Babies for the weekend

We had babies visiting for the weekend, not human ones, or canine ones, but cute little feline ones, and their mummy too.
A friends friend found them in her backyard and under her house, so my friend went and helped her catch them all.

Then they needed a place to stay for the weekend, before going to the SPCA. As I work for the SPCA, mine was as good place as any for them to stay, and it meant they could start their seven days stray time which they have to have, before they can be adopted out or desexed.

Mummy cat is beautiful, though very skinny - feeding four babies and she's pregnant again already, must take a toll on her. They munched through 500 grams of kitten food from Saturday to Monday afternoon!
Very hungry kitties, though mum was very industrious, and when they were found, they had a packet of bacon and a packet of sausages open that they were eating from! Mum must have stolen them from somewhere!

Here's the babies having a sleep together, they were all very shy to begin with

This little one was the most scared to begin with, by the end he would come upto me slowly, he'll be tame in no time :)

This wee one was also scaredy, but I could pick him up without my hands being torn to shreds!

My favourite. He (lets just say they are all he's... I didn't bother to check them) was scared on day one, and after half an hour of me sitting with his Mum and giving her cuddles, he decided I wasn't so bad after all, and was the first one waiting to be let out and have cuddles after that.
SO CUTE!!
and again

Their beautiful mumma. She is just the sweetest thing, so friendly and sweet. I'm sure she will find a new home in no time at all :)
Yes... I was very, very tempted to keep Mumma cat, but somehow managed to say no [this time]

Freaky Friday and a Recap of the Week that was

This morning, I went downstairs to let the dogs out of their bedroom [laundry] and couldn't find Snoopy! She wasn't in the laundry or the back yard!
I was panicking!
So I sprinted upstairs to get some shoes on so I could go out hunting for her... and there waiting for me in the lounge, was Snoopy!
Naughty girl... she must have somehow fit through the cat door in the middle of the night, and decided to spend the night in the lounge!
Hrmmm!!

On a better note....
Snoopy doesn't know how to fetch, she generally doesn't enjoy playing with dog toys (except for stuffies which she loves to destroy). Our guess is this is because of her upbringing, growing up in a pack and never seeing toys or being played with until she was 20mths old.

I recently discovered Dr Sophia Yin's website and found a blog entry about teaching dogs to fetch, so I decided to give it a try, tho slightly alter it (I don't have a fancy treat feeding machine like she does, and Snoopy didn't know how to pick up a ball!)
A week down the track, I can now roll the ball across the ground and Snoopy will go and get it, and bring it back to my hand! This is HUGE progress from a week ago. She literally wouldn't even put it in her mouth. Last night she was so excited that she had the hang of things.
I'll try to get a wee video sometime over the weekend.

And Snoopy and I had our first agility training for 2012 on Tuesday evening. We've been put in the Elementary A training group, which seems pretty well suited to the level we're at. Snoopy's more onto it than me, I often trip over jumps or Snoopy - need to learn to look where I'm going. Anyway, Tuesday evening, Snoopy was a superstar!
Other than not holding her starting 'waits', she did everything I asked. The waits can easily be worked on. She even did the first 2-on-2-off contact I ever asked of her.
We've got a new trainer for this group, and his methods slightly differ to those previously. That's okay, we'll get there - horses for courses and all that!

Rocky also had his second puppy class with NJ this week. I'm told he was a very good pup too, and the trainer commented on what a quick learner and onto-it pup he is :)

Though... NJ tells me Rocky SAT ON a staffy puppy who was being very naughty. Hmmm!
Rocky got what was coming to him on Wednesday at work with me.... One of my colleagues has a lovely Foxie x English Springer Spaniel by the name of Tilly. Tilly is used to silly young pups, and they get TOLD if they try to push Tilly around. Rocky was being silly, tried to dominate Tilly, Tilly told him off, lay him down, and sat on HIM til he behaved.
I do believe this did him the world of good, as he didn't try any monkey business after that.

All in all, a pretty good week I think!

