minxy Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 Oh, I have been dying to watch that KA! So it's super sad? I just love the story behind it. I didn't realise Richard Gere was in it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KumaAkita Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 (edited) Yep... It's sad. Could be that I am a bit tired and emotional at the moment! And yes, Richard Gere... Weird. Obviously American audiences couldn't deal if it was set in japan! Edited October 13, 2010 by KumaAkita Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuffles Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 I bawled my little eyes out in Hachi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
koalathebear Posted October 13, 2010 Author Share Posted October 13, 2010 (edited) Oh, so many things to reply to. Replying to wuffles again – no such thing as hijacking this thread. I thought you knew that by now. KumaAkita posted a photo of her vacuum cleaner, you know!!! Sharing a bed is a good sign! Mine will never do that. Mo is a grump when it comes to personal space. The bed-sharing is interesting and the two of them certainly seem very interested in one another and have done some playing. As mentioned to you in the PM, there's just one thing I'm worried about. We got Elbie at 8 weeks of age, he's always preferred humans. Elbie is very submissive to other dogs - doesn't challenge them, walks away if they take his toys. If he is chasing a frisbee, if others come along - he just walks away and isn't possessive about his stuff at all Hoover on the other hand is 11 weeks old and has been with his pack the whole time. Hoover is quiet, super-confident and not aggressive at all but according to his breeder, the other boys in the litter are bullies and fairly rough so he knows how to take care of himself and is used to being around scrappers even though he is himself a quiet one Hoover has been doing things like lying in Elbie's bed or playing with his toys. When he does this, Elbie walks away. Elbie even brings toys to Hoover to play with which Hoover takes and goes off somewhere else to play. If Elbie goes somewhere else, though - Hoover does go running to look for him though. OH's solution at this stage is to get a second identical dog bed for Hoover so that they both have the same bed. Someone very knowledgeable has told me that a common problem people experience when they introduce new dogs, is to have human expectations of equality and fairness - and to try to have these things happen in the pack. The person said that dogs have no concept at all of equality or fairness and only recognise hierarchy and that when people take steps to create an artificial dominance order which favours the original dog (or the one they have the greatest emotional attachment to), it just causes problems. She said we should just leave the dogs to sort it out as they see fit and if Elbie ends up being lower in the pecking order, then that's where he'll be happiest ... As a "human" though and as one of the humans who made the decision to bring in a new dog, it is hard to accept and I do feel very guilty at potentially having relegated my poor darling Elbie to the Omega of the pack. ;) Stupid human. Satch came to us toilet trained (ahhh rescue dogs) and Ava was easy. I'm sure little Hoover will catch on quickly and he will learn from Elbie as well. We found that every time Satch went outside to the toilet, Ava would go as well. The day after she arrived, she followed me into the bedroom and did a squat... I went "uh nooooooo!" and went to grab her to take her outside and she screamed absolute murder. I felt so horrible but she never weed in our bedroom again You're right. He's been great so far. The wees were happy/excitement wees and he hasn't had many accidents. Last night we had a massive Poo Incident in the crate which was very gross but that was because Hoover's not crate-trained yet and I suspect it was a Panic Poo. O so much laundry last night! Last night was a tough night for toilet-training though - it was BUCKETING down with rain and OH and I were taking turns standing outside in Poo Corner getting drenched. I didn't sleep at all (mostly because I kept worrying that the DOL Doomersayerse were right ), OH got minimal sleep. The breeder apparently took Hoover away from his littermates and had him sleep in the house in the nights before he came to us to get him used to being 'alone' and she said he was fine - but I suspect she hadn't crated him. He loved his crate when the door was open, but when we closed it at night-time, he screamed for about an hour or two and then settled down. It's an improvement on Elbie who screamed 3 nights in a row - ALL night long. Elbie was an absolute angel though, toileting on command, staying silent even when Hoover was howling and yowling in his crate. I was very happy with Elbie's behaviour. Elbie was in our room in the soft crate and then we moved Hoover into our room too when he yowled. Elbie whimpered a bit at Hoover's crying but then he was very quiet and well-behaved. I watched a bit of a terrible movie last night - Haitchi: A Dog's Tale. The OH IQ'd it, coz its the story about Japan's most revered Akita. Can't stand Richard Gere but he does die in that movie so that's fine. The akita used and the shiba inu used were sooooooooooo cute so I cooed over the doggies even if Richard Gere does nothing for me. KTB, can i ask, how