It has some nice color variants with areas of rust and gold. I think it will be a good look for a patio.
Now clearly, I have gotten off course a bit with this blog. The intent was to use it as a means to advertise dogs with whom I have been working. Of course, I have been working with the horses, trying to figure out how to be a farmer, getting a new job, etc... so I have not had the opportunity to take in a foster. That is until I went on vacation.
I just got back from a local animal shelter and picked up a pit bull dog that was about to be euthanized. Her name is Kane. The local Humane Society has agreed to take her into their system, but she needed a short-term foster until room opens up. I was happy to lend a hand.
With the help of staff, I took her to a back room to do an assessment. I generally use the SAFER test and I strap a heart rate monitor on the subject dog just to get some dry, non-subjective data. I was a bit surprised to find a resident cat occupying the room. You want to do an assessment in an area without a lot of distractions. A cat is generally a very big distraction to a dog, especially a dog that might have some prey drive aggression. Thus, I was even more surprised to find that Kane didn't really care about the cat. I put the heart rate monitor on her and she was around 120 bpm (beats per minute). That is typical of a dog doing light exercise. She actually walked up to the cat and sniffed her for a moment and then walked away. Her heart rate increased slightly to 129 bpm during the sniff. I did not get a picture of that because I didn't think it was wise to be distracted... just in case. I did take this photo later on.
She did very well with the testing so I decided she would be a good project dog. She seemed to enjoy the car ride home.
I set her up in the exercise room, left the door open, and put up a baby gate. She behaved appropriately with HT and Petunia, but again appeared a bit tense. HT did bark at her later in the day and Kane did give a growl back.
Finally, I took her outside and she ran about for a while, investigating her surroundings. Snow noticed a new dog in the yard and came down to investigate. Kane did approach Snow and again seemed tense. Her hair was raised from hackles to tail and when Snow tried to smell her, she ran away.
This was not good for Snow because she started prancing around the yard with an inflated ego. Kane and I played fetch and she was able to focus on the game and ignore the horses. She played well and I had no problem taking the ball from her.
She tired quickly so we took short breaks. I then brought her back in and she jumped in her bed.
We will start training tomorrow. She will need some better manners on leash (she pulls a bit) and she needs to get a bit more attentive with her recall. Nonetheless, she will be a fun little project for the next few weeks.
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