New dog is here 🥰

Dopeydapple

Dopeydapple

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29 October 2017
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Wiltshire
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Tala arrived today to start her home trial with us from dogs trust 🥳.
She's been in kennels for 18 months with 3 failed rehomes bless her. She seems to be settling OK, bit of pacing around the house with spells of lying down and chewing toys. Loves being out in the garden but its a horrid day to keep the door open too long Had a few time outs where she thought being told no about climbing on us on the sofa was the start of a game and got too excited but she seems to stop what she was doing after a time out quite quickly.
 
Well just been on another walk with her, saw several other dogs, didn't bat an eye lid, except the terrier that we had to pass on the path who seemed a bit excited ( tail and head up, nothing more), she got a bit more energised but responded well to a little lead pull to keep her on my other side and a little nudge from me knee to stop her trying to cut across me. 1 dog raced down it's garden barking at her, absolutely no response. No trying to chase pigeons or cats. Only issue was trying to dry her when we got in, she was not having the towel near her. OH was doing that while I was taking off my boots and I heard him ask her to sit and ask for a paw so that may be what set it off as she's come to us with some pain meds because her pre homing vet check noted some stiffness on stretching a leg so they may have stretched it too far and slightly hurt her, I don't know... when I tried to just touch her leg with the towel after that she tried to pull away and told me off. We settled for sit on the towel and get stroked. Will revisit in a different way another time. Had a few "discussions" about climbing on us on the sofa and not stealing food but not seeing any worrying behaviour and it's only day 1 anyway so everything is very new to her. Sorry for the essay just using this as a bit of a diary lol.
 
She took a while to settle in her bed last night. Not sure if she was just chasing her toy around or actually scratching at the door but she did stop after about 10 mins ( then started up again a few times and stopped again), I think she was chasing her kibble toy around most likely. She had flaked in the living room before that for an hour so waking her up to put her to bed obviously woke her up a bit too much lol, well that and running away from me when she knew she was being closed in in a different room 😔. Bit more chatty this morning, very good on her walk again, apparently 7 30am is zoomies time lol. Much better to put back to bed when I left for the horses and no trying to climb on me when I'm sat on the sofa so far this morning.
 
Dopeydapple said:
Need to get her some dog deodorant if anyone has any recommendations. It's been a few years since I've been greated with wet dog smell coming home 😢
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When I had my Spitz breed dogs (Norwegian Buhunds, and Finnish Lapphunds), they always smelled much, much less wet dog when wet than the dogs of non Spitz breeds which I've owned + dogs of other breeds which I've met when they've been wet, so I have to admit that I've completely missed that something like Dog deodorant even existed.

After some quick Googling, I think I would prefer to first try something like patting over the fur with some baking soda or corn starch, brush it out a little, and see if that wasn't enough to help with neutralising the odour.
 
FinnishLapphund said:
When I had my Spitz breed dogs (Norwegian Buhunds, and Finnish Lapphunds), they always smelled much, much less wet dog when wet than the dogs of non Spitz breeds which I've owned + dogs of other breeds which I've met when they've been wet, so I have to admit that I've completely missed that something like Dog deodorant even existed.

After some quick Googling, I think I would prefer to first try something like patting over the fur with some baking soda or corn starch, brush it out a little, and see if that wasn't enough to help with neutralising the odour.
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We used to use baby talc on the others, agree though they don't smell as much as some other breeds lol
 
Dopeydapple said:
Need to get her some dog deodorant if anyone has any recommendations. It's been a few years since I've been greated with wet dog smell coming home 😢
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I imagine she's not had much grooming recently, and a coat like hers will hold the smell. You're obviously going to have to start slowly but if you are able to strip out all her dead hair I bet she will smell a lot more fragrant. I'm not sure if you were joking about deodorant but I wouldn't spray anything smelly on her. If you can get her happy being towelled, rubbing them over with a towel which has been soaked in very hot water and then wrung out can really get rid of any muck in the coat.
 
When she's settled, brush her out or pay for a groom. Putting smelly stuff over the top of it won't actually help.
Place obstacles/obstructions on the sofa, like a clothes horse etc, so that she cannot jump on it. This is especially important if she may have an injury as jumping on and off it will not help.
Don't leave food out/available for her to steal, this will avoid conflict. My dogs have never stolen food as it's not there for them to steal.

Best of luck!
 
CorvusCorax said:
When she's settled, brush her out or pay for a groom. Putting smelly stuff over the top of it won't actually help.
Place obstacles/obstructions on the sofa, like a clothes horse etc, so that she cannot jump on it. This is especially important if she may have an injury as jumping on and off it will not help.
Don't leave food out/available for her to steal, this will avoid conflict. My dogs have never stolen food as it's not there for them to steal.

Best of luck!
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She was trying to steal the food as we ate it lol, she's fine if we eat at the table though so no big drama, just wanted to check what we could and couldn't do initially. She hasn't tried to get on the sofa to lie down just to get on us when we are on the sofa, she thinks being pushed off is a game but standing up and just blocking her whilst not talking or interacting works well, just a bit of repetition needed to get the message through.
 
Dopeydapple said:
She was trying to steal the food as we ate it lol, she's fine if we eat at the table though so no big drama, just wanted to check what we could and couldn't do initially. She hasn't tried to get on the sofa to lie down just to get on us when we are on the sofa, she thinks being pushed off is a game but standing up and just blocking her whilst not talking or interacting works well, just a bit of repetition needed to get the message through.
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Probably best if you teach her where she can lie down and chill rather than allowing her to test what she can and cannot do straight off the bat, it's much clearer that way.
Again, my dogs are nowhere near me when I am eating, just saves a lot of unnecessary angst.
 
She looks lovely and I am glad she is settling in well. I always try to start as I mean to go on with a new (older) dog so don't allow any behaviour now that you won't want once she has her paws under the table.
 
Moobli said:
She looks lovely and I am glad she is settling in well. I always try to start as I mean to go on with a new (older) dog so don't allow any behaviour now that you won't want once she has her paws under the table.
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We tend to be the same, although previously they've had an existing dog to show them how things work. She doesn't seem to argue much with "no" so I'm not sure what's happened in previous homes that's she's being returned each time. Maybe she will get pushier when she settles or maybe she won't lol. In all honesty given what people say about malamutes I've never met a particularly difficult one yet so we'll see.
 
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