It’s been five days since Stevie was spayed, and she’s ready to party. Unfortunately, the Doc said she’s not allowed yet.
So this is where she’d like to be:
And this is where she is:
She’s only restricted for another few days, but I promised her I’d ask: any tips on how to keep our poor Stevie Wonder busy and tired, without letting her run and frolick and play?
We hope you don’t mind this break from your regularly scheduled Stevie Wonder programming — we wanted to dedicate one post to yesterday’s Neighborhood Pit Bull Day in Baltimore, where I had the great pleasure of photographing more than 100 pit bulls and their owners. I also got to meet two of our long-time blog readers, which was especially thrilling.
The event was put on by Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and BARCS, and had a great showing — more than 130 dogs were registered at the event. Dogs and owners came for the dog-related info — including “ask the trainer” and “ask the vet” booths and a Best Friends info booth, and for goodies — including free dog food, snacks, and squeaky toys. But even though many people came for the booty, I think the most valuable part of the event was the health and safety-related features that people got to explore just by being there. A vet booth was on site to microchip dogs and hand out vouchers for free vaccines and free spay/neuters, and people could trade old or low-quality gear in for new, properly-fitted collars, harnesses, and leashes. I loved seeing all the dogs trotting around the park in their new collars, snacking on ice cubes and organic doggie treats, and hearing the owners talking excitedly about going to get their dog vaccinated or neutered, or finally getting to talk to a trainer about how to deal with a particular issue.
For me, the photo booth was especially fun, of course. I got to meet more than 100 dogs and their families. It was so beautiful, seeing how people of all stripes love their dogs and how proud they were to have their photo taken together as a family. Baltimore is an amazingly diverse city of incredibly warm people, and I felt lucky to get to interact with so many of them — and their gorgeous animals — at the event.
To close, a collection of portraits from our booth.
Hey guys, it’s me! Stevie Wonder!
I’m still pretty drowsy and icky from my spay surgery yesterday, but I promised I would tell you about my swimming on the vacation I took my foster parents on over July 4 weekend, so here I am! If you missed the first part of our adventure, you can read about it here.
So. The swimming. Mom and dad weren’t so sure that I would be a good swimmer and I know I can get a little scared in new places, so they thought it would be best if I had a swimming jacket to keep me nice and cozy and safe. I think they were worried about me trying to jump out of the boat when it started to go vroom vroom and drive fast as the wind, but I just wanted to lay on the bottom wrapped around mom’s legs. That’s the safest place to be, after all. Anyhow, I love my swimming jacket! I can swim without it too, but I’m so skinny that sometimes my back half kind of sinks, and it makes it a lot harder. So I just kept it on!
First I started out by just deathing some sticks on shore. They seemed very threatening and I wanted to keep my mom and dad safe, since they are so nice and they don’t seem to understand the danger of sticks. Here’s a picture of me deathing one. Death to stick!!
But then my dad — he’s so silly — picked up another dangerous stick! I was so worried that he was going to get bitten by it, so I knew that I had to death that one too. Here I am trying to death the one that he was holding, silly dad:
So THEN, things got even crazier. Dad took the rogue stick, and threw it straight into the water! I couldn’t believe it! So what was a girl to do? I had to go get the stick and death it once and for all, so that it couldn’t hurt me or my people. And so without any hesitation, like the brave hero that I am, I bounded into the water after the stick, like this:
Well it sure was risky going out into that water after the stick, but it payed off. Turns out the stick didn’t want to hurt us after all, it just wanted to play! And it also turns out that I am a most bodacious swimmer! Here’s a video of me swimming:
After I took a little catnap I got to swim again, only this time, a tennis ball was playing with me. I gotta tell you, that tennis ball sure can fly, but once it gets into the water it is SO lazy. I caught it every time. It’s almost like it didn’t even try to get away!
And after all that swimming and swimming and swimming, I was dog-gone pooped!
So now you know the whole story!
Poor Stevie Wonder endured a major rite of passage yesterday, and became an unreproductive citizen of dog society. She went under the knife at our wonderful new vet’s office for her spay surgery. As of today, Stevie is no longer a part of the cycle of pet overpopulation. Dr. Vergheese said that she had a “very large uterus,” which we didn’t quite know what to make of at first. Do you say “thank you”? Or is another response more appropriate?
Upon talking with him more, we learned that she had had at least one litter of puppies, probably when she was very young. We will never know what happened to our little Stevie-girl’s babies, but we do know that from now on, she is no longer a contributor. She is too woeful to be proud of herself and will never really understand that anything even changed. But we can be proud. And we are. We wrote last fall about why spay/neuter is a no-brainer, so we will spare you the details today, but if you are curious about our thoughts, click here.
Fosterdad brought Stevie-girl home from the vet with the gentle, nurturing touch that makes me fall in love with him again every time I witness it. I came home and found them cuddled up on the bed in Stevie’s room, Ben serenading Stevie on the guitar. He sang her favorite Slaid Cleaves songs, and I could tell that she was content.
Hey guys, it’s me! Stevie Wonder!
I just had the best weekend with my foster people!
Since they’re so nice and all and they feed me good food and take me for walks and let me chew on their nylabones and throw the ball for me as much as I want, I thought I should give them a real treat for the long weekend. So I took them on a weekend getaway to Smith Mountain Lake, near Blacksburg, VA! I knew they would love it because they like swimming and taking naps and drinking beer, and I know that lakes are good places to do all those things.
You may be wondering: what did we do out there at Smith Mountain Lake all weekend? Well, many of you smarty-pantses already guessed that I got myself all tuckered out by swimming. Which is true. I sure did swim and swim and swim.
But you know what else? I did lots of other stuff too.
I had many epic battles with sticks, in which I deathed them all:
I also did plenty of maxin’ and relaxin’ on the dock:
I got to go fishing– well, sort of. Friends, settle an argument for my mom and dad: does it count as fishing if I catch the fish in the water and bring it ashore, but the fish was already dead when I caught it? Cause I did that. And then I rolled in it!
I got to spend some quality time with the babes:
And the dudes:
I partied pretty hard one day on the boat:
And I even had some time to practice my breakdancing moves:
So you see? I had plenty of reasons to be tuckered out after my vacation, not just the swimming. But I bet you still want to hear about my swimming anyway, right? Don’t worry, I will make mom type to you about it later this week!
Wait, WHAT? You still haven’t “liked” us on facebook? Well how are you gonna get timely updates on how my spay went today, along with lots of extra cute photos and other fun stuff? Hop on over there, buddy!
What did Stevie Wonder do this weekend that made her this tired?
Send your best guesses, and we’ll reveal her midsummer adventures tomorrow!
Hi Buddies,
I thought I’d ask everybuddy for some advice, because I’m kinda having a confusingness. See, I reallyreally love my foster dad, and I reallyreallyreally love my foster mom. The problem is, when it’s time to go outside for a walk, I only want to go if foster mom is going too. If it’s just me and dad? ¡No way, Jose! It’s weird, because I love to play with my foster dad and snuggle with him (just look at the photos of him and me goofing off like two peas in a pod, below), but I just don’t want to leave the house with mom left in there all alone (with her Chick). Even if the four of us go together, I get kinda whimpery and baby-like if dad holds my leash and mom isn’t close enough for me to get a quick nuzzle on her leg when I want one. Anybuddy know what to do?
Oh yeah, one more thing. I also love my dog walker, but the last few days I just haven’t wanted to go for a walk with her. I went walking with her for the first couple of weeks with no problems (though I never did go potty cause I was too nervous), but just this week I decided that I’m not leaving the house with her. Today the feeling overcame me so strongly that I didn’t even want to get out of the crate! If she sits on the human bed (that fun colorful one that is in the pictures), I will hop up and talk to her with my tongue and waggle my tail at her, but if it looks like it’s time to go outside, I just jump right back in my crate. Mom says I’m being silly because our dog walker is a super nice lady (I agree) and she is great with dogs (I agree with that, too), but I just can’t help myself.
Any ideas?
XOXO, Stevie Wonder
PS- I want to wish everyone a happy long weekend. I’m going to be trying my hand at swimming! I even got a new life jacket to make it extra safe-like!
