Hey Hanna,
It's been a long time since I've been in touch with you and I thought you might like to know how Fred is getting on. (Now that summer's over and I have a second to breathe!)
Fred and his beagle sister Hannah get along wonderfully. She's much more chill and laid back then he is but when he gets too rowdy for her she certainly knows how to put him in his place! They're champion nappers, haha. They both do wonderfully at being shop dogs. Fred has never gotten the hang of not taking off after other dogs when they walk by so he has to stay tied, but he is well behaved otherwise. I even got him to the point that when people (especially kids) walk up to him at the shop he sits automatically! He's really good around Dana's granddaughter (who's almost 2, gah, the terrible twos are definitely in full force). I've worked with him A LOT to curb his dominant aggressiveness. Occasionally he has little set backs, mostly when he's tired and on the bed, but I just have to tell him firmly to get off the bed and he'll do it right away. He's really pretty wonderful.
We walk everywhere and he's almost perfect on the leash. He still has problems sometimes with skateboards or other dogs but he's much easier to get under control and calms quickly.
A couple of weeks ago I had to go away overnight at kind of a last minute and got the pups a spot in a boarding kennel near my house. Unfortunately Fred didn't fare that well and wouldn't eat either dinner or breakfast. I've got an appointment for tomorrow with the Happy Tails doggy day care and boarding to see if they pass the interview. I'm hoping that if it's a place where he can play and gets used to the facility that he'll have less emotional problems when we go away. He'll be doing daycare there tomorrow and Friday and our first test overnight is Saturday (gulp!). If that all goes well then I won't have to worry so much when we go away on our planned vacations this winter.
Anyway, now that I have you all caught up! Let me know if you ever want to get together to have a doggy play date sometime. We can meet up at one of the dog parks in Portland. (He's not perfect, but has gotten much better in the car!) Hope everything is going wonderful with you and your little peanuts. I've attached a couple of pictures of the pups.
Hope to hear from you, *****
Here's a bunch of pictures on Fred with his new family:
