I was very glad to hear from Julie, she took the time to follow-up on us here.

Great that Happy's best friend Tor will be in Norway also.

Well Happy has had his first pajama party. He over nighted with the other office dogs, Suzie and Jenny while I was away at work. It went just fine. He is such a gentleman, calm and quiet, found himself a 'good' chair and everything was ok.

They have a big fenced-in yard so he went out with them but there is to much deep snow to really have a good run around.

Suzie is a very food oriented dog but he left nothing in the bowl for her, street smart I'm thinking.

Surprisingly everyone gets along fine when walking and they don't get entangled up in each others leash.

Perhaps this is a dog pack function?

The girls go low and wide so he can't move them, he goes high balancing on three legs so they pull him over easily. He makes up for this by occasionally peeing on their heads when they are sniffing a 'special' spot.

Happy has my house movements down to a science now. He no longer bothers to get up until he 'knows' his meal is ready. Obviously I'm a very predictable character.

We're hoping that spring will come this year.

Bob & Happy

Not much new here, Happy is still happy.

I'm pretty sure the Terrier part of him has the most influence. He's a pretty determined character, and very friendly to most everyone. He thinks nothing of flipping over on his back in the middle of a street crossing if we meet someone he likes. Great for making new friends, but not so good for traffic.
Our lifestyle has now evolved to a game of musical chairs.

We're both in agreement of the rules, 'first come first serve'.
Generally he gets his dinner first and lays down on the sofa.
I eat sitting on the recliner chair and read the newspaper. After the dinner is done and while I do the dishes, he (himself) moves to the recliner and then I get the sofa.
I have a quick nap, should the nap last to long he comes over grabs the blanket in his teeth and pulls it off.
We switch places back and forth several times during an evening.
On weekends the lines are not so clear. When a move situation arises and I don't 'get it' he'll lay down on the floor in front of 'the' place until I get up. When I come back again only 'the other place' is available.

Regards Happy and Bob

Happy has been here with me for two months now.
I notice a slow but even change in his disposition. He's more confident and proud of himself, the pretty 'show horse' walk is there almost all the time.

His coat is fully thickened and with the normal cold temperature now he likes to be outdoors.

Happy scared the life off me last week. After our walk the gate didn't close properly due to ice, I was busy putting a 'doggy bag' in the trash can.

He took off and was gone in 60 seconds. I walked the neighborhood thinking the worst, he just isn't visible to cars with these high snow drifts.

He had a blinking light, reflective harness, and his jacket on. After 45 minutes I got a call on my cell phone and a woman asked if I was missing a dog! She was about 4 blocks away, across main the street and on the other side of the railroad tracks.

She was a dog owner herself, and saw him merrily peeing on each corner as he walked alone down the road. She opened the car door and before she could call he hopped in.

He sat quietly on her lap up to my house, wasn't all that interested in getting out for me either.
Often I wonder what they think (dogs) -- well women too. Happy and I sent her a bouquet of flowers the next day.

Regards Happy and Bob

I just can't help myself, I always get into a good mood each time I see this little red-brown fur ball, his tail shows that he's happy when he sees me too.

It's a well proven fact that dogs just make people happy.

Strange thing though:

As little as five minutes after a bath and brushing he looks like he's having 'a bad hair day' no 'flat coated' anything at all in him.

How is it that he can see a dog or cat at 200 meters and not see a two ton car at 5 meters? No traffic sense at all! Even with a short leash he can just go off the sidewalk right in front of a speeding vehicle, scary.

He doesn't appreciate the cold and snow much, walks like one of those prancing horses you see at a show, lifting his feet way up.

His new rain coat keeps him dry and warmer, but the walks are short and not as much exercise now.

Dog clothes cost even more than baby clothes!

His first run on snow covered ice, and failed attempt to stop, would make a great comic movie, you could see his eyes get wider and wider when the 'brakes' didn't work, almost like a Disney cartoon.

Its pretty slippery out now, even with 'four wheel drive' and 'stud tires' he's having a tough time standing up.

Happy has met some more of the family now before Christmas.

My oldest grandchild is allergic to dogs, but he's in the army now so Happy was welcomed to visit them. It was really heartwarming to see the bond grow between him and my 6 year old grandson who has no animal experience.

At first the boy kept a safe distance and hardly touched Happy. Just throwing food bits from a 'safe' distance.
But after 2 hours they were side by side on the floor and great friends.

The rest of the family knows hyper-active Marvin, so they were quite surprised when just Happy lay down and quietly went to sleep.

I wish I could say this has a happy ending but so far it doesn't.