Don’t forget to check out our facebook page for even more foster fun: https://www.facebook.com/loveandaleash
Whew! We thought we had a tongue-slinger on our hands last week when we posted these, but Stevie Wonder has taught us what the combination of summertime and happiness really looks like.
Just look at that tongue. Do you think we can get her a high-paying job using that thing? Perhaps washing dishes? Cleaning ears?
One thing we love about our Stevie Wonder is what a good indoor/outdoor personality she has. Whichever the setting, it’s like she instantly adapts and brings her A-game. Indoors, her A-game involves lots of cuddling, playing quietly with toys, and following us around to observe our household activities. She has even taken to a favorite (camoflauge!) chair, where she goes to lay down after she has visited each of the dog beds scattered throughout the house:
But outside? Outside she is no couch potato. She walks nicely and calmly on leash, but when it’s time to go play in the yard, our Stevie-girl is like a little torpedo. She bolts across the deck and down the stairs in excited anticipation, and immediately starts hunting for the nearest fetchable– whether it be a stick or a ball. She picks it up so quickly that sometimes she has to go potty with it in her mouth before triumphantly prancing around the yard for a minute and bouncing back over to drop it at our feet.
Of course we know the difference between indoor and outdoor behavior, but how are some dogs — like Stevie Wonder — so darn smart?
In our little dog fostering world, there are very few steadfast rules. When we picked up our first foster (Lollie Wonderdog), we kind of made it up as we went along, trusting our intuition to help us be good foster parents. We haven’t read much instruction or philosophy on good dog foster parenting so we can’t say for certain that our approach is the best one, but it feels right to us: first, teach the dog how to just be.
When a new dog enters our home, the only thing we can be sure of is that its most recent experiences have been new, stressful, and probably a little bewildering. These animals have been removed from any stability they once knew and have no idea, when they enter our home, that it will be a good, friendly, safe, comfortable place. So our first task is to help them learn how to just be. And we take this simple little primary mission very seriously.
Just be. It’s hard to explain what we mean by that. But there is definitely a bit of magic that goes on during the first few weeks of a dog’s time with us. In truth, there isn’t a process. And yet, those magical first few weeks set the tone for the rest of our time together. Somehow, it’s the time in which our foster dogs learn how to be house pets.
We spend no time on tricks and very little time on basic commands, but we do help them learn how to function in a household. By being around us in a low-pressure environment, they first learn how to relax. Period. Then, they learn how to not panic if one of us leaves the room. They learn how to eat in our presence and without our presence. They slowly begin to learn which furniture is dog-friendly and which furniture is not. We help them understand what a toy is and isn’t. They learn to get excited at meal times and when a person grabs a leash off its hook. They learn that barking or mouthing gets you no attention, but a nice, calm presence often does. They learn how to appreciate a good round of chase in the yard or a nice snuggle on the couch. They learn that begging for food is futile.
They learn how to politely initiate a game with a person. Just this weekend, Stevie learned how to properly return a ball to us to play fetch. This involved no formal training and no commands, but a consistent pattern of reinforcing the good behavior (dropping the ball at our feet) and ignoring the bad behavior (teasing us with the ball, running a few steps away when we look at her). That’s the beauty of this important, formative time. None of it involves commands or training. Just simple, no-pressure, consistency. Lots of patience, lots of rewards, and lots of love.
Of course. No dog is perfect, and most dogs have had a hard time with some element of our basic concept of how a good house dog behaves. Still, after a few weeks (and the length of time varies from dog to dog), we usually feel pretty good about a dog’s ability to just be, and we sometimes move on to obedience and commands. But truth be told, we didn’t teach Gonzo a single trick or new command during the entire 3 months he was with us. We knew there would be time for that later. But we did help him better understand how to be a good dog. After his time with us he knew not to get up on the furniture unless invited, he knew where to lay down to wait for his dinner, he knew not to steal shoes and run around the house, and he knew that climbing up on a person for a movie was likely to gain him a nice snuggle and some ear rubs.
And here’s the deal: I would be willing to bet that few dogs get returned by their adopters because they don’t know how to shake or roll over, but that many do because they don’t know how to interact with humans and behave acceptably in a house.
And avoiding that tragedy is the business we’re in.
Love and a Six-Foot Leash 
