for her and the new family.
We will definitely miss her tons, but know that it is best for her to get into her forever home. We look forward to doing various follow ups for the near future.
I am sure that we will eventually have another rescue, but for now we are going to focus on getting ready for the arrival of the baby due around January.

Another New Addition?

Well, my wife and I have been trying to adopt for a little while now and we heard for the first time from one of the adoption attorneys that we chose. They wanted to show our profile to a birth mother. Needless to say I was somewhat excited. Not so much excited because we have a real chance to add a baby to our family, but simply that they have someone that they feel might be a good match and they wanted to show the profile.

I will admit that I am wondering how they will digest the fact that we have 4 rottweilers (and now a pit bull that we are trying to find a forever home). Many people tell us that we should not have added the dogs to our profile. I understand completely why they suggest this (I probably would say the same thing). What we want however, is for people to see us for who we are. We want them to know that we love animals and that the baby they would entrust to us would be completely protected. I was thinking of this the other day. Yes, there are 5 "bully breed" dogs in this house that are of the natural temperament to protect home and owner to the death, but not even that. I can see Sandra "going postal" on someone trying to harm our baby. And don't even get me started on my protective nature.

Anyway, I would love to hear from anyone that has a "bully breed" in their home and they were successful in adopting. I know that it is possible and I would love to hear your story.

Not So Much of a Success

Well, after we got back from being gone most of the day we put Cody and Sheba back in their kennel, went to a couple of CVS stores to get some stuff leaving Sasha and Casey out to see how they would do.

Not so good, unfortunately. They got hold of the runner near the from door and tore some of the trim. We have tried many things to keep them from chewing on stuff. We even tried using a Habanero pepper! They just licked it off the rug! Amazing.

Well, I guess we will have to try and build their out time slowly to hopefully get them to not destroy stuff.

Success!!

Well, we left a few minutes after 10 this morning and did not get back until nearly 5:30pm. That means Cody and Sheba were loose for nearly 8 hours! They did wonderfully!

We were so excited to see the house in one piece and not have pieces of stuff scattered throughout the house.

This is great and gives us hope that we can do this more often with them. As they prove themselves and we choose the right times to allow them to be out while we are gone we are excited with the possibilities with them being loose in the house. It provides greater security of the house and we love the thought that they will be able to be free and not confined to their crates all the time.

YAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

Aren't they cute?

We are trying to see how they behave themselves while sleeping around the house during the night. For the longest time we allowed them to sleep in our room, but doing some research lately we found out that it is not a good thing to allow them in your room as they will think that this is their space. By giving them boundaries it will help to show them that you are the alpha. So, sadly they are not allowed in our room.
We started by seeing how Cody would do having the living room and kitchen to sleep in. He has done very well. Then a few nights later we tried to add Sheba to the mix. That did not do so well. I think she was excited to be out that she forgot that she needed to settle down or we would put her back in the kennel. Well, we helped remind her so she spent that night in the kennel. Last night we tried again and she was super!
I would like to try the puppies next, but I am very skeptical as they have little self-control at times. I am sure we will give it a try at some point. We will probably have to walk them to wear them out before we go to bed since they are usually out after a good walk.
I would also love to have all four dogs out at the same time overnight but when all four are out together they play and that would not be good to have four full-sized rottweilers playing loose in the house.
I am excited to see how Cody and Sheba do today while we are gone. Besides it makes a great security system - 4 rotties and a pit! Oh, yeah!

Just Some Thoughts

Well, it is Monday afternoon and it is beginning to wind down. The weekend went well. It was definitely nice to have my wife back home. We spent much time with the dogs. Sheba had a vet check-up so we went to that and she put on some pounds. She was always hovering around that 60# marker. Well, she tip the scale at 76#. She is the rottweiler/black and tan coonhound mix. She is slender, fast and all muscle. We love watching her run. If we had some land she could run to her hearts content.
She loves to chase the tennis ball and bring it back. She will even "play soccer" with it. Not too long ago I gathered some sticks together and held one up to see if Sheba would run and jump to grab it. She did not disappoint. She jumped just like a champion jumper (whatever that means).

