And on ...
Dec. 4th, 2013 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
venetia_sassyMy birthday yesterday! Quiet day, since friends are working/away and Mum and I decided to go out to dinner tomorrow when it's cooler.
But it was a good day. We had some nice Thai food last night and I made this Strawberry, Orange and Chocolate Cake which is very nice but very solid. I only made a half-quantity of the ganache and that was plenty - I didn't even use all of it. I think it could have more strawberries, too. They're really good. Mum spoiled me greatly with presents - two books (Murder on the Homefront by Molly Lefebure, which I'm reading now and A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin), two CDs (Native by OneRepublic and Sweeter by Gavin DeGraw), Iron Man 3 on DVD, a very pretty pair of dangly gold earrings, some manicure scissors and ... a spiralizer! Curly fries and zucchini noodles, here we come!
*
To get back to Finding a New Dog Quest - we set out on the Monday morning with Miss Shadow to visit GR's overflow kennels (paying boarding kennels) about 30-40 minutes away. C and N were just finishing cat-testing the last of the dogs when we got there - two had passed and C asked if I wanted to observe. The little black girl had just come up from Melbourne and she had the thickest kennel coat I'd ever seen on a greyhound - they are not meant to be fluffy! God knows when she'd last been brushed, poor thing. She was very sweet - but NOT cat-friendly as it turned out!
The dog was brought indoors where it could see the (bombproof, thoroughly accustomed to the routine) cats through sliding glass door to their indoor dens and territory. (NB: This is NOT how you introduce a cat and dog who are going to be living together!) The little fluffy girl went nuts when she saw the cat. Seriously, she wanted at it, right now, even as she was pulled outside!
I think she got a 0/10 on her cat-friendliness score.
The others dogs we were introduced to - three other black girls, one big red fawn boy, and the light brindle boy from the day before - had all scored very well on the test but of course, a lot depends on the individual animals. We thought our cat would do well with Miss Shadow because he'd bullied the Boyo and Lady Muck for years and they were thoroughly intimidated by him and he'd never run from them.
Well, when confronted with a big, bouncy dog who wasn't immediately scared of him and actually wanted to make friends, after a couple of weeks he freaked out and ran away from her. Yeah. That didn't go so well. So we had to train Miss Shadow to be cat-avoidant rather than cat-friendly, so to speak, and that worked, thank goodness. But we were hoping for a dog that wouldn't set him running again.
We introduced the various dogs to Miss Shadow and cuddled with them ourselves. We decided against two of the girls because they seemed very eager to jump up on the gates of their pens. Our fences are good but not for jumpers. Miss Shadow and the fawn boy growled at each other right away so, no.
Mum liked one very bouncy, cheerful black girl but I wasn't too sure, given the cat and Miss Shadow's quieter nature. We'd also been leaning towards a male because she was used to living with the Boyo. So I was looking more at the light brindle male we'd met the day before, the one C and N were looking after for a few days before sending off to foster in Canberra. He was calm and quiet and very cute. He loved a cuddle and a lean and he'd already been in a house with a cat, if only for a few days but he'd done very well.
The deciding factor was that if we didn't take him on trial, he'd be off to Canberra and it would be more work to get him back. A trial wasn't an adoption and we could still look at the bouncy girl again next week if we wanted to.
So we headed home with C following with Brindy (yes, such an original name!) She checked out the house and yard and we introduced Brindy and the cat - face to face, no glass separation, cat on his lead so he wouldn't run. He looked furiously disgusted but that was it.
Brindy paced the house on a circuit for a while until we finally coaxed him to lie down (we were getting dizzy!) and after a long nap, he seemed to relax at discovering himself still with us. Aside from having to discourage him from 'marking' indoors at first, he was otherwise housetrained, settled in easily and quickly realised countersurfing was a no-no.
He and Miss Shadow scuffled a bit over the first 24 hours as she tried to remember how to be boss dog (she was very tentative about it, it was quite funny) but they got that sorted - and then she ignored him completely.
