Ghillie's Report Card

[Judy]

Are you sure that isn't for the whole course? Down South, where we are supposed to be rolling in money and things are priced accordingly, we don't pay that much!

[trekmoor]

It covers todays inoculation and the one in 2-3 weeks time. I still think it is a rip-off.

Wullie

[trekmoor]

Another noiseless and "clean " night with my wife doing the nightshift on the settee near to the cage.
She has now escaped from that cage 4 or 5 times , she can work the little latch and the sliding door. Because of this my wife put Ghillie out into the kennel and run for 5-10 minutes while she took the other dogs out at about 6.30 a.m. .
When she returned Ghillie had escaped and was running around in the garden. I should have called her Houdini ! There is a small gap between one of the kennels and the run she must have somehow squeezed through there. I will need to do some joinery work.

She continues to play with all the spaniels but has now been flattened by both Billy and Charlie for getting a bit too outrageous. I saw her mount Charlie and start vigorously humping him ........nobody and nothing gets to do that to Charlie ! He pinned her down and gave her the "message." I told my wife to let him sort her out , pups have to learn and despite her yelps of murder being done there isn't a mark on her.

Billy flattened her for the full tilt charge she made at his rear end , he is deaf and doesn't like being ambushed and jumped on and bitten. Again ,despite her yelps there wasn't a mark on her.
She bit me a bit too hard last night so I yelled "Ow !" then gave her a one fingered tap on the muzzle, since then she has "bitten" me more gently.

Edge is her usual playmate and he lets her do absolutely anything to him....including humping him !

She just loves to dig in our very big pottery type water bowl. Water flies all over the kitchen and The Soup Dragon is not amused.
Still no problems with retrieving but she does show signs of possessiveness if another dog is nearby as she brings back the article....pretty normal puppy behaviour really.

Wullie

[trekmoor]

All is still going well with the lab pup. She seems to be a bold, straightforward sort of pup at this stage. I have cut back on the retrieves she is given to about 2 -4 every second day. She can do puppy type retrieves very easily and I don't want to bore her.

Wullie

[trekmoor]

All is still going well with Ghillie. No problems at all really. I'm looking forward to finishing her inoculations in a few weeks time and then letting her see more of the world than just my house and postage stamp sized garden.

She continues to escape from the dog box or cage inside the house .....she can work the latch and then slide the door along. A bungee now keeps the door shut ! In the run she has now managed to escape a couple of times too. I will need to do some emergency joinery work out there. Once she does escape all she does is sit beside the runs wires to be near her pal "Edge" ...who'm she has just escaped from !

Once she is allowed out into the world I think I may have a problem with her boldness and friendliness towards all other people and other dogs. She thinks the whole world is her friend and playmate.

She is a lively sort of pup but much calmer than a cocker or springer pup of that age. I'm hoping she will be my fishing companion as well as my gundog.

She still loves to dig in the water dish, soaking our kitchen in the process but I have noticed her avoid puddles on the garden path so I'm curious to see what she makes of the streams, rivers, ponds etc. I take her to in a month or two's time.

For myself, I have hardly been over the doorstep for ages . I am too breathless and my new problem is my stomach ! I can't go anywhere unless I carry bog paper with me......very embarrassing.

Wullie

[Alice]

A bungee now keeps the door shut ! In the run she has now managed to escape a couple of times too.

My male springer, who's not the sharpest knife in the box by quite some way, used to do the same as a pup too. His kennel and crate both looked like fort knox/hannibal lecter's cell! He seems to have grown out of door opening though, perhaps Ghillie will be the same.

Re. yer guts, please tell us you've been to the doc and not just accepted it as the new status quo?!

[trekmoor]

Nope, I haven't seen a doc about this since last June .....that is when this trouble started. I had an impacted bowel. I was given sennacot tablets, plus some sort of powder that dissolves in water and I have had to use them almost every day since then to avoid severe constipation. That is worrying coz I've read that sennacot should be used for a maximum of one week ?
I should go back to the doc but I am almost frightened of what they'd give me next !
To add to that lot I now have a very bad cold .....almost "man flu !" I was wanting to go to a gundog test next Sunday but even without the man flu I'd be worried about how far I'd be from a toilet ! I'd better give the test a miss.

