Something in Common

I realised this morning that the thing our pets have in common is their love of food and the importance of mealtimes to them.

That in mind I decided that I would feed them together today. The dog takes her food in her cage - she goes and waits in their herself when it's dinner time.
I put her bowl in the outer corner of her cage, and put Alvin's just next to it on the other side of the bars.

And there they shared their common love, neither of them interested in the slightest who they were sat next to.




Then, after lunch, giving them equal attention, they sat together with me.



They're small steps but we'll keep trying!!!

Toilet Trained

Olive waiting to go outside for the loo, whilst I fool around taking photos of her cuteness

Baby Olive and Granddad

A Step Back

So we have left all the doors of the house open today, letting our two pups run around to their hearts content. Olive is investigating all of the rooms, and when she is done she goes and investigates them again like she has never seen them before and like all the smells they bring are new and exciting.
The pitter patter of tiny feet everywhere is wonderful as Olive trots around and Alvin hops.

The poor pooch goes upstairs though - mega speed - but when it is time to come back down again, she peers over the top step and just can't bring herself to jump. She stands at the top and starts crying. We go up to her and pat the next step and she sniffs for a bit and then barks at us. Usually we give in and carry her down, but when we have got the time to spend 10 minutes on the stairs, we insist she learns.
She will bark and whimper and then lean over the step, putting her paws on the next one, and then very very carefully, let her back paws join them. Then she barks again, clinging on to the carpet.
She's roughly the same size as each step.


Today, I was busy taking washing out of the washing machine and carrying it upstairs. The dog was chasing me everywhere trying to get in on the action. I would carry her back downstairs each time and then she would run back up behind me.

Just as I was coming to the last of the washing, I heard the usual little rumble behind me coming up the stairs. And just as the pup got to the top, Alvin pounced for her from his perch on the landing.
Being quite afraid of our rabbit, the pup leapt in the air backwards, and disappeared down the stairs, paws, tail, ears, tumbling heavily. She got up dazed but ok, and looked at me with her cocked head like 'see, that's why you carry me.'

Alvin is being very territorial and since he saw the dog's fear, he actually follows her round, knowing that she will cower from him. If he is the hallyway, Olive will not pass him without us. She will sit several feet away just watching him, but will refuse to move an inch closer.

Alvin will actually pounce on her nose if she does walk by unsupervised and as she draws away backwards, he will continue smacking her on the nose until we come and intercept.

I'm sure it won't last forever and I feel that if we shower Alvin with affection when the dog's around, he will only grow to see her as a good thing - I hope.

I pray they can be friends!!

A Step Forward

Yesterday was a real breakthrough!

After doing some research and speaking to my friend Antonia, my worries were confirmed. Every time Alvin and Olive come across each other, I was intervening before anything had actually happened. I knew this all along but to hear it from other sources made more sense.

So today, we opened the living room door to Alvin and let them both be together in the same room. Al and I watched out of the corner of eyes but generally just carried on like it was the most normal thing in the world. Indeed they just ignored each other.

Feeling brave, we started coaxing them towards each other and we found that, as long as they both had the same amount of attention and cuddles, they were fine!
It was a great feeling to know that our two dear pets could be friends and we stayed sitting on the floor like that til Olive needed to wee...

Our Andrex Pup

You may well think that Andrex pups are cute little mischevious golden labrador puppies, but I found this little guy, with an obvious inferiority complex or something, yesterday in my bathroom...

Just as fluffy and just as cute but certainly no labrador.....

Just Olive

Ar - she's lovely when she's sleepy

Portrait of a Perfect Pet

When Alvin was the only one........

Hard being a mum

Since we got Olive only a week ago, we have realised how hard it is to know if you are doing the right thing or not. We have both been losing sleep over the smallest things and we just keep feeling that we are going wrong with our pup.

When we got her, we were told to give her a small handful of food 3 times a day. We did that and the little thing just seemed to wolf it down and then sit there looking at us expecting more. Believing that all dogs just eat til there's no food left in the world, we continued as we had been for the next day.

Then we bought some puppy food and read the instructions on the back only to discover that we had been underfeeding her loads.

Rather than giving her loads of food the next meal time, we decided to give it to her gradually to expand her tiny tum more gently.
Well, even watching her eat for the first time, we saw her tummy start swelling and as soon as she finished eating, she was literally waddling round the floor looking like a bloated goldfish.

Guilt struck again.

Since then she is on nearly a normal amount of food for the breed that she is and wolfs it all down happily. But her poo just wasn't solid at all. We did all kinds of research and noted that the food we were giving her, which we thought was one of the best, can often not be very good at all. It was too late to drive to the pet shop so we went to bed last night with another guilty feeling.

First thing this morning we got up and drove to the pet shop. We recognised a lot of the brands that had been mentioned on forums and opted for a nice-looking one. Couldn't wait to show Olive.

She absolutely bolted that bowl of food down like she hadn't been fed in years! And we sighed a huge sigh of relief that we had finally done something right.

Now it seems her poo is even worse than before. Not sure if it is just because it is a change in diet - even though we did a lot of research and have only integrated the new food into her diet very very slowly - or if she is also intolerant to this food.

How do you know?

Al and I have both had dogs in the family whilst growing up neither of remember putting this much effort into bringing them up. With no internet of course, you didn't have the luxury of just going on a forum and asking all the dog-lovers if your dog's poo was normal.
Neither Duke nor Fred had any training, neither of them had a crate, neither of them were taken out in the middle of the night to do their business and they both turned out to be fantastic, loveable, reliable family pets.

