15months to debt free - I hope

maddiemay

@ladyholly      I have sent you a PM

ladyholly

PO this morning to post 2 parcels. The third one still hasnt been paid for so can probably assume it wont be and the sale will be cancelled which is annoying. E bay have transferred the money so that has improved my gift pot. Shopping this afternoon was very frustrating. First the shop was full of people who were either standing in the way or moving and then stopping so I had to go round them. I then spent 19 minutes in the queue to pay. I think a complaint will be going in as that is ridiculous and its not the first time there has been long waits. I have never timed it before. They have put in self service trolley queues which really dont work when you have a biggish shop and you are on your own as by the time you have unloaded the trolley, scanned the items and then packed it takes ages and there was a very long queue there as well. The totals for the shopping have been noted down so I can really find out how much we are spending. I know food is high due to MR LHs fussiness and being a meat and 2 veg man. I wont go through what he doesnt like as it would take far too long.

We also tried to get the new tube for the bathroom light but they didnt have any so we will need a new fitting. After a the SM delay we couldnt be bothered so will go after Cs vet appointment tomorrow. Hopefully it will be the last one and we can hire the enclosed field to give hime a good run. He is getting very bored despite us playing games, indoor training etc which I think is part of the cause of his stress levels. Today he wasnt listening when we were out and I think he just wanted to get home out of the wind and rain. He doesnt seem to like bad weather especially wind which is a bit unfortunate as being in the west country we tend to get a lot of wind. Miss W was the same but she learned to ignore it and I am sure C will too.

Thank you to those who have said they enjoy hearing about C. As his behaviour improves ( I hope) there will be less about him. He heard sheep bleating on TV yesterday and was instantly alert and looking for them. Its a good job there arent any round us.

Money saving today. The heating didnt go on until this evening, Mr LH wasnt hungry so sausage sandwiches for dinner and the pork chops will do for tomorrow. This also meant very little washing up so only a little bit of hot water run. Right I am off to find a game for C to see if it will calm him a little as he is running from behind the chair to me and back as regular intervals.

Have a pleasant evening

CRANKY40

I like hearing about your dog. A long time ago my grandparents (both gone now) rescued a collie that they tempted out from under a car in a pub carpark using a pork pie (he had been under the car for a fair time). Nobody claimed him and he had a nasty scar across his nose. He was great with us children but didn't like men much (apart from my grandad and my dad). He did that side to side thing that you have talked about too. We called it weaver doggering or if we had another family dog with us and they were both on leads then it was "knitting with dogs" because of the way the leads would tangle.

He liked to herd us if we were out on a walk - stragglers were encouraged to keep up by nudging or a very gentle nip. That stopped eventually as did his other strange habit. I mentioned that he didn't like men. He would allow male visitors into the house and lull them into a false sense of security by behaving like a normal house dog. When the male visitor stood up to go home.....that's when he bit them. Not a teeth bared, growling, nasty bite, just a nip and he did stop eventually. He would also only let us children brush him at first. It's hard when you don't know what awful experiences they've had before they come to you and it does take time and patience to retrain them. I think you're doing a brilliant job. 

enthusiasticsaver

I like reading about the dog.  

Good saving on the pet insurance.  I too hope you have a peaceful night. 

ladyholly

With regard to C we are beginning to wonder if this is the right home for him as he does not seem happy and since the fireworks he is getting very stressed by even the smallest unfamiliar noise especially after dark.  As we live in a mid terrace house we do get some noise from our neighbours. Its not that they are especially noisy but there is the odd bang etc. from one side and the children going up and downstairs on the other.  We dont really hear it but C does and it is worrying him. This is not including me dropping things and banging around in the kitchen or upstairs. Even the sound from the TV is worrying him at times although the radio doesnt but I listen to radio 4 which doesnt really have many odd noises on.  We know its very early days but at the same time we dont want him to be constantly anxious in the evening and during the night. He spends much of this time varying between hiding and pacing and wont be distracted. He has also, as I said yesterday, stopped listening to us when we are out as he is so anxious.

We wonder if there has been too much change in a very short time for him to cope with. He has been put in rescue, sent to foster and returned, adopted by us, neutered, and finally the fireworks all, we believe, in a short time.  We have never come across this amount of anxiety and are not sure how to help him or even if we are the rightpeople help him.  Assuming he is signed off from his castration by the vet today I will be phoning the rescues behaviourist and getting her to come and see us asap.

