Southern Lurcher Rescue - Baxter's diary

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Sept 3, 2010, 8:29am

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Topic: Baxter's diary (Read 2,441 times)

fella
Lurcher Puppy

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Joined: Oct 2009
Gender: Male

Posts: 84

Baxter's diary
« Thread Started on Jun 5, 2010, 1:07am »

As promised & a bit late, here is the diary thread for Baxter who is currently staying with Nikki & me.

I collected Baxter from Barney on early Tuesday afternoon meaning he has now been with us for three full days & a bit. In no particular order here are our experiences......;

To begin with, Baxter isn't photogenic! He's actually far more striking in real life than he is in a photo. That's not to say he doesn't scrub up OK in a picture....

Routine: This is our usual routine pretty much:

- Rise: around 6am. Give Baxter his medication (one capsule sprinkled inside a couple of cocktail sausages) & let him use the garden.

- Drive (Nikki) to station.

- Get home & go for first walk around 7.00am.

- Get back around 8am. Breakfast for Baxter. He'll maybe lie around for awhile then with some playing etc.

- Midday: Another walk, this time offlead, esp if the 7am walk was onlead. One or other walk will tire him out, he doesn't have much stamina.

- Afternoon: Mainly lounging around with some teaching / playing. May go for another walk around 4pm.

- Drive to collect Nikki

- Usually very alert 5pm onwards, wanting to play with Nikki or me

- Early Evening: Another walk, more offlead if possible, dinner, more playing/teaching

- Evening: dossing around

- Bedtime: Around 10-11pm. Usually goes to sleep no problem.

OK onto the serious stuff. I can honestly say that so far since we've had him we haven't had any major problems with the lad. No mouthing at all! (I was expecting a fair bit but there hasn't been any, not one single attempt). Very little jumping up & what there is is very easily controllable. No mood swings and certainly no Jekyll/Hyde moments. The worst behaviour we've encountered is when he wants to play (he wants to play often) & you aren't able to. At those times, he'll typically trot up to you with his toy (for you to throw) and if you DON'T he'll bark loudly at you. If you ignore that (or generally try to get him not to bark etc) he'll bark more & add a growl to it. As far as I can see this is all for show / a deliberate posture aimed to get you to react so he can play. He WANTS a reaction because he wants to play. Once you do react & engage him he's darting from side to side wanting a game etc. We are not indulging him in this, we just tell him No or alternatively simply distract him (ask him to find his toy etc) & the moment usually passes & he'll go do something else. At no point so far has his barking/growling ever escalated into anything more.

He's VERY bright & quickly able to learn commands. In the 3 days we've had him he's already learnt a few commands (Down (lie down from sitting), Give Other Paw (he's lefthanded naturally!) etc. But also, he's picking up some of the more tricky stuff. For instance he's gone from bounding up/down the stairs in about 2 seconds to walking up/down them BEHIND us if we tell him to heel. Also, his on-lead walking is coming on very well - he'll pull initially but often by the latter half of a walk he'll heel perfectly!

He definitely has an issue when meeting other dogs on the walk & will almost certainly bark agressively at them if not pre-empted. I'm not sure if he's had socialisation classes? He could use some IMO. I don't think he's genuinely agressive to other dogs, more like a nervous juvenile who simply doesn't know who or what he should be scared of & reacts accordingly. If you pre-empt his barking & steer him away the moment is quickly forgotten.

Bikes etc: Once again, if a bike swoops past out of the blue he'll likely bark at it etc. But nothing out of the ordinary IMO. If he can see the bike coming / if it's not right next to him as it goes past, he's usually fine.

As with the barking, you need to be on the alert for his excitement levels in certain situations. He's young and it doesn't take much to get him excited & jumping around & barking etc. However if you do act swiftly & put him in his place, he does take it onboard & will do as he's told. The key is to be very firm & pick up as soon as you can when he's looking like getting over-exited, then step in to stop it happening.

Offlead he's been very good so far. His recall is good & he's constantly checking where you are so he doesn't get separated. He runs very fast & gets tired pretty quickly - we've found that taking him for an approx 1 hour walk, maybe half of it offlead, is more than enough to tire him out. Once tired he'll often sleep away the next few hours.

Cats: Not catfriendly IMO. Would definitely chase them at the least. Likes to charge at birds when he's offlead (gulls!) but they always fly away before he's anywhere near them.

Food: He's not as greedy as Alfie was. He eats his meals OK but doesn't go crazy for them. He lets us eat in peace. He likes treats!

Separacy: we haven't tried leaving him yet so can't comment on this. He does go into his crate with no problems.

Nighttime: we sleep him in his bed on our upstairs landing & he goes to bed & sleeps fine there. Wakes us up about 6am by licking our faces.

Affection: He is affectionate. He'll continually trot between Nikki & I (if, for instance, we're in different rooms) to check we're both where he left us. He licks us a lot! We've been told he's a cuddle-monster but haven't experienced this first-hand because we've never allowed him on the sofa & after his first failed attempt he's never tried to get on it.

Counter-surfing: He's never tried. We don't allow him in the kitchen & if he goes in there (we don't have a door stopping him) we simply say Out & he goes out.

Water: He loves hoses & will happily snap at the stream from a hose as long as you'll let him. Have to get some footage of this.

Driving: jumps into/out of a car perfectly & travels well so far (all our trips with him have been short trips).

OK that's a bit of a gabbled post but I hope that gives some idea of how we're finding the lad. Fair enough we've only had him three days but IMO no way is he a hopeless case. He is a very intelligent easily bored dog & an occasionally stroppy juvenile to boot but hopefully nothing that can't be cured over time. It's fair to say that he is on medication right now so one unknown is just how much of a calming effect that is having. My gut feel though, is that even without the meds he would be a similar proposition; i.e. a handful at times but not a serious problem dog.

Some Pics & Vids:

On our local field
[image]

On our local field again!
[image]

Driving!
[image]

Video: Rolling about
http://s812.photobucket.com/albums/zz47/....nt=MOV00917.flv

Video: Walking
http://s812.photobucket.com/albums/zz47/....nt=MOV00930.flv

Video: Running
http://s812.photobucket.com/albums/zz47/....nt=MOV00923.flv