old is Elbie now? are they both crate trained, or are you crate training? will you make sure to give individual attention/training time or will you just play/train them together? do you have kids or are you planning on it?sorry, just some questions that seem to concern me when i keep thinking about a second dog Interesting questions and all things we have pondered. As Niques and Clastic have pointed out, you can see our ‘pros and cons’ whiteboard in the background of one of our photos. We spent ages talking about it, talking to breeders, talking to WKC, to other dog owners … Elbie is 8 months old. He is fully crate-trained and house-trained. He toilets on command and mostly goes to one section of the yard – Poo Corner. He also sleeps beautifully through the night. We would not have got another dog while we were still house-training Elbie – just too tricky. As it is, Elbie can set an example for Hoover. Most of our training happens at mealtimes so our plan is to feed separately, with perhaps one component where we train them together i.e. “Hoover sit, Elbie drop” etc. Hoover is still in a very early stage – only knows how to sit and come, we can lure him into a drop and we are still in the stage of making him wait for his food. He is a total greedy guts. For training, Hoover can’t enrol in class till next year but when that happens, we will attend Dog School at the same time and OH will have Elbie and I’ll be taking Hoover through beginners. We both share handling/training duties for both dogs. As for kids. My brother says we have clearly picked dogs over kids. We have not ruled out kids. Neither of us is clucky at all right now but we have no idea how we will feel in the future. If we did get clucky and ended up having kids, we have a great behaviourist nearby who we would trust to help us work through any problems that might arise in terms of introducing dogs to babies etc. I can’t imagine that Kelpies would be a problem with kids, but I do like the knowledge that help is nearby and so happy to help. You will see from this post that a LOT of people wanted to warn us off getting a second pup at this stage and off getting Hoover in particular. We didn't make the decision lightly and even though the time-frame seemed short, I can be pretty determined/obsessive/conscientious when I'm information-gathering. People told us that we'd end up with both dogs dying at the same time, told us we'd undo all of Elbie's training ... some made us feel like this was all going to in tears or a bloody massacre ... What gave us a LOT of comfort was that in an absolute worst case scenario - the breeder would always take Hoover back. We'd never want to do that, but it is a comforting fallback position. ETA: After weeks of zero interest, has been adopted!!! I can't claim credit that the video helped but I'm just so happy for the little pup. :D Edited October 13, 2010 by koalathebear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KumaAkita Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 (edited) I bawled my little eyes out in Hachi. And I didn't finish watching it... probably wont either! unless my bubba was sitting with me so I could hug him if necessary. He watched the first 15 minutes... he kept trying to play with the dogs... wondering where they went! But, I did notice how much Kuma's manerisms were like the Akitas they used. Typical Akita Stuff. Replying to wuffles again – no such thing as hijacking this thread. I thought you knew that by now. KumaAkita posted a photo of her vacuum cleaner, you know!!! Yeah, but that was because we were dying under the suspense someone had to pitch in ... OH's solution at this stage is to get a second identical dog bed for Hoover so that they both have the same bed. We have the same one, not used any more coz Kuma's too big. Yours if you want it. Elbie was an absolute angel though, toileting on command, staying silent even when Hoover was howling and yowling in his crate. I was very happy with Elbie's behaviour. Elbie was in our room in the soft crate and then we moved Hoover into our room too when he yowled. Elbie whimpered a bit at Hoover's crying but then he was very quiet and well-behaved. Yay for Elbie. He will work it out - if he's at the bottom, he will be just fine. ETA: After weeks of zero interest, has been adopted!!! I can't claim credit that the video helped but I'm just so happy for the little pup. Woot. go Smudge Edited October 13, 2010 by KumaAkita Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussielover Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 Glad to hear elbie and hoover are getting along! Elbie seems pretty mature- dog distraction wise. Lillistar- Ruby couldn't have been as bad as Mindy. On one occaison (the offleash session-typical) she decided to totally ignore me, and rip all the treats down from the stand at the vet, rip open the packets and devour! Naughty dog! We had to attemot to to a heel in a fugure of 8 around the other dogs- Mindy ran off to the treat section and nothing could get her back LOL At least she ignored the other dogs! On our first class ever- the teacher said Mindy was a "handful" (nice way of saying pyschcotic brat) and when we tried to settle her on our laps as instructed she screamed and wriggled for like 10 minutes until the teacher said maybe you should put her on the floor then LOL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuffles Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 