Noelle, our deaf pit bull terrier mix, came to stay with me while my husband Dave was gone for military duty. On the day he returned home, I took Noelle with me to an adoption event so Dave could pick her up from there.
Noelle patiently waited during the event, and although many people came up to say hello to her, she continued to lie there and ignore everyone.
"I want to go home."
She looked so sad that everyone felt sorry for her.
"I miss my dad."
Then, towards the end of the day, this happened:
And once again, all was right in Noelle's world.
Hi, I'm Ziggy! In case you had not heard, today is my BIRTHDAY! I am now three years old. You can tell I'm all grown up now because I was able to sit still for this picture without destuffing the Ziggy toy next to me. My foster mom was very proud of me and gave me lots of good treats for this.
Ziggy and Ziggy
Thanks Leanna!
Since my foster mom forgot my birthday the past two years, this was the first year I have had any help celebrating my birthday. It has been amazing! First, my friend Leanna and my foster mom gave me a surprise party on Saturday. They invited all my friends from All Paws Rescue, and when I walked into PetSmart, thinking it was just another regular adoption event, everyone in the store… I mean all my friends… I mean a few crazy All Paws people started singing Happy Birthday! Then Angie, one of my All Paws friends, gave me some chew bones to take home with me, and my friend Leanna showed up and she brought me my very own iced tea (since I drank her dad’s iced tea when I went for a visit) and my very own Monster bone.
I immediately went into my crate and waited for Leanna to give me my bone. I was SO excited!
I wonder how fast I can eat this?
I proceeded to enjoy my monster bone for the next 23 minutes and 54 seconds.
So good!
It was the best 23 minutes and 54 seconds of my life!
In addition to the fun party with singing and presents, I had another great surprise this week. Several Facebook friends shared me on their wall and asked people to come visit me, so by the end of the week I had over 100 new friends! This not only means my foster mom owes me another chew bone (I get a new bone every time I get another 100 friends!) but it also means there are a lot of new people out there reading about me and helping me to find my forever home!
Also for my birthday, my friend Shuma made a video of me! It shows a lot of the fun things I’ve done in my life, like eating bananas, and wearing silly hats, and doing agility. I had my foster mom put it on my web page right away so everyone could see how much fun it would be to adopt me! Thank you Shuma for this great present, and for giving me treats every time you see me!
Thank you very much to all of you for supporting me, a deaf homeless pit bull, and helping to make this birthday the best one EVER.
I haven’t talked much about Noelle recently. She is my deaf, mascara-wearing, elevator-riding, coffee-table-standing, contest-winning, rough-n-tumble dog. Over a year ago, I uploaded a video of her to YouTube that generated disparaging remarks about lazy owners who don’t train their dogs. I have worked diligently since then to train Noelle, and a few weeks ago I made another video of her in the same situation to see if she has shown any improvement.
I am pleased to report that she seems much improved – her intonation is clear, her phrasing (breath between notes) is not as awkward, and the intensity she brings to her performance is brilliant. In my possibly biased opinion, I feel that a dog with Noelle’s vocal talent is rare, and that her training has really paid off over the past year. Wouldn’t you agree?
I couldn't finish off Rescue Me Week without including Ziggy! Here are just two of 250 pets named Ziggy currently looking for their forever homes.
Ziggy #1 is a Boxer/Pit Bull Terrier mix at an all-breed rescue group in Virginia. He is two years old, and is house-trained and crate trained. Ziggy is very intelligent and social. He can be pushy with other dogs, and can be a bit too rough for young children. His listing says he's be a great agility dog. Ziggy knows basic obedience like sit, down, off and wait. He is said to be "a very smart boy and his new family needs to be pretty clever to stay a step ahead of him!".
Ziggy #2 is not all that different. He's at an all-breed rescue group in Missouri (currently being fostered by me!). He is also two years old, and is also house-trained and crate-trained. Like Ziggy #1, Ziggy #2 is also very intelligent and social. He can also be pushy with other dogs and needs a home without young children. He is a great agility dog - not the fastest dog out there, but he's not bad. He knows basic obedience just like Ziggy #1, and he is also "a very smart boy with a family who will need to stay a step ahead of him!" You can read more about Ziggy #2 on this blog or by visiting www.adoptziggy.com.
