<p>Who are your fuzzy little friends, the ones who will comfort you when you are a bereft empty-nester? </p>
<p>Yulara, Miniature Australian Shepherd, 9, 4 Agility Championships (her nickname is my handle - Yulsie)</p>
<p>Misty, daughter of Yulara, 6, working on 1st Championship and in training for flyball and Rallo-O</p>
<p>Quinkan, Australian Terrier, 11, agility titles and super trick dog</p>
<p>Anyone else compete in canine or equine sports?</p>
<p>Flynn - Kerry blue terrier aka Beelzepup, the Prince of Barkness.</p>
<p>Casey, Molly, and Chloe - all three labradoodles. Our house is all female with the exception of my wonderful husband. He has to put up with one wife, four daughters, and three female dogs! :)</p>
<p>Yulsie, I have an Aussie mix - they are wonderful dogs, and so quick to learn - so I can see why yours are agility champs! However, worrying about academics & colleges with my kids was about as much as I could take in terms of aiming for recognition for achievements… so my doggie leads a life of leisure, keeping the living room couch warm for my son whenever he returns.</p>
<p>Keeta - female lab/beagle mix, now 9 years old and rather cranky, but still my baby. Loves chocolate (no, we do not feed her chocolate! but she does instinctively know when Halloween is near).</p>
<p>Link - male 3 year old pure Lab, very goofy and gangly like a teenager. Named after the Legend of Zelda character by son. Supposed to be his dog, but he’ll take spoiling anywhere he can get it. Loves any food left on coffee table (perfect feeding height for him) or anything close to the top in the trash.</p>
<p>I am still looking for someone to take my springer. I am just not a dog person. Unfortunately, neither is anyone else in our house. You guys are able to look with affection on behavior that raises my blood pressure WAY too high (on furniture–yuck, smelly, dirty, ruins fabric; eats chocolate–dangerous and besides that was MY chocolate and how could he sniff it through the plastic wrapping IN A DRAWER???; counter-surfing–can’t cook, eat, or leave anything out unless he is in his crate, which he then feels is an indignity. Not to mention dealing with the bodily functions. Especially when it’s on the carpet. Oh, and did I mention the ruining of the patio doors’ paint? </p>
<p>I wish I could be more like y’all.</p>
<p>Oh Patient - I can’t imagine! I like the dog better than I like my kids – the dog is always polite and obedient and she stays home, plus she is always happy to see me…the kids are hardly ever around, and when they are here, half the time they treat me like a household servant. Plus the dog has not once criticized my cooking … she happily eats anything and everything I offer. </p>
<p>The kids know I like the dog best, but they don’t care … they say they like the dog best too. </p>
<p>I can understand your concern about a mess in your house… but you’ve never met my kids! I mean, the dog owns 2 bones and 1 stuffed toy, and she is pretty good about keeping them on her dog bed. My daughter’s suitcase has lain open on the livingroom floor for a month, her bedroom is impassable, and my son (who doesn’t live here any more) has left all of his possessions randomly scattered all over his former bedroom. It is true that my kids do bathe on their own, whereas the dog has to be reluctantly dragged to the bathtub… but then again, the dog does not leave dirty towels all over the bathroom floor, since she prefers to merely shake herself dry.</p>
<p>Back in the day when both kids lived at home, the dog could be relied on to let me know exactly when they arrived, no matter how late at night. No waiting up for me … I knew they couldn’t get through the front door without a dog alert.</p>
<p>Donegal, “lab-mix” according to the shelter we got him at. AKA “Dogenal”, “Doginaball”, and things I can’t print here.</p>
<p>I never had a dog before and was a reluctant convert, but now I’mtotally entusuastic. He’s very sweet, not so smart, and has some bad habits (like can’t be trusted off leash or near the front door because he doesn’t get the concept of “cars” and “streets”. WAs two when we got him, has some bad habits like jumping on people when they first come in, so gets banished to the bathroom a lot.</p>
<p>My D imagines his nightly journal of security patrol reads like this:</p>
<p>“2 am…a car goes by…bark a lot.”</p>
<p>“2:30…sirens in the distance…bark a lot.”</p>
<p>“3:15…another car…bark a lot.”</p>
<p>And so on.</p>
<p>Zoey - a six (?) year old doby female who still has her ears. Zoey is a wonderful pup but massively fails the guard dog test as she runs up to strangers and silently wags her tail. Zoey is perhaps the dumbest dog on earth … she likes to “eat” any ball the kids leave lying around and then a few hours later she throws the ball back up … and then the next time she sees the ball again she eats it again with the same results … repeat many-many times. Pavlov obviously did not use Zoey when he documented the Pavlov response because we see no evidence of learning from Zoey!</p>
