This was Jordan's second full day with us and we've shared a few new experiences including:

A bath to wash away the stinky shelter life. It wasn't the greatest job but it helped. She's still damp in this picture. Her nails are getting a bit long too, so I think I may buck the country dog thing and take her to the groomers for a proper bath and nail clip. I want her registered and vet checked before we go.

Yesterday, I introduced her to a frisbee and it's her new favourite thing. I had to wait until Grant was home today to get some shots of her with it. I like this action shot. There is a guy on youtube that does training videos for disk dog. I'm going to watch a few more of them. I wish the bugs weren't so bad! They are making an itchy mess of her poor bare belly and "I've-had-babies" teats. I think the coating of vaseline I put on before she goes on walks is helping a bit.

We also manage to introduce her to her crate successfully enough that she will actually choose to sleep in it. We have not yet closed the door to contain her. We've been using the spare room for nights, until I can trust her free in the house. The crate will still be needed once we start in dog sports.

Her house manners seem really good so far. Yesterday, she spent the day with the end of her leash on my belt, so I could give her corrections as soon as she stepped out of bounds. Such things like too much interest in the cats or the garbage can. I tested her this morning after our walk without the leash in the house and so far she has passed muster. We have also had her off leash in our fenced (well mostly since our east fence is in very bad shape) yard under supervision. I still tie her when I have to duck into the chicken coop. The black flies and mosquitoes are so bad right now that we only go out to check on the chickens, play frisbee, or go for walks.

Here is a close-up of her crazy eyes. I can't understand why this dog was left tied in front of the SPCA.

Welcome Home, Jordan.

Well, we've finally done it. After years of thinking about it, discussing it and planning how we'll handle it, we finally took the plunge.

We got a dog.

Now, to most people this isn't that big of a deal. But to the Totten/Taylor household, it's a very big deal. Mostly because we're very committed to being good dog owners. We studied our Dog Whisperer, we read dog books, we did pretty much everything we could to prepare ourselves.

Today we drove down to the Kingston Humane Society and visited with "Muppet". We took her for a walk and talked with the staff, who just loved her. We discussed it and decided to go ahead and bring her home. We weren't really planning on taking her home on the first visit -- we figured we'd visit her, then go home and discuss it, then most likely pick her up on the weekend. But we decided we'd go ahead and take her home, since we were sure we wanted her.

We've decided to call her Jordan. She's named after Jordan Mountain in New Brunswick, where Laura's father grew up. As a child, her father had old type collie farm dogs, and when Laura first saw the picture, she thought of them. So that's why she's called Jordan.

Here are some pictures of her. We'll take some better ones tomorrow so you can see her crazy half blue half brown eyes. She's a bit thin and still has mommy tummy from having had a litter of pups before she was abandoned at the shelter. If she needs a little fattening she come to the right household. :P



Welcome home, Jordan.

Cheers,
Grant and Laura