It's kind of amazing that over the past week, I could take five of my own foster pets and find five more adoptable pets out there that had so much in common with each one, AND shared the same name! Right now there are over 364,000 pets available for adoption on Petfinder.com. This doesn't even include the many other shelters and rescues who don't advertise their adoptable pets on Petfinder. This country still has a huge problem with unwanted pets. Thank you Mayzie for bringing together the blogging community to bring awareness to this problem.
I often try to keep this blog as a positive place - sharing the fun times, the funny things that happen, and the joy that I get from fostering. But there are times that rescue is heart-breaking. I know I can't save them all, but that doesn't make it any easier to walk away from those I can't save. I made this video to help others realize the need that is out there.
One of the main ways that dogs communicate with each other, as well as with humans, is through body language. It's a language that can impart many concepts and emotions, but if humans don't learn to understand it, we can often miss what a dog is trying to tell us. There are many books and websites that deal with the subject, so I won't bore you with details. But here is an example of dog body language that we think means one thing and it often means something else:
A dog rolls onto his side and lifts his rear leg as if asking for a belly rub. If this is a dog that knows you and/or loves belly rubs, that could be precisely what he's saying. But if it's a dog you don't know well or that you're meeting for the first time, what he may be actually saying is "I'm smaller than you and I don't mean any harm, please don't hurt me." Unfortunately we often respond to this message by walking straight up to the dog and rubbing their belly, when the polite thing to do is to look away, maybe bend down to make yourself smaller, and encourage the dog with high pitched happy talk that you mean him no harm. By looming over him and reaching out and touching him you're simply reinforcing to him that you're bigger and meaner than he is, thus scaring him further! If you wait to pet him until he gets up and comes to you, then you'll have one very happy dog, because you understood him and responded appropriately.
I took this short video of my foster dogs playing, and it's amazing to see all of the body language that they use to communicate:
What did you see? I saw some play bows (where a dog bends down on his front legs to communicate he wants to play), some "look aways" (a dog looks away to communicate he means no threat), and at one point, Roxy the brindle pit bull had her hackles raised (hair on the back of her neck stood up). That was a sign she was too excited and the other dogs sensed it and backed away so it didn't escalate into a fight. These signs happen so quickly that it's hard to catch in the act! But note that two of these three dogs are deaf. Do you think that made any difference in how they communicate?
I often have luck communicating to a dog that they need to do something (or stop doing something) by whether I look directly at them or look away, move toward them or away, and so on. I think fostering deaf dogs has helped me to communicate better with hearing dogs as well, because I have learned to rely more on body language which is the natural communication method of dogs. Do you use body language to communicate with your dogs?
By the way, sometimes deaf dogs also use verbal communication, such as growls or barks, to communicate even though they can't hear. This photo was taken during the above play session. I think Ziggy's bark certainly got Roxy's attention!
I know that most of you thought that only Ziggy could be capable of such a horrendousterrifying wide array of sounds, but in this case, he was not the culprit (I can hear his rehab people letting out a sigh of relief). The normal barks you hear at the beginning of the video - that was Ziggy. The screaming was from the other alien creature that lives here. You've seen her in her normal dog form like this:
And a very long time ago, I shared a picture of her in her true alien form:
Now you all know what she sounds like in her alien form. You may wonder what causes her to make these noises that I think were best described as a "kind of torture would make him protest like he is being pursued by the hounds of hell". The answer? Placing her in a crate when her people are RIGHT THERE outside of the crate and she can't get to them. This is absolute torture to her. As proved by this video (in case you didn't get enough of the whining/screaming/crying in the last video).
Yep, we like to torture our dogs around here on a regular basis by placing them in a crate just to take video of the sounds they make. It's just great entertainment!
Recently I took a short video to add to Ziggy's online adoption information. The previous video on his bio was Ziggy looking cute while eating treats. He looks cute because he closes his eyes each time he takes a treat, in order to fully enjoy the experience. That was a cute video, but it wasn't convincing anyone to adopt him. So I decided a new video was in order. One which demonstrates what a smart dog Ziggy is. One that shows off many of the tricks that he has learned.
