Adventures of Gus the Wonder Dog

Gus goes to the dog park

2011-10-23T13:50:00.003-06:00

Not too far from home is an off-leash dog park. The first time Gus got to go, he was so happy! He could run and jump and chase other dogs and make all kinds of new friends. There was a beautiful chocolate lab there and Gus just followed him around the park, step for step and move for move, I swear he wants to be a lab when he grows up. Most of the dogs there are really well behaved, but Gus was still learning his name and who he belonged to, so getting him to listen was hard sometimes, but he usually would come looking for Momma if he got too far away from her. It was so much fun, just watching this little guy come into his own at the park. He was friendly, sweet and ready for fun. He still doesn't know how to play fetch or catch, but he sure likes chasing the dogs that are chasing the ball, lol. They think it's pretty weird that this little guy runs so hard after them, but doesn't care about the ball, but it works for them all. Once in a while we'll come across a dog that's not so nice. There was a mean chihuahua once and a cattle dog that tried to swing Gus around by his tail. That one made me mad because his owner thought it was just so funny to watch his dog try to grab my guy by his tail. Very mean! Gus is just a sweet, friendly guy and most of the dogs know that he just wants to be friends and have fun.

One of the funniest trips was a day when Gus met two Akitas.

Now these Akitas were very tall, probably 4 times the size of Gus, but they just had a blast playing with him. Their owner told me that they really liked smaller dogs and it sure seemed that way. One was playing chase with Gus and he ran through a small pond that came about knee high for him, Gus chased him in and the look on his face when he realized he was in over his head was just priceless! Young Gus just doesn't much care to go swimming. Poor thing!

For most of the summer and into the fall, I would try and get Gus to the dog park at least once a week, sometimes twice. He had so much fun and it was such a joy to see this little, scared guy gain

confidence and just having a blast. He would run and jump and play in the mud and just be so silly! I don't think I've seen a dog smile as much as Gus does when he goes to the park.

I still try and get him over there as often as I can, but it's been harder this summer. Now that fall is here, I need to get him there more. We went this morning and he just had so much fun again. Next time we'll tell you about his trip to the farmer's market. We hope you liked this installment.

Anne and Gus

Football, Family, Gus and Ivan

2011-10-02T12:39:00.000-06:00

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Well, it was football time and Dave had gotten his big TV and we had the the channels to watch the local college team, Boise State University (BSU). That meant that Dad's whole family came over every week to watch the games. Gus gets pretty excited when someone comes near his house. He barks and growls until his people check outside to make sure it's safe. Now, there were people coming to his house every weekend. New people that he had to get used to. His Momma wasn't always nearby so he could feel safe, but he had his 'safe' chair and he would just jump up there if things got too busy and he would feel alot better. Ivan though liked all these new people in the house. He was never afraid and he would just jump all over everyone. The family loved to pet Gus when he wasn't being shy, but they laughed at Ivan being such a silly kitten. It made Gus happy that his family all seemed to like Ivan. He just wished sometimes that he could be as brave as Ivan. But, he had learned that people aren't always as nice as they look, so Gus took his time getting used to all this new family. He wanted to be sure no one would hurt him. The ladies were safe, they all smelled nice and had soft, safe hands. But the men were scarier, with their loud voices and big feet, Gus could never be sure if they were yelling at him and trying to kick him out of the way, or just being clumsy. So, he would just stay out of the way just in case.

As the weeks went by though, and no one hurt him, Gus started to trust all the men a little more. He didn't run away as fast and he got to know that they would share their treats with him. Gus got to lick up all the plates after the family was done eating and any snacks that fell on the floor were just for him. Ivan didn't like the snacks so much and Gus would share the left-overs, so the friends got to looking forward to the times all these people came to the house.