Ghillie continues to be no bother at all. A very "easy" sort of pup although I haven't tried to actually train her to do anything yet.

Now for something doggy but different. I have two kennels , one at each end of the dog run. The larger kennel measures 5 feet by 4 feet by 6 feet high. The small one is two feet by 3 feet by 3 feet high. My dogs greatly prefer the small kennel and it made me think of the way in which most dogs seem to like small, fairly dark places. My dogs, including Ghillie, all pile into the small kennel to sleep.

We think we are being good to our dogs giving them large, light, airy kennels..........are we fooling ourselves ?
If I ever build a new kennel it will be a small one.

Wullie

[cuda]

Aye, dogs are strange - and yours are stranger than most !!

Could be down to your legendary carpentry skills - either they don't trust your idea of structural integrity in the big kennel or maybe it's all the additional ventilation provided by your inability to cut a bit of wood to the desired size !

I'd reckon orientation could have something to do with it too - if they're using the one closer to your back gate ( I use the term "gate" VERY loosely) it's orientation means it's much more protected from drafts than the other

I have noticed with my lot that although outside in the kennels they prefer to lie on top of the sleeping box rather than in it - inside they have a preference for the round, more enclosing baskety type beds over a mattress type bed to the point where 2 or 3 will try to share !!

With regards to your guts - have you stopped using those bloody painkillers ? - get something different from the doc then get on the orange juice and home made vegetable laden soup

And remember - if you continue to avoid the docs and pertinent advice and pop yer clogs - I've got first dibs on the lab pup, Mike will have Edge, gentleman Billy should stay with the soup dragon and you can drop the other one off in person, back with Satan - where he came from !!

[Judy]

Pack his bag, he can come down here!

[trekmoor]

There nuffin wrong with my carpentry skills, they have rustic charm and artistic license in abundance. I have now finished my garden bench thingy and all that's left to do is to creosote it .....if it ever stops raining for long enough to let the creosote dry. That bench has been about the only thing I've been able to do for the last week or so ...it's a short run from the bench to the bog ! .........I should have included a potty hole in the damned bench !
I'd post a pic of it as Newf asked for but Photobucket just will not work for me anymore ! That is also why there has been no pics of the lab pup.

She has grown a bit since we got her, my wife has her on four meals per day plus whatever she can scrounge .....and she cannae half scrounge ! Her potty training is going well. She is always clean right through the night until let out into the garden in the morning. Still does an occasional widdle in the house but only if we miss her "signs." Never poos in the house now.

I noticed yesterday that she stopped halfway back to me out in the garden with a paint roller retrieve and began to play with it for the first time. This afternoon, inside the house (it's raining out there) she was given two tennis ball retrieves which she did o.k. but rather slowly. I think she is bored with dead easy 10 - 15 feet retrieves. It will be about 2-3 more weeks before I can take her into the great outdoors......for both of us it cannot come quickly enough...... I'm as bored as she is !

She sometimes does a very nice "point" on Edge while he is lying sleeping and then carefully stalks him before pouncing on him to mangle the poor dog's ears again. Edge is very good humoured about this but old, deaf Billy is not ! He has flattened her and handbagged her a couple of times now for this offence. Billy and her get on fine though if she approaches him , reasonably respectfully from his front.

She treats Charlie with respect at all times but he does play with her sometimes. He is her preference for a dog to cuddle up to for a sleep .......Charlie doesn't seem to mind her sharing his dog bed.

To relieve my boredom I tried her out as a pointer this morning since she does sometimes point "Edge." I did the "wing on a string" game with her out in the garden using a big bunch of pheasant tail feathers as the "wing." I got three points out of her but she usually goes in hard and fast for a grab at the feathers. She managed to catch them once when I muffed up whisking them away in time..... she did not want to give them up ! I should have called her " Death Grip !"

I'm bored just dodging around the house and garden which is why I have descended to the level of writing all this drivel !

Wullie