Saturday after the vet appointment Sandra and I took Cody and Sheba to a new place to check it out. It is a running track that belongs to a school. It is open to the public when school is not in session. We walked there with them and even ran a bit. It think Sheba is going to love it there. We used to go to the dog park, but we had some bad experiences with people and their dogs - some people think it is cute and funny to see their dog being rude and aggressive. I even had a guy cuss me out and yell at me for protecting myself and a dog we were getting out of a rather bad situation. I had enough and chose to go elsewhere.
I would really like to find about 2-5 acres so that my dogs can have more area to run. Also, I would love to put a shelter up where I could take in rescue rotties. I could then rehab them, find new homes or even help current rottie owners on how to train their dog and be the alpha. So if anyone had land to donate... :)

Getting Back to Normal

Sandra made it back to me from Michigan so things are already getting back to normal. My dogs were able to spend much needed time outside. This past week has been rough with Sandra being gone. I had to be at the office so the dogs ended up having to be locked up all day. Now with Sandra back they get to catch up on their outside playing time.


Last night we were able to just hang out with the dogs. The pictures above are me with the two "puppies". They are so loving and playful. It baffles me when I hear people say that rottweilers are mean dogs. It is obvious they have not met my dogs. Those that do meet them are shocked that they are so nice. My answer is always the same: blame the owner and/or breeder for a bad dog - don't blame the dog. And the same goes for our staffie. She is so sweet. When we finally find her her own forever home I am sure she is going to please them for years to come.

Back to my Doggies, but missing my baby

Finally, I am back with my buddies. I am so glad my wife and I had this time away from them, but it was definitely great to get back to them.
I got back rather late Saturday night and totally ignored my dogs. Obviously, they were excited to see me back, but I wanted to ensure that they knew that I was still in charge. So, they went through their typical maniac excitement, but then finally calmed down when they realized that they would not get anything from me.
I was definitely excited that they calmed down so fast. So, I let them out two at a time outside. Of course, Cody got to go out first with Sheba. Then, when they did their bathroom stuff I sent them in and brought out the "puppies" Sasha and Casey. They really are not puppies anymore since they are over 1 year, but that is how we have always distinguished them so I think they will always be labeled "puppies".
Then Tilly got her turn outside. She does not always get as much time outside of her crate as the others do. I feel bad so we try to balance it out, but she always seems to get the "left overs". I hope that we can find a great forever home soon. We have grown deeply attached to her and would miss her, but she deserves a good home where she can be out more. So ... if you know of someone that has experience with pits and is looking for another one please let them know we have a winner.
I am hoping to get back into the swing of things as quickly as possible. I am going to try to get up at 5 to walk Cody and Sheba, but I am thinking even now that this won't happen. So, they get walked at night and Sheba gets the treadmill as well.
Glad to be back.

Almost Done

Well, it is Friday morning and we are nearly done with vacation. It is funny how it seems to take so long for the time to get here to actually go on vacation, yet the time is so fleeting when the week actually arrives.

I did basically nothing this entire week. I spent more time in the cabin just hanging out, checking emails, surfing rottweiler sites, etc. than I did hanging out with people. At the beginning of the week I did go over and chat with some people a few cabins over that had 4 dachshunds with them. I know they were not rotties, but they were dogs and I was able to get my fix in. =)

We went miniature golfing, took a day trip down to Lansing, watched the kids fish from the dock and sat a few times around the fire pit. But other than that I did not do much of anything - much to the bewilderment of everyone. I have had late nights and early mornings much of this past year - all I wanted to do was rest.

But it is nearly done now and I get to go home to my dogs. I have missed them. We will be getting in rather late on Saturday, but you can bet I will be spending time with them.