Miss Cat though, she hated the whole thing and would just stay back in the bedroom, snoozing on Momma's bed until everyone went home. That was ok with Gus, at least then she wasn't hissing at him, or trying to scratch him when he had to go by her. One day, Gus hoped Miss Cat wouldn't be so mad at him. He really liked her, when she wasn't being scary. She was soft and not as rough and tumble as Ivan. Gus thought she was a real lady and sometimes he felt kinda clumsy and too big around her. But at least with Ivan, he could just be a big, clumsy dog. So, the fall and winter passed with family football once a week, Gus and Ivan home with Miss Cat and looking for mischief all week and sometimes some trips to the dog park on the weekends.

More about the dog park next time. It's one of Gus's favorite places and it's way fun for all kinds of dogs. The only bad part is Ivan can't come. The big dogs would probably try to eat him and Gus wouldn't be able to keep him safe.

We hope you liked this installment of Gus's Adventures. His life isn't always exciting, but he always seems to have fun. More about the dog park next time.

Anne and Gus

Check out Gus's website at: Gus the Wonder Dog

Take a look at Ivan's story at: Ivan's Tail

And Miss Cat gives her side at: The Real Scoop

Take a peek at Dad's site too: Luvabook

Gus stays home with Ivan

2011-09-18T18:16:00.000-06:00

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Now that Ivan was a part of the family, Dave and I decided to let Gus stay home all day with Ivan. It was also getting into the hottest part of summer and they both would be a lot cooler staying at home with the air-conditioning. So, with some trepidation, we left Gus and Ivan alone with Miss Cat. What we failed to do was pet-proof the house, so we came home that first day to quite the party gone bad, lol. Somehow, the terrible duo had gotten blankets and pillows on the floor to chew up,found a napkin somewhere to tear up and knocked and ashtray on floor. What a mess!! We couldn't get too mad at them though, since we were the ones who forgot to put things away. Needless to say, we had a job cleaning up, but Gus and Ivan were happy as could be.
The next day, we made sure to put all the things we could think of away before we left, hoping to avoid the same disaster. Things were better that day, and Gus and Ivan survived and even managed to stay out of Miss Cat's way. Gus carried Ivan everywhere until Ivan would squeak to get free. When he wasn't carrying Ivan around he was herding him where he wanted him to go. It was very funny watching the two of them interact. Both would stay out of Miss Cat's way as long as they could. She still had Gus spooked. Ivan wasn't afraid of her, even when he was that little, but it was easier to not get her real mad.
So, Gus and Ivan spent the summer days home playing and sleeping and just having a great time being together. When fall came, football started and Dave's family came over for the games. That's when they all got to meet Gus and Ivan more often and Gus met more family. More about that in the future.
Thanks for stopping by to read the next installment.

Gus,Ivan and Anne

Don't forget to check out Gus's website at:
http://www.gusthewonderdog.com
And Ivan's story is at:
http://ivan-a-cats-tail.blogspot.com

Ivan the Terrible comes home with Gus

2011-09-05T09:50:00.007-06:00

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Well, Dave fell in love with this young kitten. We hadn't given him a name yet, so we started calling him 'Little Bit' since he was just so small. Here's a picture of him about the time he came home with us.

Here's another one to give you an idea of just how little he was:

As you can see, he was just a 'Little bit' of a thing when he came home. But he was fearless! Miss Cat was NOT happy to have another interloper in HER house and if he even came in the same room she would just go into a major hissing fit! I never really realized just how close domestic cats are to their wild roots until we brought this little guy home. Little Miss Cat would growl just like the big cats do anytime he even came close to her. But, he just didn't care. He would try and get her to play, sneak up on her, do just about any cat trick to make her like him. It didn't work very well, but she came to where she could tolerate him. Here's a really good couple of pictures that show their relationship:

As you can see, it was a real stand-off between these two for quite a while. It has gotten better lately, but only a little, lol. So, here was 'Little Bit' tackling Miss Cat and trying so hard to get her to like him. Around the same time, we decided to start leaving Gus home with Bit during the day, hopefully to keep him in one piece and safer from Miss Cat.
Remember when we first left Gus home and he would chew on pillows? Well we forgot, and left some throw blankets and pillows on the chair backs and the couch. Well, we got home that day and the pillows were all over the floor, blankets were dragged into empty areas of the floor and they had all gotten a good chewing up. The upside though, was that 'Little Bit' was still among the living so we knew Gus had watched over him really well. That was the day he went from 'Little Bit' to Ivan the Terrible, lol.. since we knew Gus hadn't gotten the blankets down on his own. This little bundle of energy worked in tandem with him to wreck havoc, but we could see that they had fun together. How can you get too mad at a couple of critters for playing when you were dumb enough to leave things in reach? We just couldn't get angry with them. So, Ivan the Terrible was born.
Gus was just so happy to have a playmate at home that leaving them all day was so much easier. We just had to 'pet' proof the house before we left each day. The funniest thing was watching Gus become this little guy's Mama. He would carry Ivan around by the scruff of his neck, clean him all up, hug him tight and just plain watch over him. That is when they weren't playing 'chase' all over the house, lol.
I have a picture here of Gus trying to carry Ivan around, it's not very good, but you'll get an idea. I could just never quite get a really good one. Whenever I would try and get the camera, Gus would drop Ivan and they would both follow me. Made it tough to get a really good shot of Mama Gus. But here's one that's pretty ok:

These two are still best buddies a year later. Even though Ivan has grown quite a bit, Gus still tries to be his 'Mama' whenever he can, it's just a lot harder to carry Ivan now. But, Ivan just goes all limp and lets Gus drag him around for a while. They still play chase and they still work in tandem to get in trouble, just not quite as often as they used to. Miss Cat is getting a bit more tolerant, but Ivan and Gus are still not her favorite housemates, lol. Here's one of my favorite shots of Gus and Ivan and then one of all three of them co-existing at least for a bit:)

The first one is just a great indicator of the Gus/Ivan relationship, those two are just the bestest of friends. The second has all 3 of them snoozing with me on the bed, but Miss Cat's back is to Gus and Ivan and that's still the way things work. She tolerates them, but refuses to acknowledge them if she doesn't have to. Kind of like: if I don't pay attention to you, or I can't see you, then you aren't really there. She is just too funny sometimes.

Well that's the story of Ivan's becoming part of the family. He's made quite an impression on lots of folks, starting with Gus and Miss Cat and including his Vet and the rest of our family. He's a comedian and quite the little actor and this place would be a lot less fun if we didn't have him with us. I'm hoping in a couple of years we can add some more kitties to the family and maybe give Ivan a run for his money. We'll see what happens, but for now, Gus, Miss Cat, and Ivan are slowly learning to get along.
Thanks for stopping by and reading more about the continuing Adventures of Gus the Wonder Dog. You can see some more pictures of Gus,Ivan and Miss Cat at his website:
http://www.gusthewonderdog.com
and you can read Ivan's version at:
http://ivan-a-cats-tail.blogspot.com

Gus goes to Work

2011-08-19T10:34:00.000-06:00

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Gus had gotten his first haircut and now he could run and jump and move all around the house. He was slowly learning about his new home and coming to terms with Miss Cat. Dave and I went off to work that Monday, hoping that he and Miss Cat would be ok alone together. I took Gus for a walk around the neighborhood before Dave and I left for work. We left plenty of food and water for Gus and moved Miss Cat's food up out of his reach (he seemed to like her food a LOT more than his own, lol). We headed off to work hoping things would be ok between Gus and Miss Cat. Ah, such dreamers are we *grin*. We got home to doggy mess on the carpet and torn up pillow stuffing everywhere. Great learning experience for me, lol. So I got to clean up the messes and get Gus outside so he could run around the yard. If my memory is correct, we had our fence up, but no grass down in the yard yet. That was our next big job and Gus sure helped me a lot (not) other than running around and trying to jump on my back he was a huge help. Actually, he made me laugh, which isn't a bad thing when you're putting in a lawn. We all started on it and Gus and I finished it up one afternoon.