KTB, as I said in PM it really is difficult to watch the dogs sort out the pack order, especially if it's your first dog that is the submissive one! I wish you could come and see the interactions in my house as they are really interesting. I have two dogs that aren't best buddies, but they trust each other and look out for each other. What I do think is important is that you decide what your rules are as ultimately you are the top of the pack! For example, we allow "telling off" for actual annoying behaviour like getting in the other dog's face or stealing a toy. We don't allow bullying for no reason or pushing in for pats. We don't allow our dominant dog to bully the other one into giving up their bed, but if the submissive one offers, that's fine. Some of these things you have just have to work out as they come along. Ava takes toys to Satch and goes, "Play with me big bro! I love you so much!" and wriggles her bum and bats her eyelids at him. And most of the time he goes "Why thank you for your offering to Lord Satchmo, it is now mine, so BE GONE!" :laugh: Then Ava skulks away and lies a few metres away, wishfully watching him munch on the toy. Just wait until they have their first disagreement, that's even harder Hugs again, I know it is difficult! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravenau1 Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 Just a flying visit as I have had my parents up visiting yesterday and today (went to West Side Story with Mum yesterday ). Will catch up on everything properly later but wanted to say that Hoover is gorgeous, KTB! LOVe love love his markings! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
koalathebear Posted October 14, 2010 Author Share Posted October 14, 2010 (edited) Thanks all. I think it's the sleeplessness and dealing with too much puppy poo that is making me anxious. OH told me that naughty Hoover pooped in the wrong spot in the yard and then very soon after that, Elbie also pooped "Out of Bounds". When I expressed concern, OH who never worries about anything because he is a very chilled person (has to be to deal with neuroic me) said: "Don't worry about it. It's been less than 24 hrs. Next you'll tell me you've arranged an emergency K9 Steve intervention." He knows me too well! ETA: How embarrassing.. I put in an order with Puppy Magic, a store in Canberra. They have free delivery in Canberra so I ordered a portable dog dish, a Tuffy starfish and a Tuffy Tug of War. They delivered it to me here at work today but the tug is huge - see here. :D It was kind of embarrassing walking through the building with an armful of dog toys. Edited October 14, 2010 by koalathebear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuffles Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 ETA: How embarrassing.. I put in an order with Puppy Magic, a store in Canberra. They have free delivery in Canberra so I ordered a portable dog dish, a Tuffy starfish and a Tuffy Tug of War. They delivered it to me here at work today but the tug is huge - see here. It was kind of embarrassing walking through the building with an armful of dog toys. I've never seen that site before! Thanks... not :D If you want something that Elbie won't be able to solve quickly, try these. We have one and it's almost impossible if you put adult-sized kibble in there! I've cut back the little prongs to make the opening easier and I can't get the kibble out myself Ava slams it against the ground for ages, she seems to get a piece here and there. They don't come out just with rolling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
koalathebear Posted October 14, 2010 Author Share Posted October 14, 2010 I've never seen that site before! Thanks... not You are welcome! It's so cool - the guy just shows up in the parking lot of your work on his motorcycle with all the goodies ... Everyone is making fun of me for the dog toys on my desk though. The tug toy is the length of my arm! Thanks for the recommendation about the Busy Buddy Waggle. That looks pretty cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KumaAkita Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 Wuffles/KTB... you shuldn'a shown me that! the OH and I have put a spending freeze on... but I can't help but look... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niques Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 Damn. I picked up my first Clean Run package today. I was half-heartedly hoping they'd just be pulled apart in 15 minutes like all his other toys. I was very much in for a surprise - I have never seen James have so much fun with toys before. His squeaky racoon and mockingbird were the only two in this parcel (interesting that the free shipping one arrived before the paid!) but he is completely in love with them. Now I'm obliged (of course) to order Squeaky Racoon's friend, Squeaky Chipmunk....among other things I'm (rather, my bank account) going to rue the day I found this site, I know it. I was just reading the Wikipedia page on Hachi the other week. Really tugs at the heart :D Congratulations to Smudge! I hope she has a happy life ahead of her. LS, James was deemed, "hyperactive" within minutes of his arrival at obedience school. At puppy school they simply shook their heads, smiled and said, "Who can pick the labrador?". They are such terrors, aren't they! The breeder apparently took Hoover away from his littermates and had him sleep in the house in the nights before he came to us to get him used to being 'alone' and she said he was fine - but I suspect she hadn't crated him. He loved his crate when the door was open, but when we closed it at night-time, he screamed for about an hour or two and then settled down. It's an improvement on Elbie who screamed 3 nights in a row - ALL night long. I just had an incredibly vivid flashback to those early nights of high-pitched (I was very glad when his voice finally "broke") crying, and, for the shortest of moments, no longer envied you the second puppy Good to hear he settled down relatively easily! Hopefully having Elbie around will make it easy for him. And shorten the toilet training process! He sounds like he has a lovely personality! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
koalathebear Posted October 14, 2010 Author Share Posted October 14, 2010 MavericksMission: I see you lurkin'! Don't forget to give us your insights about two dogs, two male dogs, pack hierarchy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KumaAkita Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 Look at all those toys! I don't think I'll go much beyond the bargin bin at Pet Barn for Kuma. He LURVES thrashing his new DMAN Tug, not tugging but "killing" it... weirdo. Oh! I forgot! He got himself wedged in behind the futon last night (about a 30cm gap between it and the wall!) I went to get my camera but he was too quick and woodgied his way out (yep, technical term...) This was also after he was being too quiet and we found him lazying on the futon... think he's making it his new bed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MavericksMission Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 (edited) No way I could properly catch up! I did manage to see your new addition tho KTB and I must say he is GORGEOUS! Love the name too :D Hector's full name is Hector Huggable Hoover! and he will respond to any of those names if I call them! As for pack order, Hector has always looked up to Maverick. If Hector seems scared about a situation, Maverick will walk up and stand in front of Hector, sort of assuring him it is okay. Hector does stir Maverick and they play, but he would never challenge Maverick to be pack leader. Looking forward to more pictures and videos! Also.. you need to update your signature! Edited October 14, 2010 by MavericksMission Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genabee Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 I don't think I will be able to address all key points.... I can't keep up! Firstly, Genevieve gets called hoover too, as she hooves the kitchen floor when we are in there either cooking or cleaning! I agree, you need to get that savvy husband of yours to updte your sig! RE Pack Issues: Genevieve views the world like this: Mummy, Genevieve, Daddy, everyone else.... unless you are some one knocking on the front door, you get promoted to Mummy's position, and Mummy gets demoted! I think Wuffles has some good advice regarding setting your boundaries for what is and is not acceptable behaviour. You have to pick your battles otherwise you would never leave the house!!! And don't worry too much about Ruby LS - all dogs have their days!!! I don't think too many fail puppy school... do they??? So, my question to you all is, does Santa visit your dogs? I have pretty much done all our Christmas shopping and last night I had it all spread across the dining room table and wrapped them all. I went to the loo and came back, and found GEnevieve lying in the wrapping paper (I use the big rolls), ON THE TABLE!!!! I'm not sure if she was trying to tell me that she wants me to wrap her up and put her under the tree or if she wants presents!! We will get her a few things but I will leave them to the last minute as I know she is likely to sniff them out! I will also get a couple of little things for Lily (my sister's pooch) and Aurora (Mum and Dad's pooch), from Genevieve. Need to teach her the art of giving!! My camera battery is flat, hence no pics of last night's little incident. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KumaAkita Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 Santa will be coming to Kuma... Not sure what he'll get, but the will be something under the tree for him. I got my sisters pooch a pigs ear last year, my nephew just threw it at Boba who didn't know what to do with it... Think it wound up in the bin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
koalathebear Posted October 14, 2010 Author Share Posted October 14, 2010 (edited) Santa will be coming to Kuma... Not sure what he'll get, but the will be something under the tree for him. Santa is a brave man to sneak stealthily and unannounced into a house with an Akita - especially with all those reindeer ... He would also be a very brave man to visit our street - sooooo many dogs ... Dogs that don't like the postman wouldn't be crazy about Santa either, I'd imagine. Edited October 14, 2010 by koalathebear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MavericksMission Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 Santa will come to my boys, they will get one present each. The cats will get one bigger present between them, like a new big bed or something as there are too many of them for a present each Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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