Little Zoo

allow me to introduce my Zoo! in my house I have 7 dogs(5 are mine), 1 bunny, 2 birds, 1 snake, and lord knows how many Gerbils!

first I have Happy...Happy is my heart dog. she is an 8 year old Border Collie, my first dog that was actually mine. she has her problems, and is by no means "perfect" but she is perfect for ME. ok so she has some aggression issues but we have been working together on it for years and she has made a lot of progress. she is now complely over her child aggression...in fact she now LOVES kids. and her dog aggression has been improving by leaps and bounds, recently I have even been able to take her to the work with me at the kennel and she can run in the large yard with the big group, not only without attacking, but she is now actually relaxed! Happy is the dog thats good at everything..she is the type of dog that would be no good for someone who sinpley wants to train stuff..Happy HATES training.. of all types. but she is not ill behaved, just tell her what you want, as long as she can figer out what your talking about, she will do it, weather you "trained" her to do it or not. I taught her to jump into my arms by teaching Misty to jump into my arms and having Happy watch..then without any prepping of her own I looked at Happy and asked it of her...so she jumped into my arms. her first time on sheep has trialers wishing they had a first dog like that..no goofiness, no ignoring commands, no cornoring sheep, no chasing, nothing, she walked into the field, found balance and set to work. the trainers said that if those sheep escaped, Happy would have been able to bring them back right then. she has been trained in Flyball and clocked in at 3.8 seconds, agility with her involves running way behind her pointing at obsticals, while she completly ignores tunnel traps and heads to the pause table, cuz.. well thats where I pointed.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/HappyFM/BCs%20n%20Toller/IMG_0225.jpg[/img]

second is Misty, Misty is my 6 year old Border Collie, she is the clown of my house. I always say she saved my life...when I got her I was depressed and attempting suicide, Misty put an end to that..how could anything be upset when a dog looks you right in eyes, farts..leaps 3 feet in the air and takes off running! or takes a flying leap through a CLOSED window. or pinches a hose up in her paws so the other dogs come close to see where the water went..then releases the kink, power hosing them in the face? its to hard to be depressed around a dog that makes you laugh at every turn. Misty is the fun dog to train, she LOVES it and throws her heart and soul into every movement.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/HappyFM/BCs%20n%20Toller/IMG_0229.jpg[/IMG]

3rd is Electra...Electra is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. she is my first and last show bred dog. I shoulda stuck to my belief in working dogs, but nooo I just had to try this whole fully health tested, "versatile" proven registered dog thing..I wound up with a very pretty dog..that cant do diddly squat, and isnt good for much more then decoration and comic relief. she's a good show dog though...some people hate her and think she should just be spayed and showing her would be a waste of money and stupid. others think she is stunning and specials quality. I dont get show people lol. she HAS been shown, 5 times and taken BOB every single time, and made group cut twice. I am not a show person, but I do it because she loves it more then anything else, I mean first you have the grooming table..hello, platform! she LOVES platforms. then there is the attention, oh my, platforms followed by attention, how cool is that! and finally..showing off. what could be better?

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/HappyFM/Rusty/R1-1.jpg[/IMG]

4th we have Rusty. Rusty is a JRT x, 6 years old. I love him to death, but he is an evil little creature! he fights, he marks, and god forbid he listen to a command once in a while. he is motivated only by what he feels like being motivated by at the time. he is toy, food and praise motivated and negative reinforcement works great too. problem is that only work when he wants them too. even with negative, corrections dont do anything if he doesnt feel like letting them. I cant say he has not improved, he is not nearly as intolerable now as he was 2 years ago when I got him, it took some rough handling and an e-collar but he finally stopping tryint to kill my other dogs..he still takes off after my moms boy every so often, and you can never let your guard down with him, but at least he no longer wakes up in the middle of the night attacking my other dogs while they they trying to sleep!

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/HappyFM/BCs%20n%20Toller/IMG_0207-1.jpg[/IMG]

5th we have Ladybug..Ladybug is my newest, she is a street rescue, someone abandoned her in a strange naighborhood, underweight, overgrown nails, deaf and barly able to move. some girls down the block that I have known for years found her, they saw her standing there on their way out, an hour later driving back, they saw her still there, just standing. they took her to meto borrow a leash, then walked her all over for about 45 minuts trying to find her owner, they had o luck so they left her with me. we called the HS several times, put up posters, ads in the paper and walked her around. nothing, not so much as a false report. 8 months later she is still here. her weight up, her nails trimmed down, and running around with no trouble at all. we had called her "the old lady" at first, she looked like she had to be at least 13 years old. the general guess now is between 7 and 10, and people are only willing to go that old because of the white on her face. she still has some mobilty troubles..mainly she rear end is very weak causing her to stumble and fall at random, but it she doesnt seem to notice or care.