Well, the next week was about the same, Dave and I would go to work and Gus would tear up pillows, chew paper, have 'accidents', you get the picture. So, we decided to take him off to work with us. Working for family makes that a lot easier, plus the foundry is in a big old former garage with some smaller rooms and a yard out back. We brought Gus's food and a water bowl, had a chain with lots of slack so he could wander but not run out of the building and a blanket if he wanted something soft. You also need to realize that although the floors may be cement, they're usually covered with dust and very dirty. So, you can imagine what a dusty, dirty fluff ball looks like, or maybe not. Here's a sample of what that sweet, clean, white dog turned into after a day or so at the foundry:
If you look at his back end closely, you can see that the dark areas aren't shadow, that's dirt! After a week at the shop, he was one dirty dog. The upside was, no messes at home and he's easy to bathe, he's a good boy in the sink while you wash him up and he suffers the drying and brushing afterwards like a trooper. We were still having trouble getting our signals straight when he needed to go outside to do his business, so we had a few more accidents to deal with, but after a bit Gus and I started to understand each other a lot better. He would come and sneeze at me and that meant "I want/need to go out Momma" and then he would do his "I'm soo excited, you better let me out fast" dance :). Once I understood that the sneezing was either his "I need to go out" or "come play with me" signal we did just great!
     I think the huge upside to being able to take him to work with us, was getting to know each other pretty well, fairly fast. Plus, Gus got a ton of walks around the block with Momma and met other dogs and a ton of kitties that way too. He and I bonded during that time to an amazing degree. Whenever I would take a break and sit for a while, he would lay on my feet, so he knew exactly when I moved. We worked out our signal for walk time and he learned to sit and wait until I had the leash on before he headed for the door. He was still leery of Dave (he still is at times, but it's getting better) and we figured it was some man somewhere along the way that treated this guy so badly. There's an interesting age range of men he isn't afraid of and it seems to be young boys to guys in their 20's and then men 60+ are ok too. It's just men in that 25-60 age range that he's really skittish around, but he's getting better with that and now sometimes follows Dave around the house. But, he's mainly Momma's puppy and that's ok by me!
    Gus came to work with us from about mid-May through August 2010. One day he and I were in the yard behind the foundry when we came across a TON of kittens all over the yard, sunning themselves. Most ran when they heard us, but one little guy was all alone and he and Gus became buddies. It seemed that the lady that lives next to the foundry feeds some of the stray cats in town and all the females had gotten pregnant around the same time. There were 3 or 4 litters of kittens that she and her daughter were taking care of. They weren't feral, but they weren't house cats either and they all got along with the Pekingese they have. The day we found most of them in the foundry yard, the ladies were dog sitting a Pit Bull and the cats being as smart as they are, vacated the premises whenever the Pit was outside.
   It seemed from watching them that most of the kittens had paired up except for this little guy. They seemed to leave him alone and I figured he was dog bait so the rest could run away from Gus. That was ok by Gus, he only chased them if they ran away from him, but here was a little guy that wanted to play and Gus wanted to mother. The guys came out to check out the kittens one day and Dave fell in love with Gus's new friend. The ladies next door had no problem with us adopting one of the kittens so Ivan the Terrible found a new home.
   More about the addition of Ivan to the family next time. I hope you liked Gus's adventures at work and we'll write more soon.

Thanks for reading,
Gus and Anne

Gus gets a Haircut

2011-08-10T07:42:00.000-06:00

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The weekend that everyone came to help in the yard and to meet Gus, Debb gave me the name of a dog groomer that she knew. She called later to give me the phone number and that Monday I called Teresa.
Teresa is the best thing that could have happened for Gus and for me. She is the sweetest lady ever and she loves Gus. She had limited her grooming to just Bichons, but she decided to see Gus and if it worked out, she would continue to cut his hair. I'm so glad it worked out. Gus was so matted that all Teresa could do that first visit was shave off all his hair down to his skin. He was NOT a happy puppy. Here are some pictures of before and after, check out the after expression on his face *grin*.

Before

This is the before picture, same as the one on the blog heading.. He was just such a matted up mess and Teresa told me that was why he wasn't moving around much. It hurt him too much to move.

After

Here's the after picture. Look at that face.. he's so mad at me I'm getting the "what the heck did you do to me Momma" face, lol.. poor thing! But at least now he could move. Oh, and the black pillow there is one of the two he rearranged his first day home to make himself comfy. Clever dog!

