The Fisher Net

Having a dog changes your lifestyle.  Especially when you do what you’re not supposed to and get a dog that is a higher energy level than your family currently has.

Munchkin (who is starting to object to the moniker since she’s within an inch of topping my height) has really stepped up to the plate with the dog care, but even with her doing most of the dog walking/running, Kodiak and I end up doing a fair share of it when she either sleeps through her alarm or when she’s with her other family.

Today I dug my bike out of the far corner of the garage, aired up the tires, and took Gracie out.  We don’t have a proper attachment for the bike, and the back brakes were sticking, so I mostly walked the bike between Gracie and I to make sure she dealt with the machine ok (she did) but did ride it for a bit slowly.  She LOVED IT.  The only thing she didn’t like was that I wasn’t going fast enough, and that I had her Halti (a head collar to stop her pulling on lead behaviour) on  so when she started getting ahead of me, it pulled on her nose.  It is certainly easier for me to bike with her than walk, and I cannot run with my knees.  I can take her faster and longer with a bike.  This girl loves to RUN.

Next steps… check out what seems like a slow leak in the front tire, fix the back brakes, get the proper attachment system for the bike.  We’re also going to look at some inline skates.

I have gotten completely sedentary between being sick, the end of school, the holidays, etc.  Getting out with Gracie reminds me how good it feels to move, and that I need to do this for my health.  I’ll get back to the gym after the 1st of the year.  It also keeps me from spending the day in bed when I have the day off, because dogs don’t take the day off… they still need fed, walked, let out, etc.

Yes, Gracie is aptly named.  I think we jumped in the deep end a bit with her, and probably did it a little rashly… but sometimes that’s how the best things in life happen.

And as an amusing side note… our most scaredey-cat, Ginny, who hides when anyone comes to visit, was the first cat in the house to come in where the dog is, and to touch noses with Gracie.  She and Snape, the other super-scaredey-cat, love to play in water and have discovered that the dog’s water dish is a WONDERFUL splash bowl, and they both will come in under the baby gate to play in it, and tolerate the dog getting within a certain distance (if she moves slowly) before they retreat.  The only cats in the house who refuse to even come check Gracie out through the baby gate are our big, bad macho cats Xander and Riddick.  Go figure.

Last night it was raining when I got home.  This is not a strange occurrence in Texas this year.  It is the first time since we got Gracie, though.

Side note here – dogs are funny creatures.  This morning Gracie balked at going out in the backyard to “do the necessary” in the rain, but joyously took a 30 minute walk with me in it.

At any rate, the daughter unit (as another smaller side note, I need to quit calling her Munchkin, she’s rapidly gaining on me in height and will be 13 in March) balked at taking the canine unit out for the evening walk.  I reminded said daughter unit that she had been pleading for said canine unit for months on end, promising to do all necessary canine maintenance chores including walks, feedings, etc.  She finally headed out in my wellies and a rain poncho, and came back later with ice blocks for hands, having forgotten gloves.

This morning, daughter unit’s alarm apparently didn’t go off, and she had basketball practice.  I got her up in time to get ready for practice, but not in enough time to do the canine expedition in the rain.  Coincidence?  Hmmmm… I think not.  (She insists it was not intentional, I don’t know if I should believe her or not… )

So I delve into my memory of growing up in the Great Northern Tundra to remember how to layer for freezing wet conditions (because it felt that way when I opened the back door to try and get Gracie to go out) and got dressed, after taking some meds for my weather-and-sinus-induced migraine.  Apparently I overdressed (it’s not *actually* freezing apparently), because I was sweating heavily by the time we got home – but it’s better than being uncomfortably cold and wet.  The dog is now walked and relatively calm again.  I have peppermint mocha coffee, life is good.

I think the reality of the canine responsibility is setting in for the daughter unit, though. 

Gracie is the newest member of our family.  She is an Australian Cattle Dog and Border Collie mix, we are adopting her from a rescue organization in Denton.  She’s been with her foster family for several months waiting for a forever home.

We had started talking about getting a dog and researching breeds.  We wanted an intelligent dog, medium sized, with minimal grooming requirements, and prefer the working breeds.  As many of our friends know, we have some long term plans to semi-retire to some land and raise alpacas and other fiber animals, so the herding breeds rise to the top of the list.  ACD’s kept coming up on the list for me, though there are some considerations that they can be a tad difficult due to their intelligence and resultant stubbornness.  We figured we’re stubborn enough to refuse to give in to a dog. 

We had decided with our five cats it would probably be best to wait until summer when school is out and get a puppy, so people would be home more to do the housebreaking and then the puppy would grow up with the cats.  But Munchkin started wanting to go for runs and with the time change it’s frequently after dark, and I started looking at getting a dog which had been fostered with cats and was already grown.  We found Gracie and we all hit it off.

Gracie came to live with us on Saturday, so we’re on day 6.  We can tell this won’t be without challenges.  This in some ways wasn’t a great week to get her, we had family visits including a trip to Oklahoma to visit Eric’s parents.  But, with all the time out of school and work, we felt it would be better even with the moving around and driving that she’d be with us so at least we’d be her constant.  She is a bit headstrong, at 18 months she’s an adolescent.  We’re still learning the right ways to correct and reading dog training books & such.  But she is incredibly intelligent and has a wonderful temperament, and I think she’s going to be a fabulous dog for us.  We’ve seen some nipping behaviour which is known in the herding breeds.  The first time she did it at my parents I didn’t see it happen and was very worried, but now we’ve seen it a couple more times, and she’s making no effort to actually make contact, she’s trying to “herd” the people.  It’s not acceptable, of course, and we’re correcting the behaviour, but it’s a much different story than a true aggression, which we have NOT seen.  She is still wanting to chase the cats, but there’s a great little fearless kitten here at Eric’s parents that has given us wonderful opportunity to practice our intervention with the “leave it” command and the water bottle and now we’re both feeling better about that too.  She doesn’t want to eat the cats, just play with them. 

Gracie is a high energy dog, and by some perspectives we got the wrong dog.  She has to be exercised a couple of times a day.  I’m finding this a really good thing for us.  So far, Munchkin has been great about getting up and doing her part, and the days Munchkin is with her other family, I find I enjoy getting up and having my coffee while throwing a ball for Gracie, it’s a nice start to the day.  We’ll all get more exercise and activity, and that’s a very good thing.  We want, after we get the basic obedience, recall, etc. down to work on some agility work, we think that would be fun.

So that’s our latest insanity.  Eric sometimes looks at her and says, “what did we do?”  But then there’s this…

I think he’s a convert.    More tales from the Life With Gracie to come, I’m sure.