A video for Thursday

Jerry and Rocky were chilling on the 'dog mat' in the middle of the lounge last night, just hanging out.
Then Jerry decided it was time to play. I was armed with my iPhone, and started filming:

They are so funny, and Jerry is oh SO tolerant of the dogs, particularly Rocky... Snoopy frequently gets swipes with claws out!

The many ears of Rocky...

When we adopted Rocky, his ears were like this:
We are assuming that they will eventually be fully upright, like they were for the whole day yesterday:
he looks hilarious!
Last night, it seems his ears got a bit tired, of a full day of being upright... HAHA:
He looked SO dopey!!
Except today, his ears are like this, with his right ear half folded over:
They really can't make up their mind what they want to do!

Troublesome Thursday

Well, it was actually Wednesday night!
Puppies can be troublesome... as I'm sure you all know. Rocky's latest addiction is taking all of Snoopy's bedding out of her bed and putting it around the back yard - maybe he thinks we need to do some new landscape design?

Last night, hubby & I went out for a dinner date, and left the dogs in the secure yard [with numerous toys] to entertain themselves.
We got home to find Snoopy happily waiting for us, along with her bedding all over the lawn... and no Rocky to be seen. Hmmm! We could hear him whining though..... So, I went into the laundry (where the dogs sleep), and Rocky was in there, on top of a shelf (which is about waist high)! He must have climbed on top of his crate which is next to the shelf, then onto the shelf -in the hope that he could reach the piles of clean dog bedding and towels, to take outside.
He was well and truly stuck, and couldn't figure out how to get down. He looked hilarious! Unfortunately I didn't get a photo - in hindsight, I should have! He was so pleased to see his rescuers, he was wagging his little body so much, that the whole shelf was wobbling.

Oh, the joys of puppies eh!
Here he is, enjoying some cuddles with HIS human, too cute!

First things first, introducing us!

Hello and welcome to our new blog!
We are a little family of [obviously] two dogs, one cat and two humans.
We live in Auckland, New Zealand, and enjoy taking our dogs out on lots of fun adventures! Some of you may remember us from our old blog, which unfortunately I had to delete... long story, I won't go into that!

Cat first:

Jerry is a nearly two year old small ginger boy, with a strangely short tail, and a very large personality - he's the boss, no questions asked. Jerry follows in some very big paw prints of our beautiful cat Velvet who tragically was hit by a car and killed in July 2011.
We adopted Jerry from the Auckland SPCA last year, after Velvet died. He settled in very quickly, and Snoopy soon welcomed him into our home. He often reminds Snoopy, that although she was there first, he is in fact, THE BOSS! (with a swipe on the nose).

Dogs:
Snoopy is a mid-sized female Fox Terrier x English Pointer, she will be four years old in June. She's full of character and loves nothing better than a quiet cuddle. We adopted Snoopy as a 20mth old, full of the joys of the joys of a teenage dog! Snoopy came from Waihi SPCA less than a month after our wedding, in October 2009.
Snoopy and I dabble in agility, we aren't very good - of course, this is due to human error! We have previously done a little bit of Pet Outreach Therapy too, but have put that on hold for a while, as Snoopy's decided it's not her thing lately.
Rocky is a mixed breed boy, whom we adopted three weeks ago from the Council dog pound at Manukau. Rocky will be five months old next week, he currently weighs 11.8kg. We were told when we adopted him, that he was a Kelpie x, but his breed is really anyone's guess - we will have to see how he grows and matures!
As far as puppies go, he is pretty well behaved, sleeps through the night, doesn't chew too much stuff that he's not supposed to, doesn't bark unless playing with Snoopy, has only had three toilet accidents in the house too!

Snoopy is enjoying having a little brother, she had lost a lot of confidence from playing with rough dogs in the past, but has recently come out of her shell, and now remembers how much fun it is to play and run, and just be a dog. She's loving having a new addition to her canine pack.

The two humans are Helen & Noel, we got married in October 2009, and in between house renovations and all that comes with owning your first house, we have been adding to our four legged pack and I think, it's finally complete :)

Thanks for stopping by to read our first blog post, I'll try to blog regularly and share our adventures. No doubt poor Jerry will be a bit left out of this blog world, but we'll try to have one Jerry day a week!