Roland and the Dogs

Roland has been home for a month and probably the biggest transformation has been his interaction with our dogs. From reading about other people's experiences, we knew that it probably would not go well. We were right. Roland was home with us for only one full day before we brought the dogs home from the kennel. Even though the three of us were getting along well, there probably was not a huge amount of trust yet. I sat on the couch with Roland while Matt brought in the dogs one at a time. Roland pretty much acted like we were planning to feed him to a pack of wolves. I do understand that our dogs are pretty intimidating to a 30- pound child who is not used to having animals inside the home. (Copper, our redbone coonhound, weighs 85 pounds and Yukon, our great pyrenees, is 120 pounds.) Roland just screamed his head off until we put the dogs in another room and then the screaming would start again whenever one of the dogs made eye contact with him. For the first couple of days we had to keep the dogs separate from Roland most of the time. He eventually became somewhat comfortable with looking at them from the other side of a baby gate.

Roland became comfortable around Yukon much quicker than with Copper. Yukon is larger, but he is much more quiet and gentle. Copper, a typical hound dog, likes to bark very loudly whenever he is excited. The soundtrack of our first week home together was barking mixed with equally loud screaming.

At first, Roland would only enjoy Yukon when he had the height advantage. Whenever he was on the floor with Yukon, he would start up with his screaming again. However, Yukon was always so gentle with him and his white fluffy fur is pretty irresistible, so Roland adjusted to him pretty quickly. After about a week, they became best buds and Roland spends a good part of his day rolling around on top of Yukon.

Roland's relationship with Copper has been trickier. All the barking in his face early on must have set a poor mood for their relationship. For most of the past month, Roland would try to set up Copper to get into trouble.Roland would tug on Copper too hard, Copper would give out a loud yelp, and then Roland would come running to us showing us his finger (pretending he had been bit) and pointing at Copper. He played out this charade many times, but to his disappointment, he was the one who got in trouble, not the dog. He would also give Copper a toy block, which Copper would proceed to chew up, and then Roland would come to us yelling, pointing at Copper. For those instances, they both got in trouble. Seriously, for the past month I felt like I was raising three little boys, two of which would bicker and tell on each other throughout the day.

The past several days there haven't been any big instances with Roland and Copper so I am hoping that phase is coming to a close. The house is definitely quieter and more relaxed as "the brothers" are becoming adjusted to each other.

Sunday Afternoon

I have been productive this Sunday afternoon doing some yummy, healthy baking. I made up some Granola and Molasses Raisin Bran Muffins.

I also pulled a few weeds out of our very first vegetable garden. I know it looks a little rough, but we are trying to keep this a simple and low- cost project. We are attempting to grow: tomatoes, zucchini, strawberries, jalapenos, chili peppers, and green and red bell peppers.  We'll see what we get.

 

My view while weeding the garden- not too shabby.

 

While I was slaving away over a hot oven and in a hot garden, this is what my dogs were doing all afternoon:

 

 

 

It doesn't seem quite fair.


I hope you all had a wonderful Father's Day.

Immigration Paperwork....Done!

I am happy to announce that I mailed out our immigration packet today. I think/ hope that is the last big stack of paperwork we have to do for the adoption. While filling out the forms was not fun, the idea of them was pretty exciting. This paperwork was the first we filled out that referred to us as the legal parents of our baby. It made the adoption feel very real. Our agency will send our paperwork to USCIS and it takes them about 5-6 weeks to approve it. Things are moving along.

An update on the exit permits: They say that they will start issuing them again by the end of May. We shall see.

 

 

Since I am lucky enough to live in Beautiful Idaho, I was able to take a lovely evening walk to clear my head from staring at forms all afternoon. I foresee spending many summer evenings on this ridgetop with our son.

Dog Walking Misadventure

 On our daily walk around the field behind my house, the dogs and I had some unwelcome excitement. A neighbor dog that always barks viciously at us behind a fence got loose today. As we walked by he immediately charged us. He attacked Yukon repeatedly by jumping up and trying to bite his back and neck. He was in complete, brutal, ferocious fight mode. All I could do was try to keep them separated as much as possible because I knew if Yukon had the chance to fight back, the other dog would just fight that much harder and maybe turn on Copper also. As he attacked Yukon, I screamed at him to go away (trying to sound authoritative, but probably sounding more panicky). Luckily, he was just tame enough to hesitate at the sound of my screams for a couple of seconds so I could pull the dogs away about a foot. Then he charged Yukon again and started biting his back and neck. This attack- scream- hesitate- pull cycle repeated itself several times before we were finally far enough away for him to lose interest. We made it home uninjured. For all of that dog's attack efforts, I think he was only getting mouthfuls of fur.

I don't understand why, but the dog focused his attacks solely on Yukon, the much bigger, furrier, stronger dog. I am so glad he did because he would have torn Copper to shreds, if I couldn't have separated them. Not only is Copper's hair much shorter, but he also has zero aggression to other dogs. If he couldn't run away or hide, I"m pretty sure he would let another dog tear him apart. Yukon, on the other hand, has a wonderful natural defense system (his very long fur, including an incredibly thick mane) and he has no issues with defending himself, his home, his family against other dogs or anything else.  I guess that is the difference between hound dogs and guard dogs- hound dogs are bred to be overall friendly with people and dogs while guard dogs always have an aggresive streak in them. We have experienced Yukon's bravery in other situations, but today I fully realized the benefits of his fur coat. As a house dog, we always complain about his shedding and dirty fur, but if he were living his life as a livestock guard dog, this protection would be invaluable. Matt and I had decided that our next dogs will be short- haired to make dog and house maintenance easier, but what happened today may have changed my mind a little.....at least until Yukon's next shedding season.

Yukon, Great Pyrenees

Copper, Redbone Coonhound