   Now that he was more or less hairless, he became a whole different dog than they scaredy cat one that first came home. Now he could run and jump and get to his food and water all on his own and try to chase Miss Cat until she put him in his place :). What I did find out then though, was that this poor guy had no idea how to play. I got him a bunch of different types of toys and he was afraid of the ones that made noise, didn't know how to play catch, wasn't interested in most of them. But he did like to run around the house or the yard and spin, jump, do roll-overs, drop and roll and he would look for any and all mud puddles he could find in the yard. The silly dog just loves mud. I think he was so happy to move pain-free, he just wanted to run and jump and play his way. He still isn't really interested in toys and he doesn't learn with treats very well, but he is a really smart boy when he wants to be *grin*.
Our next big issue was house training, but I'll save those tales for the next time.

   I hope you enjoyed this installment in the Adventures of Gus the Wonder Dog. I'll be back with more soon.

Anne and Gus

Gus Meets Miss Cat

2011-08-07T11:06:00.000-06:00

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Dave and I read all the information we could find on how best to introduce a dog to a cat and vice versa. Everything we read suggested putting the cat in a room while the new dog got used to his surroundings and then putting the dog up and letting the cat get used to the new doggie smell. Well, we carried in the bundle of fluff in the picture there to the left and set him on the floor and HE DIDN'T MOVE! We were stymied, had no clue what was wrong, other than this poor doggy being scared to death. So, we moved him onto the couch, brought him some food (which he wolfed down-pun intended) and tried to figure out what was going on. We let Miss Cat out of the bathroom and let her get used to this poor unmoving dog.

Now, to show you just how smart this dog is, even though it was incredibly hard for him to move (I found out later from the groomer that all that tangled hair made him hurt to move) Gus was still able to move a couple of pillows that I had on the couch closer to himself so he could get comfy, lol. Really! He was that clever!

Dave's Mom and Dad and his sister Debb and her husband Don came by to help with some work around our house and to meet this new dog. Debb recommended a great groomer and Gus was all set up for his first ever haircut.

He has a great groomer in Teresa and she was the one that told me all that matted hair was making it really hard for him to move at all. Once it was gone, he was a whole new dog, lol.. Poor Miss Cat, now he was moving around and really curious about his housemate. She did let him know who was boss in a BIG hurry and she still has him buffaloed to this day. He walks a long way around her even now :)

Meet Little Miss Cat who isn't so little anymore and is still able to intimidate poor Gus.

That's the story of Gus's first few days in his new family. More to come soon.

Anne

Scary first blog

2011-08-06T16:35:00.000-06:00

OK, this is my first real experience with blogging and I'm not really sure what I'm doing, but here goes. This is a blog, or probably to be more honest, a love affair with my dog Gus. Gus is the first dog I've ever owned on my own, not as an entire family's dog. He was named in honor of the first family dog I remember, which was a Scottish Terrier and my Dad's baby.
My Gus was a shelter dog, yea he really was. I've been told he's a mix of Bichon and Coton de Tulear and when I've looked at pictures of the Cotons he is very like them and bigger than the average Bichon. He has that super soft hair that the Bichons and Poodles seem to have, but it's the look in his eyes that to got me. It was just a mix of sweet and rascal that was hard to resist
He was a scared, scruffy, matted ball of fluff when we brought him home in May 2010 and it's taken a year to get him at least starting to feel comfortable. He's still not totally sure about my husband Dave and Miss Cat, our 7 year old tabby, scares the bejeezsus out of him.His best buddy though is a cat we rescued as a kitten named Ivan the Terrible (more about Ivan another time). Gus was the best 'momma' dog a kitten could have had. He carried that little guy all over and now a year later, he still tries to carry Ivan around. Ivan just goes 'rag doll' on him and lets his good buddy Gus just drag him around for a while.
I hope to get some video up of the pair of them soon, so check back and remind me if I haven't. In the meanwhile, please share some stories of your favorite pals. I'd love to read them.

Anne