Sorry this is a moaning post I am just trying to get it straight in my mind as to what we should do. I have a feeling if he goes back to the rescue he will become a boomerang dog - constantly going from home to home or be put to sleep as being unrehomable. It is a small rescue and they cannot keep dogs long term unlike some of the larger ones. We wont be making a hasty decision and will try to work with him but  we know the rescue has lied to us about him as we have had different stories from different people about him and they certainly didnt disclose everything about him.

Well I had better get on and decide what I am doing today. There is a load of washing in the machine and I need to change the bed. The bedding probably wont get washed today as I have very little drying space.

Have a good day and I will come back this evening to see where we are with C.

jwil

It must be so hard knowing what to do for the best.  Not helpful if the rescue haven't been completely transparent as well.  I hope you get some help from the behaviourist.

Flying_By

Oh ladyholly, I am really feeling for you and C at the moment and hope you get some useful advice from the rescue behaviourist.  If it weren't for the fact that our two boys are so old I would offer to give C a home myself.  Not fair that the rescue you got him from weren't fully honest about his difficulties.  I hope that there will be a good outcome for you all.
Probably the last thing you want to hear but might it be worth looking for a very biddable rescue dog to calm him down - although I know you took a while to find C.  Our lovely, crazy Blue Merle boy drove us crackers when we first had him and if it weren't for our older border collie girl I think we would have struggled to keep him.  She was a calming influence on him but even then it took quite some time for him to settle.  Sadly she's no longer with us but the miracle she left behind is that we now get complimented on our boy's behaviour! xx

Sun_Addict

I also hope you can get some good advice from the behaviourist 🤞I suppose that’s the thing with rescue dogs, you don’t know what’s happened to them in the past if the rescue isn’t being honest. If you knew the cause of his problems you could try and work on them. I know this will be a hard decision for you but you have to think of what’s best for you and C. 

beanielou

Hope you can get some helpful advi9ce.

ladyholly

Flying_By We are really missing our little one as she was definitely the boss and was brilliant at helping any new dogs both ours and fosters we had. Unfortunately due to our age we really dont want a second dog and C will almost certainly be our last one as all things being equal Mr LH will be at least approaching 80 when C dies and could be a fair bit older. We suspect that he was never assessed properly as when I spoke to their behaviourist before Christmas she said she hadnt met him so I think a volunteer possibly watched him running round etc and that was the assessment along with whatever rubbish his previous owner told them We found owners rarely tell the truth when they want to rehome their dog.

Today we have both had a long think and talk about C. We have come to the conclusion that some of his problems are not really problems. It is us with unrealistic expectations. He has been through a lot and is still a fairly young boy and we have been so used to having old dogs who were happy to sleep most of the day we have overlooked that he needs much more than that especially as he has been restricted to short lead walks . This morning I spent quite a while playing various games with him and Mr LH did some when he got up. He was pretty good whilst out with only 3 or 4 episodes of barking at birds. We have also spent some time in the garden with him discouraging him from watching the birds flying overhead. He has been signed off by the vet and so we can start giving him more exercise which will help. We also went to a certain diy shop known by its initials to get a new bathroom light while we were in the car anyway. Since then he has been pretty chilled and has seemed quite tired. He hasn't been pacing or hiding at all this eveing and I am about to give hime a frozen kong. I divided his tea into 3 as he already has a kong after tea to keep him busy so he is about to have the second one.

I have also seen one of our distant neighbours who uses her small bedroom as an office for home working which overlooks the green outside te house and she has been watching us at times and seems to think he is improving well when he is out.. She has a collie/ springer  x who has been very hard to train so she is aware of some of the difficulties. We also remembered that Rescues can take 3 months or more  to feel fully settled and in fact Mr H took much longer than that. He wasnt difficult just not always very happy and missed his original owners badly . Our first collie who was  very dog aggressive took a long while to become a good boy but we really cant remeber how long. Anyway the outcome of all our musings is that it far too early to give up on C and that the fear in the house is at least partly our fault for not giving him enough to keep him occupied. He hasnt shown any problems tonight so we will see how he does.

Frugal times today washing done at 30 degrees, veg water to make stuffing and gravy for dinner and the ring turned of as soon as the water boiled. I spent some time tidying up in the garden with C but he wasnt into gardening but enjoyed running up and down the path being told to leave the birds. I seem to have been busy all morning but am not sure what with. Mr LH has taken part of the bathroom light down ready to do the new one but couldnt go too far as he wouldnt have been able to finish before dark and the power would need to be turned off. Hopefully it will be done tomorrow. I will also ring the behaviourist tomorrow and see when she can visit. More advice is never wasted.

Anyway thats enough from me have a good night.