And our new boy was sweet and calm and placid ... and after a couple of day we were wondering if we'd made the wrong choice.
But it was a good day. We had some nice Thai food last night and I made this Strawberry, Orange and Chocolate Cake which is very nice but very solid. I only made a half-quantity of the ganache and that was plenty - I didn't even use all of it. I think it could have more strawberries, too. They're really good. Mum spoiled me greatly with presents - two books (Murder on the Homefront by Molly Lefebure, which I'm reading now and A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin), two CDs (Native by OneRepublic and Sweeter by Gavin DeGraw), Iron Man 3 on DVD, a very pretty pair of dangly gold earrings, some manicure scissors and ... a spiralizer! Curly fries and zucchini noodles, here we come!
*
To get back to Finding a New Dog Quest - we set out on the Monday morning with Miss Shadow to visit GR's overflow kennels (paying boarding kennels) about 30-40 minutes away. C and N were just finishing cat-testing the last of the dogs when we got there - two had passed and C asked if I wanted to observe. The little black girl had just come up from Melbourne and she had the thickest kennel coat I'd ever seen on a greyhound - they are not meant to be fluffy! God knows when she'd last been brushed, poor thing. She was very sweet - but NOT cat-friendly as it turned out!
The dog was brought indoors where it could see the (bombproof, thoroughly accustomed to the routine) cats through sliding glass door to their indoor dens and territory. (NB: This is NOT how you introduce a cat and dog who are going to be living together!) The little fluffy girl went nuts when she saw the cat. Seriously, she wanted at it, right now, even as she was pulled outside!
I think she got a 0/10 on her cat-friendliness score.
The others dogs we were introduced to - three other black girls, one big red fawn boy, and the light brindle boy from the day before - had all scored very well on the test but of course, a lot depends on the individual animals. We thought our cat would do well with Miss Shadow because he'd bullied the Boyo and Lady Muck for years and they were thoroughly intimidated by him and he'd never run from them.
Well, when confronted with a big, bouncy dog who wasn't immediately scared of him and actually wanted to make friends, after a couple of weeks he freaked out and ran away from her. Yeah. That didn't go so well. So we had to train Miss Shadow to be cat-avoidant rather than cat-friendly, so to speak, and that worked, thank goodness. But we were hoping for a dog that wouldn't set him running again.
We introduced the various dogs to Miss Shadow and cuddled with them ourselves. We decided against two of the girls because they seemed very eager to jump up on the gates of their pens. Our fences are good but not for jumpers. Miss Shadow and the fawn boy growled at each other right away so, no.
Mum liked one very bouncy, cheerful black girl but I wasn't too sure, given the cat and Miss Shadow's quieter nature. We'd also been leaning towards a male because she was used to living with the Boyo. So I was looking more at the light brindle male we'd met the day before, the one C and N were looking after for a few days before sending off to foster in Canberra. He was calm and quiet and very cute. He loved a cuddle and a lean and he'd already been in a house with a cat, if only for a few days but he'd done very well.
The deciding factor was that if we didn't take him on trial, he'd be off to Canberra and it would be more work to get him back. A trial wasn't an adoption and we could still look at the bouncy girl again next week if we wanted to.
So we headed home with C following with Brindy (yes, such an original name!) She checked out the house and yard and we introduced Brindy and the cat - face to face, no glass separation, cat on his lead so he wouldn't run. He looked furiously disgusted but that was it.
Brindy paced the house on a circuit for a while until we finally coaxed him to lie down (we were getting dizzy!) and after a long nap, he seemed to relax at discovering himself still with us. Aside from having to discourage him from 'marking' indoors at first, he was otherwise housetrained, settled in easily and quickly realised countersurfing was a no-no.
He and Miss Shadow scuffled a bit over the first 24 hours as she tried to remember how to be boss dog (she was very tentative about it, it was quite funny) but they got that sorted - and then she ignored him completely.
And our new boy was sweet and calm and placid ... and after a couple of day we were wondering if we'd made the wrong choice.
