Forward to Love

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Forward to Love

So I’ve told you how everyone is handling the addition of Ziggy and how it was decided that the little blue merle was the one for us.  Incidentally had Noire/Keep come to live with us his name would have been Ferris but Ferris didn’t fit Azul so he became Ziggy instead after Ziggy Marley (in case you didn’t notice the theme to the musical blog posts yet).  So now to tell you about Ziggy!

Ziggy is one happy little puppy.  He loves to love!  He’s happy to play, he’s happy to eat, basically as long as he’s with you he’s happy happy happy!  Now ask him to sit alone in his crate or ex-pen and you likely will hear some screaming.  Those first 24 hours were hell, however we are into 2.5 weeks of having Ziggy and he’s doing much better.   He reminds me a lot of Mickie in his zest for life (and in his separation anxiety) but he has a LOT more built in focus than she did at the same age. 

His first week with us I didn’t really see any fear at all in him and I was really impressed.  He handled the drive from Texas beautifully.  An hour and a half down the road from Brenham we stopped in Houston to visit a friend and Ziggy did awesome with him, his wife and their pack of 4 adult cattle dogs.  Rest area potty stops and a hotel visit were no issue despite the fact he’d only been on leash once before we left.  Once home he settled right in (other than the screaming while alone thing).  I had planned for an outing and for a visitor to come over that week but those didn’t work out so all we managed in week 1 was two visits to my mom’s house (5 acres away).  On Thursday or Friday I started to see a little bit of a fear period starting in that he’d jump a little at a noise or look oddly at “weird” objects in the yard.  The cool thing is the moment something like that happens all I have to do is say “ZIGGY!” in a really happy voice and he comes bouncing to me to get some love.  We finished off the week with a play date with two of his brothers at my friend Sally’s house.  It was there we had our first and so far only (knock on wood) melt down.  Sally greeted me at the car in a hat and sunglasses and Ziggy was not impressed.  Barked and barked.  Took a little while to warm up to Sal after that but once he did he was fine and he’s been great with everyone ever since.

Week two brought more adventures.  First was a trip to an outdoor mall with his brother Moses and my friend Debbie.  Ziggy didn’t seem too confident about walking into the area on his own and being that this was only his 3^rd time on leash I went ahead and carried him.  Once he saw a group of people though he started wiggling in my arms to go see them.  I put him down and off he went to say hello.  He spent the rest of the visit greeting everyone that would pay attention to him and playing with his brother.  He met adults, kids, light skinned people, dark skinned people.  It was a really great time.  Later that week we headed down south to visit our friends Jason and Andrea.  On the way we stopped at my work so some of the folks could meet him.  He was awesome and everyone loved him.  He’s so full of love!  Later at Jason and Andrea’s Ziggy ran up to them right away and made himself right at home with them and their pack.  On Saturday we went to the beach and he did fantastic.  He wasn’t a fan of the water or the waves but he loved all the people and dogs.  Jack and I were beaming!  Saturday evening several of J and Dre’s friends came over to the house and again he did fantastic.  He met a really big biker guy, a big teenage boy, a small girl.  At the beach he met folks in hats, sunglasses, old people, kids, a Cavalier, a lab, a pit mix, etc.  It was a really great day for him.  He also spent a lot of time in an ex-pen outside watching the big dogs play disc and I think he’s caught on to the fact that the roundish plastic thing has high value!

We started this week with another trip to the mall with new dog friends and again Ziggy did awesome.  I saw a lot of stress yawning the first 10 minutes or so but he still was happy to greet everyone and saw no deterioration of any focus or happiness.  And last night we went to a friend’s how for a play date with her two adult dogs and her 7 year old daughter.  That went very well too!

Socialization…

Some folks wondered why we left Ziggy with his breeder Terri for an extra month.  The main reason is that I was petrified I’d screw him up somehow and wanted him to have extra time in an environment I knew wouldn’t screw him up.  Groovy turned out to be a disaster of sorts and that was the last puppy I raised.  Spice on the other hand is awesome and we didn’t get her till 6 months old (from Terri).  So I have a lot of baggage left from Groovy and poor Ziggy has to deal with that. 

Groovy’s inability to effectively deal with the world around her has been blamed on me by several people one of those individuals being a well-known dog trainer/agility person.  And this despite the fact that she showed signs of unbalance from the first hour in my house – seriously – how I can I be solely to blame for that?  Some people told me I didn’t socialize her enough… some told me I took her too many places and overwhelmed her.  Thing is I had friends who had puppies at the same age and took Groovy to the same places they took their pups and yet their pups handled it well whereas Groovy found something to freak out about on pretty much every outing we went on.  In the end I’ve concluded that I did take Groovy too many places but that it didn’t really matter anyway cause I had I not taken her she would still be just as unable to deal with the pressure but she would trust me a bit more.  That is evident in the fact that she trusts Jack more than me when we are at a competition.  She’s still unable to function like a normal dog but he can help her keep her wits about her better than I can and I attribute that to the fact that she associates me with all the scary stuff she managed to find while on our puppy outings.  Interestingly enough her brother Hammer is very similar to her in this inability to handle the world around him but on the flip side she has a brother that is a certified live search and rescue dog.  Genetics are a funny thing aren’t they?

What does this have to do with Ziggy?  Well I spent the first week or two constantly comparing him to Groovy as a puppy and was constantly on the lookout for Groovy like issues.  Was this fair to Ziggy?  No… but I couldn’t help it.  TOO MUCH BAGGAGE!  Every time I took him somewhere new I’d have anxiety about how it could possibly go wrong.  I was about in tears when he barked at Sally cause I thought to myself “Here we go again!  It all begins now!”  Luckily I was wrong!  Terri had been using essential oils with the litter from the time they were born and had gotten me started on them.  From his first trip leaving Terri’s house he’s had Peace and Calm on his car crate bedding for every outing.  I can smell it to though so I think it might be more for me!  J  The good news is that with every successful outing my baggage is falling away and my anxiety level is decreasing.  This is really important because I’m sure Ziggy can sense it and despite that he has been doing stellar.  He is an awesome little pup!  I pray that his love of people continues.  While I know that being the Wal-Mart greeter is not in the breed standard for the aussie I really wouldn’t mind one that deviated from the standard in that way.  Mickie is the Wal-Mart greeter of the pack currently… the rest of the crew vary from indifferent to people (Jam and Spice) to downright freaked out by them (Groovy).  It’d be nice to have another Mickie but I’ll be super happy if we just end up with indifferent.  I suspect we’ll end up somewhere in between the two.

I know that as Ziggy goes through different types of fear periods over the next year my baggage will pile back up and then leave again but I am ready for it.  I will continue to take him lots of different places and keep adding to his bank of positive experiences as well as being there for him when he isn’t feeling so confident.  More than anything I want this little guy to trust me and love me!  So far so good and I plan to do my best to keep it that way!