(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
IAN: June 6, 2023 Gotcha day Pupdate! [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-06-05
IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a PM to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
Happy Friday! June 4th was Buddy and Sunny’s Gotcha Day. We’ve had them for a year now, and boy how they have changed! Buddy didn’t know how to play with toys, and he was so shut down, and afraid of everything. Most of the time he hid under my desk with his tail tucked. Compare his first photo with this:
Monday Youffraita
Tuesday: bigjacbigjacbigjac
Wednesday Pam from Calif
Thursday art ah zen
Friday FloridaSNMOM
Saturday FloridaSNDad
Sunday loggersbrat
Buddy has a set of toys in the bedroom that are his alone, they are all stuffed piggy toys, because his first toy was a piggie and as we find new ones we add them to his collection. They are in the bedroom because all of the other dogs will kill stuffed toys, but Buddy takes good care of his, other than them needing to be washed periodically. He likes to play “don’t take my piggie” which is a keep-away game, and he plays tug with them, and if you hug his piggie and squeak them he’ll snatch them away from you LOL. You know when he’s done playing and just wants his piggie when he takes it and moves across the bed out of easy reach. So long as he’s right with you, he’s in the mood for a game of ‘don’t take my piggie’.
This is one of his 3 piggies. One is currently under the bed (the original one) and the other is in the laundry.
He likes to play and wrestle with the other dogs, and when he has had enough, he either retreats under my desk, or he asks to go in the bedroom for some alone time. He’s no longer afraid of Bit taking her belt off after work, someone clapping, anyone yelling at any of the other dogs, or the electric wheelchair (that took a couple of weeks). He still startles easily, but sometimes he comes to one of us for reassurance instead of hiding, and if he does hide, he doesn’t for as long and we can talk him into coming out a lot easier. He’s still a work in progress, but he’s come a LONG way.
Buddy and Stewie playing
Look at that happy Buddy!
Sunny has come out of her shell as well. She’s very protective of the house, and we’re working on her going nuts and barking at everything that crosses the yard or the street above and outside the yard.
She also wrestles with and plays with the pups and with Buddy frequently. She destroys soft toys and prefers bones and more solid squeaky toys. I’ve switched them to the Super Chewer Bark Box, since the other four (all but Buddy) destroy soft toys really quickly. The couple of Super Chewer toys I have bought locally have gone over very well, and the inside squeaky toys are still with us after a month of rough play. If I get them a soft toy, I get a stuffless one, and usually those are pretty quickly de-squeakered, or Sunny puts a hole in the squeaker, and they don’t work anymore. Sunny loves squeakers, but she’ll squeak them until she kills them with ‘normal’ dog toys.
Sunny’s first day home.
Like Mother Like Daughter.
Sunny lost some of her darker coloring in the shed after her last litter. We don’t know if it will come back in her winter colors or not. Sunny loves to lay in my wheelchair when I’m not in it, or sit in it and look out the window like she is doing above. Fenna loves my wheelchair too, when her mom’s not in it.
Sunny and Buddy are 3 years old now. The pups are almost 10 months.
Fenna is my sneaky one. She’ll come up to give you a hug, then quick grab something off the desk and run behind the crates with it (so it takes me longer to get to her). She’ll also pass off something she’s not supposed to have to one of her brothers, so when you check *her* mouth, she has nothing. But she loves giving kisses and will jump right into your lap, whether you’re ready or not. She’s a little skittish though, and startles at loud noises or something she’s not familiar with, and then she’ll pull you right into the house so you’re safe, and no telling her to heel will stop her. If you don’t come along, she’ll slip her collar and go wait for you on the porch.
And, because I didn’t have a good picture of them above, only actions shots, here are Stewie and Rhenn.
Rhenn sitting on my wheelchair
Rhenn is the bulkiest and largest of them, though Fenna has a touch of it. Rhenn is also the only one with a bay. One day I’m going to do a dog DNA test and find out what all these pups have in them. We know Heeler and Jack Russel, but obviously there’s more than that. He still has the Heeler head though. I can open his mouth and take *anything* out of it though, and he never nips. Actually I can do that with all five of them. Anyone in our household can. When we took them to get them fixed, Rhenn was the only one that wouldn’t let them touch him while he was awake. Bit had to go back and get him out of the crate for us to take him home. She said he growled, until she bent down so he could see her and she talked to him, then he was all happy puppy wiggles. He is the most likely to bring me something he knows he’s not supposed to have. If Fenna is afraid of something he’ll push everyone onto the porch, and when he gets behind you and shoves the wheelchair, you move.
Stewie likes to lay on top of things, like crates.
Stewie is almost as tall as Rhenn, but he’s built like Sunny. He will play ball all day, every day. He also loves a squeaky toy, it took a while for us to find one he wouldn’t kill. Handballs work really well for him, but they don’t squeak. Jolly balls work well outside, he’s taken the handle off the one we had, but it still doesn’t deflate, and he plays with it every day. The Super Chewer toys work well for him, because it has the tough squeaky toy inside when they inevitably get the fuzzy outer shell off within an hour or less depending who has it. Stewie is a very happy go lucky dog, always happy to meet anyone or do anything new. He does the best walking next to the electric chair. If we’re out and someone walks up to him, he’ll talk to them. If something startles him, he’ll come to us, if we tell him it’s fine, he’ll go play with his ball again, unless Rhen chases him back to the house.
I also recently got a Chuck It tug toy that works really well. They all seem to like that, either playing tug with one of us, or 3 or 4 of them tugging against each other. They’ve killed a lot of toys doing that, this one is holding up, so far.
This is one of my favorite Youtuber dog trainers, talking about puppy toys. I don’t have all of these, but I keep this in mind when I buy new toys. Pupscicles are great, btw, especially if you get the mold to make your own.
Her dog John Denver is about the same age as our three pups, differing by a week or so.
Sophie helped Buddy a lot when we first got him, he took a lot of cues from her. It took him a while after she passed to start playing and being happy again. He sleeps in her spot, against my back, every night, unless it’s too hot, then he’s at our feet instead, or under the bed.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/5/2326252/-IAN-June-6-2023-Gotcha-day-Pupdate?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
