Woof Woof

Meet Mr. Rowan! He came from the Naperville Humane society; he is approximately the same age as Andra (+/- 13 months) and is slightly smaller at 48 lbs (Andra is 62 lbs). We expect that as he becomes more comfortable, he will gain some more weight. He currently is very treat motivated and interested in food; we suspect that in his past, he was not well fed. For now, we are feeding the two dogs separately for the scuffles that he and Andra have had are generally about food. It is going to take some time for Mr. Rowan to understand that we will always feed him twice a day. Unfortunately, he had to have surgery to have his dewclaws removed; one was fractured and never healed properly – it was causing him occasional pain. He has had to wear a cone and have bandages over his lower legs, but he seems to be healing well. From what we can tell thus far: he is a fairly gentle dog, likes to cuddle, and is quite capable of trouble! He is still figuring things out…and we are still figuring him out.

Puppy dog Andra continues to do very well at training; her “stay” command is becoming stronger every day. She enjoys going to training at the German Shepherd school in Hanover Park…and so do we! One of the head trainers, Vince, continues to encourage us to register her to get an AKC number so we can participate in obedience trials. He has two wonderful dogs and gives us much advice; the past two sessions, he has told both of us that we need to be more authoritative with her. He is not telling us to stop praising her for doing things correctly, he is just telling us that if she is not doing something right, we need to more strictly correct her. She is just a joy to walk in that she is following commands so well…she is even getting slightly better with the squirrels. She still is very protective of the house and barks at anyone coming onto her turf (she does have a ferocious bark)…but do be patient with her, for once she gets to sniff you, she is generally fairly well behaved. We still get many compliments from complete strangers: “…what a beautiful dog…”, she is our beautiful Andra.

Puppy dog Andra and Mr. Rowan appear to like each other, but play very rough together. Rob ensures me this is normal and their tails are wagging, but I am still worried about it. Will they ever calm down? Will we ever be able to feed them with their bowls next to each other? How much of it is them working out who will be the alpha dog? (Uh Rowan…you should just give up now…Andra is the Alpha and we don’t see her giving it up.) Seeing how far Andra has come in the six months we have had her, I hope that they will adjust in time…but I worry if one of them (or us) is going to get accidentally hurt in the meantime.