One of my primary criteria when getting my own dog was that it would go together well with the others that I 'dog sit' for.

In particular my son's dalmatian 'Marvin' who has spent many weekends here.

We arranged for Marvin and Happy to meet for the first time where we could take a long walk in neutral territory.

They are both male and about the same age.

Marvin has shown some dog aggression until he gets to know the other one. Both of our dogs were balanced and calm before they saw each other, then it was like someone opened the door to a madhouse.

It was instant dislike at first sight.

Happy whom I've hardly hear a sound from went into 'Cujo' mode and was trying to attack Marvin!

Marvin was desperately trying to get at Happy.

Both at full throat growl and bark.

Now Marvin is 7-8 times bigger and heavier than Happy so this would not be any kind fair fight.

The let 'em loose and see who wins strategy could not end well at all.

Sitting, laying down, belly rubs, large amounts of good treats.

Walking by while the other sits down, tried all of the tricks we know of.

It seemed that once we got one of them calmed down then the other saw this as a sign of weakness and immediately attacked.

My son and I switched dogs to see if that helped, but no.

I would have liked to had a film camera on at that time though.

Marvin lunged and pulled me over end, then dragged me on my back across the lot.

It was a cold harrowing experience going through the ice water puddles.

I was wet through all my clothes and down to the skin.

My son has the strength to hold on to him but later Marvin made a sudden jump and twisted my sons back out of joint.

At one time Marvin slipped out of his collar and once again we where all in a big fight.

Him slipping out of the collar is a physical impossibility due to the size of his head, but he apparently doesn't know this and did it anyway.

Happy pulled so hard on the leash that he lost his breath.

We (men) refused to give up and let them (dogs) win the contest of wills.

But the best we got was a few hundred meters walking side by side.

Spaced out dog - man - man - dog.

We WILL get through this, but right now I don't know how long it'll

take to do it.

Regards

When he cold hardly believe the weather could get worse it did.

From cold and windy rain to very cold and wet snow. He didn't react much to the snow, it only made it more difficult to find the 'right' place for business. Perhaps the clean white snow looked to much like 'inside' to him.

Today its just hovering on the plus side so its rain on top of snow. On our walk we got cold and wet fast. We found a place to do business pretty quickly so I thought I could hold out a while longer so he could stretch his legs at least a little.

But he looked very wet, I was unsure and we were at the school playground (a traffic free safe place) so I unhooked the leash to see his intentions.

! A laser beam could not have made a straighter line back to the house! Right up on the sofa and under the blanket. No stops at any trees.

So now we know, he loves a walk but does not enjoy it if its bad weather. This also confirms that he now knows his way around the neighborhood well enough to get home by himself should anything ever happen.

One could expect a street dog to have more self preservation instinct than a pedigree house dog?

Well on Thursday Jenny, the older cocker spaniel, came into our room and stole Happy's food bowl!

She ran off with it to hid in a corner and licked it clean. Happy is wise enough to have eaten it all up but there was still the smell of food on it.

So much for the well mannered upper class.

Regards

This is our first real whole weekend.
The weather yesterday was sunny and nice. We had several long walks and got to know more of the local area. Meet some pretty lady dogs who made it clear he should keep a respectable distance, and then came after him for more. women! is nasty

Well we went to the Vet. The waiting room was full of wonder full smells and even had a couple of nice friendly lady dogs.
The Vet had a secret jar full of liver bits wich Happy loved.

He got his vaccine shot while eating one and didn't even feel it.
Happy is now all checked out with a clean bill of health. Aside from the randomly placed teeth he was in great shape. Under bite is not a problem for us at all. No movie star ambitions here.
He's not to thin either, Bob just doesn't know a well built trim young body when he sees it.
I forgot that most teenagers look like a coat rack.

His passport is up to date and we can travel wherever we want.
After just one week today, things are getting more stable. The office, his chair, at home his chair, the laundry chair.
(Maybe I can get Happy to iron shirts??)

He still hasn't met a person, dog, or tree he doesn't like.
People I meet at work hardly belive his past, several really thought I was just kidding about it.

Regards
Bob Clarke

Regards
Bob Clarke

Well the first day at the office went great.
The picture shows the first meeting with "the girls".

He´s quite the little Don Juan, they liked him. After quickly marking the copy machine as his territory and a scratch at the door he settled right in.
My visitor's chair is 'the' place to be.

He's feeling more at ease now home is a place to go to. I now get a cold nose to tie into my shoelaces before we can go outside.

Happy's pretty sure he knows were the dog food is kept now. We go to the vet for a quick check on Friday.

Regards
Bob Clarke

Bob Clarke