I wonder if we're going wrong because we are worrying too much and trying too hard to make the perfect pooch.

I wish little animals could just let you know.

To Spay or not to Spay

I have tried to share the progress of Olive with all my very best friends and family, and one of my very good friends, Antonia, who has a gorgeous springer spaniel, posed the question 'are you going to have her spayed?'

Antonia is a wonderful mother to her little pooch, Pandora, and literally does everything she can for the little girl in the hope that she will be a healthy, strong little doggy. So I trust her judgement and wisdom a lot.

It had never occured to me not to get Olive spayed but when Antonia actually asked if I was going to, my ears pricked up. What, why wouldn't I?

One of the things that was putting us off getting a bitch, in a very selfish way, was the worry about the dog being on heat. I know it sounds hugely selfish of us, but with having no preference either way for either sex, that just tipped the balance for us.
Anyway, then we read about how a male can be a bit territorial and mark his scent a lot more and we thought, well, Alvin's not going to be too happy about that, seeing as he's the man of the house and all - sorry, husband!
Also, we read that a bitch can be quite maternal to other animals which sounds good for Alvin - although I'm not sure he would like to be thought of as being mothered.

So we decided on a girl, knowing that we don't want her breeding and that we can get her spayed.

But Antonia points out that actually it can be damaging to the pup and can even stunt her bone growth due to lack of hormones.

At the same time, I don't want the little madam to feel she is missing out on a family if she is allowed to develop all of those little hormones, or am I being ridiculous?

We had Alvin neutered after he had spent a few weeks weeing everywhere and trying to hump my leg constantly. His op put an immediate stop to that and we haven't looked back since. He is happy as larry and doesn't miss a thing.

But I guess spaying is a more complicated procedure.

Oh dear. What shall I do?

Uh-oh

Alvin tried to fight Olive today.

Al went into the living room and let the puppy out, not realising Alvin was in the room. The little guys never bothered with each other at all, until of course we realised they were both together and made a fuss of them!

With all the excitement, the dog decided she wanted to play with the bunny and started jumping and barking. Alvin, rather than backing off, got on his hind legs and started thrashing his front paws about. We pulled them apart, but blinkin little brave Alvin, followed the pup, putting himself in the line of danger and sniffing her nose, ready to pounce.

A bit of a set-back really but we reckon we might bring Alvin in later when the puppy starts getting tired in the afternoon. That way they might get a bit more used to each other with less excitement. Please please please please please!

In the beginning

Ok, I have started this blog a little late - about 2 years too late!

We picked Alvin up about 2 years ago this month - it seems likes we've had the little chap much longer!

We'd thought about it for ages, or rather I had, and in the end, my partner Al gave in to me and we went to the pet shop to go and pick one out.

Well, when we got to the little rabbit enclosure, there was just one little guy in there - a tiny bundle of cream and blue fluff with huge floppy ears that fell down the front of his little face. He was gorgeous.

A green-uniformed guy strode over to us. 'If you can back on Tuesday we'll have a new delivery and you'll have more choice,' he said.
I looked down at the little bunny on the floor who just sat there looking at us. He was the one.

We took Alvin home in the car, he was sat in a little cardboard box and I insisted we had him on my knee.

When we got him home, we sat in the living room and put the box in the middle of the floor and watched it, waiting for the little guy to emerge.

He didn't. That little chap sat in that box for about an hour, occassionally sniffing the air, but generally quite happy and at home in his box.

Eventually, when we could bare the suspense no longer, we tipped the box onto it's side and sat again to watch.
Alvin finally sniffed his way out and the tiny little ball sat on the floor, taking in his new surroundings.

After that there was no stopping him. He quickly settled in, deciding on where his litter trays should be, getting into bed with us on a Sunday morning, following us everywhere. He became a part of the family and enjoyed being the only pet in the house....

We picked up Olive last week. Another tiny ball of fluff, she is a nine week old labrador with short, white fur and big black eyes and nose.

She also has now made herself feel at home and mostly lives in the living room with us. She spends most of the morning playing and biting things, before we take her out into the garden for wee-wees and then she puts hereself into her bed to go to sleep. We've got a huge cage for her. We never put her in it, we wait for her to go in herself, telling her 'bed' as she climbs in.

Then we very gently close the gate so she's not bothered. She usually just watches us close it through one sleepy eye.
And then we let Alvin in to play.

He happily spends most of his time now upstairs whilst we're getting Olive used to him.
They've met through Alvin's cage and through her cage, and then whilst on the lead. They are mostly fine, sniffing each other and then getting bored of each other and walking away. But then if Alvin makes the first move in walking away, Olive gets excited and tries to jump on him and play. It's going to be a real work in progress and we are not expecting them to get on straight away at all. But we do hope that they get used to each other and become good friends.

Olive is starting puppy training this week which we can't wait for as her little needle teeth are really beginning to hurt.
She is learing the word 'no' but sometimes has selective hearing.

She is toilet trained to the point that she will wait by the back door if she needs to go. If we don't notice her, she will just wee on the rug but that hardly ever happens. And in the night we just get up once to let her out for five minutes and she is fine.

Our house is completely all about our pets now. When I am not playing with Olive, I am upstairs trying to give Alvin as much attention as possible. I think he's actually doing really well out of this, enjoying the extra treats and extra cuddles.

Al and I talk about things we've never talked about before like poo and wee! We compare notes on Olive's poo and then go on doggy forums to ask if her poos are normal!

Will keep you updated on all of Alvin and Olive's progress and their new, developing friendship. Watch this space........