What is amazing about Ziggy is not that he knows so many tricks in spite of being deaf. It's that he knows so many tricks in spite of the fact that I spend almost no time teaching him these. If I try to teach him something and he doesn't learn it within 30 seconds, I usually just give up, because I'm lazy. But fortunately Ziggy is smart enough to learn all these tricks in 30 seconds or less, so he makes me look good (if you ignore the part where he always tries to steal the food out of my hand). This also explains why Ziggy knows all these commands and several more, while my own dogs only know like three things each. Maybe this video will help Ziggy get adopted... but probably not.
Right after Ziggy finished destroying the box, Remi engaged him in a rousing game of Tug-O-War. I tell you this to explain why there is still cardboard all over the floor at the time these photos were taken. We won't discuss whether or not there is still cardboard on my floor today, okay?
Noelle also got in on the action.
I thought about editing these pictures and correcting Ziggy's glowing red eyes. Then I decided they were appropriate, and I was lazy so I left them.
Here Ziggy engages in the ever popular "head-twist" manuever in an attempt to confuse his opponent.
Please ignore the lamp with the missing lampshade in the background. Ziggy ate it.
In the end, I decided pictures couldn't do this justice, so I took this video. It's very long, but only by watching it will you truly understand what takes place at my house every night. Please take note of the following:
At 00:28, I talk to Ziggy. I know he can't hear me. I don't care.
At 00:40, Noelle decides to come in and be a bully to Remi. I love her anyway.
At 01:04, Ziggy takes refuge under the futon. He's a strange dog.
At 01:19, Ziggy does his best seal imitation. You don't want to miss that!
At 02:05, Ziggy runs across the glass-top end table. This is nothing out of the ordinary.
At 02:12 - 02:43, Ziggy takes a water break.
At 04:21, Ziggy begins pulling Noelle across the floor. She seems to have forgotten she has front legs.
At 04:27, Ziggy the deaf dog begins growling at Noelle the other deaf dog. I wonder if Ziggy realizes Noelle can't hear him.
At 05:52, Ziggy steals the rope from Noelle, which apparently I found very funny for some reason.
As a dog foster parent, I've taken care of hundreds of puppies. Well, that may be a slight exaggeration... okay fine, a huge exaggeration. But I do feel that I have enough experience with puppies to share with you the following insights.
1. All puppies are cute. And as a general rule, the cuter the puppy, the more trouble they are.
2. A puppy needs to drink and eat often. And what goes in, must come out, just as often. Be prepared to do a lot of cleaning up when you have a puppy.
3. The only thing cuter than one puppy is two puppies. However, refer to rule #1 and rule #2 above.
4. Even a typical "tough guy" can be brought to his knees by puppy love.
5. Puppies love to chew. No matter how cute they are, don't let them get away with chewing on things that you don't want to be destroyed. If you never really liked that pair of shoes though, just let them keep chewing while you take pictures.
6. Don't let them fool you. Puppies can be tough too.
7. Puppy teeth are some of the sharpest teeth in the world. They have been proven to be sharper than knives. Really. Okay not really.
8. When they are just six weeks old, most puppies haven't completely mastered running or walking. And this makes them fun to watch. But be warned - by seven weeks old, they may have mastered the art of escaping from their pen. So when you get home from work, you could find them wandering around the house, doing whatever they want (refer to rule #2 and rule #5 above).
Ziggy decided to pull a bag off of the table, and the bag happened to have bird food in it. Of course he then had to take a bite out of the bag, so when I picked it up a large amount spilled onto the kitchen floor. Ziggy was more than happy to help me out with the cleanup.
Don't worry mom, I've got this...
Uhh... Ziggy - you do know that is bird seed, right?
Huh? Oh okay...
I'll save a little bit for them.
These small black seeds are especially tasty.
Being a conscientious blogger, I allowed Ziggy to continue eating bird seed while I grabbed the camera to take a few pictures, and then a short video.
I found a balloon in the junk drawer, so I blew it up and grabbed the camera. We went outside and shot this video. The balloon only lasted three seconds, but for those three seconds, Remi was Very Happy.
This video is a guide to reading the body language of your dog, or other dogs that you meet along the way. It does a pretty good job of explaining what signs to look for to see if your dog is relaxed or anxious. If you're interested in learning more in-depth than this video, I recommend watching a DVD called The Language of Dogs by Sarah Kalnajs, or reading a book called Canine Body Langauge: A Photographic Guide by Brenda Aloff. They're both available at many libraries or bookstores and they offer a lot more details and examples than this short video.