<p>We also had Jezebel for 14 years … she was a very huggable german shepard who always stayed near and protected the family … she is still missed a ton.</p>
<p>Finally, we currently also have 4 cats … 2 sets of siblings. This is the second crew of cats for us.</p>
<p>Odin – Blue male Great Dane, 2 years old. My heart dog, caring, loving and sensitive, in training to be a therapy dog. Mamie – Fawn female Great Dane, 1 year old. She is my clown and goof ball, until she gets into the show ring, where she becomes my “star” almost half-way to her championship points, she will hopefully become the foundation of my breeding lines if she passes all of her health tests at 2 years of age. Shatzi – may she rest in peace, 13 years old Rottweiler when we had to send her “over the bridge” this past September.</p>
<p>Princess, my 9 year old Bichon Frise. She is my constant companion, as well as my “white whine” with dinner! She is so sweet tempered and loving - keeps me company in the evenings when I’d otherwise be all alone (my husband commutes home on weekends from his out of state job).</p>
<p>We have a beautiful reddish golden retreiver. His biggest fault is jumping on people. He still hasn’t figured out that he’s capable of jumping the baby gate into the dining room. He loves soft toys with squeakers. Unfortunately, we haven’t found one that he can’t chew up or that his best friend who lives next door won’t steal. His “girl friend” (no romance involved, they’re both neutered) is a wheaton terrier who comes over daily to play. We have an electric fence but she doesn’t so when he’s not looking she’ll steal his toy and race home with it. About once a month my neighbor will haul out all the stolen toys and throw them in our yard.</p>
<p>We both enjoy having the benefit of two dogs and the maintenance of one!</p>
<p>No K-9s, Cats - always named for Phillies players, Kruk and Mickey (Morandini) still living</p>
<p>We have a 2 year old (90 lb.) puppy. He just won’t grow up. His Mom was a Golden Retriever, and his Dad was a Yellow Lab. He was part of an “experimental” litter. Very ,very loveable - but lots of energy and a tad bit stubborn. He is a wonderful friend for 12 year old daughter now that brother is away at college!</p>
<p>A 3-year-old Saint Bernard; just spent $3K on knee surgery (ruptured his ACL); inherited him from my sister who wisely purchased him as a cute pup at the beginning of her first pregnancy!</p>
<p>A 13-year-old collie; ancient, fragile, bladder control problem; finally no longer barks at birds, bees and bugs.</p>
<p>backhandgrip- Nice to know someone else names their cats after athletes! I have had several named after Indiana U basketball players, and currently have Bobby Knight as 1 of our 4 Maine Coon cats.
The love of my life is Charly, my 22 month old Golden Retriever. My son, Wild Child, bought him, without our permission, as a cute little puppy. Charly now weighs 120, and as 1sokkermom said, won’t grow up. He can clear off our kitchen counter, chews up his soft toys, and gets so excited when I come home from work that he can hardly stand it. He is a lot or work, but I adore him.</p>
<p>Did anyone see the “Rhymes with Orange” comic strip the other day with the flowchart showing how a dog decides what to eat? ROFL!</p>
<p>calmom…we were just too inexperienced to properly train, I think. I’m glad that your dog is so wonderful!! We have actually found a home for ours, with an older couple. The man has severe arthritis and he simply fell head over heels in love with our dog, and has that “knack” for loving him and making him obey. There are too many littermates (kids and H) in our house, and not enough alphas (me, semi-) to have raised this dog to be the wonderful pet that yours is. I am glad for you, and perhaps a bit envious. Unfortunately in our home, the dynamics don’t exist for a dog. Sad but true.</p>
<p>patient, it is very true that when rasising a dog, there should not be a single human in the household that is not alpha to the dog. Even children need to be taught to be alpha to a dog, otherwise the dog will treat a child as a “dumb” (dumb because they don’t know the dog-codes) littermate, and that can be trouble.</p>
<p>Actually, Patient, we got our dog fully grown & fully trained … she was a 1 year old pound dog when we got her, the “pound favorite”… she had been a little sick (kennel cough), so she had spent more than the usual time at the pound & worked with their handlers. My daughter had begged for a dog, and I had acquiesced on condition that we get a grown dog - I didn’t want to have to housebreak a puppy. My son is the one who gets credit for being very picky - there were several visits to animal shelters & pet rescue before we found a potential pet that he deemed acceptable.</p>