Happy Hound has been super cool with this too. They haven't charged us any day fees for the last two visits. I think they've kinda taken a good approach. They know if he doesn't make it with us, he's probably going back to the foster home. Then who knows where after that. The foster home would be a great place for him, and they love him. Still they are doing good work there and Oz would be a drag on that. I feel like they are invested in Oz and that's a great thing. Happy Hound was great with Winston too. Winston never got to the point where he could socialize this much. He's was great with people but was really, really picky with dogs. It'll be a while before Oz will be ready for a dog park or anything like that, but this is encouraging.
On the downside, he totally went off twice on the drive over at dogs out for walks. One little fluffy dog, and one Pit mix. The Pit just looked bewildered. I could see, "Dude, what the hell did I do?" all over his face. Then there was the black & white border collie looking dog that he didn't even make a peep about. Dunno. My plan on this is to take him out in front on the porch next Sunday and correct him when other dogs come by. He will be tied off with the pinch collar and the harness as a back up. I have a long heavy rope lead I spliced. We used it with Britta & Winston when they were out front with me at the old place. That'll be the safety.
Radar, is getting really, really good at minding. Not so great with the jumping thing. That's OK as long as Oz doesn't play monkey see, monkey do. We'll keep working on it. Aaron & Hayley have been great taking Radar out to get him some socialization so he doesn't freak out at other dogs either. This is important because Radar is the spark plug the set's off the Oz explosion.
So, if we can get them both socialized better, then they both will benefit.
Yesterday I got all the gates done. The back yard is basically split about 2/3rds / 1/3rd. The 1/3rd is for gardening. The rest is for recreation & the dogs. There are three gates on that fence. Then I added two gates on the side of the house. We have a deck that is used to access the garage side door. The gates are at the bottom of the stairs from that deck to the walk to the back yard. One blocks the stairs, one blocks access to under the deck. This creates what will essentially be a dog run for Radar along the side of the house. So Oz get's the yard and Radar get's the side of the house when we are away for long periods.
I'm now designing dog houses. Once those are built, we should be at our first complete outdoor system for managing these two. Hopefully we don't end up with a barking problem next. We'll see. So far they bark, but not all the time. Just when they think there's something to bark at. Cross your fingers.
Oh, our old standby Tabasco is working to keep them out of the "skunk hole". There's a couple of holes under the fence that we think were used by the local skunk to travel through our yard. Oz and Radar were all over it. That was the first thing they ran to out the back door. Now they are greeted by the lovely aroma of hot pepper sauce. They don't run so fast over there now. I also think the skunk has decided to travel elsewhere.
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