It was certainly a chilly morning to start the day. Good thing Dave was up first and had the coffee ready to jumpstart my day – right from bed! Thank you Dave.

Of course then it is the 100 yard dash to the red house and the cold bathroom. I will be very glad to see the last of the digging start as soon as Stan gets back here. He is the one who will be under the house positioning the supports to hold up the house once it is dug out in front! Hurry back Stan – I feel winter coming!

We received a visit this morning from Kent Kokoska of Kamloops and Deb Goodine of Prince George; both are SPCA inspectors. They came with dog food for our “Sheriff dogs” and to tell us they are there for us if we need help. Thank you to all our supporters. We have plenty of premium food, the wormer is on its way for the last of the wormings, speuters are being done on Mondays and Sundays thanks to our veterinarians working their days off !! We are now down to 30 dogs with two  pups thanks to rescues stepping up to help these dogs. Several of the dogs have applications – one from a weekend skijjorer. Some of the 4 year olds have had training in pulling and once they have regained their health , they will be able to pull a skier with ease! Most of the very young dogs are very saluki in the looks and temperaments. They are couch potatoes inside but very athletic outside. They love to run in short spurts, and enjoy walking with you. They are very trainable – all of them are! There is 4 that are 8 years old. They are still very active and will need to re-learn to live indoors with a family. But they too will be good family pets as all dogs should.

Thank you so much!  Penny actually spent about 30 minutes out this morning before I had to put the double baby gate up.  She was happy to respect the bottom gate and a couple of times came up and sniffed but did nothing.  I don’t trust her outside though.  I had a fight with her this morning as she really doesn’t want to pottie on leash.  We came in and out, in and out, in and out several times this morning with no success.  The last time I went to pull her bedding out before putting her away because it could do with a wash and turned around to find her doing both her duties on the kitchen floor.  Will continue to work on this one, she’s happy to go off leash but on leash she doesn’t want to go.  Because she will jump the fence for no apparent reason I just can’t trust her to be let off.  Catch 22 I guess, she wants to be off to pee but can’t be off because she’ll take off, ugh!

The girls are very bonded and will cry if one goes out with out the other one.  I’m not used to this loud howl, cry, scream that they do, hehe!  We will start taking them out separately (at least during the day).  I can’t take them out separately at night after the boys go to bed as the one left behind will surely wake the kids and possible the dead, hehe!  They both faired well last night having a crate between them.  Started adding rescue remedy to their water this morning so hopefully that will help their nerves a little.  Willow can be a bit protective of her crate and will growl in her crate at the other dogs, even at Penny.  So I think tonight I will move her crate to the other side of the room so they are all in the same room but no one is crated right beside her.  My poor boxers were a bit stressed when I let them out this morning, I think Willow had been growling at them a bit through the night.  Willow is great with them all out of her crate, she is just a bit protective of her crate and personal space when she’s in it. 

Penny seems to be fairly indifferent to our min pin so we’ll cat test her because maybe just maybe she’ll pass!  Willow is not aggressive and does not go after our little guy but she is intolerant of him and snapped at him this morning.  So I think she may not pass cat 101 but we will test her as well.  Her intolerance could be because of her spay and her current stress level so we’ll try again later.

We’re going to start boot camping them a little on their jumping up.  Andrew and I are both covered in welts from them jumping up on us.  You can’t bend down if you are in the room with them as they will dog pile on top of you.  They will also do this to our little boys and land right on their heads, so one of our biggest and first challenges beside the separation anxiety is going to be the jumping up.

I think that’s all to tell you for now.  They are both eating like little piglets.  They are currently being fed 3 meals a day and we just received a wonderful donation of 3 40 lbs bags of Summit dog food so we will be able to keep them on the same brand for some time!  They love their treats and know that from time to time we pull out the hot dogs!

Hello Yvette,

Just a quick note and a couple of pictures.  We got home at about 5:30 last night and all went well.  I think we have decided that her name is going to be Hootchie.  She just seems like such a hootchie mamma type, not to mention us owning the tackle shop, it just seems to fit.  She has an appointment this afternoon with Dr. Sagar at 4:15.  Just the once over by him, looking at her face and the deworming issue.  She had a bath last night and loved it.  I’m glad cause it’s going to be a by-weekly thing, maybe even weekly.  Depends on what she gets herself into.  She has bonded with me so incredibly well.  She is going to make for a wonderful companion!  I hope you enjoy the pictures.  I’ll up date you again in a couple of weeks.

I thank you again from the bottom of my heart and God bless you and your crew for all of your selfless work for those creatures that can’t speak for themselves.

Forever Grateful

Brenda VanDoorselaere

©Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue Society. Have your pet spayed or neutered today.