Skipper arrived in the Hive ...

about 4 years ago

Wow, how much has happened. It all went so fast from the hostile takeover by Justin Sun to the hard fork, establishing a new home for our community. And now we suddenly changed from Steemians to Hivers. I'm not even going to talk about whether it's good or bad what happened. Maybe it was just time for us all to be shaken up. Time to start something new that can become even better than Steemit. Time to REALLY stand for the community. Because even though Steemit has been my digital home for the past 2 years,

I hope I can feel even more at home in the Hive.

Then continue with what has happened to me lately. Skipper has been living with us since February 16, 2020. And wow, that is already more than 1 month. Time flies.

MORE THAN 1 MONTH WITH SKIPPER.

Lately it has been quite busy with the #dogs, and I got so caught up in it that I didn't have time to write a #blog, or even read blogs. And now it is finally quiet again among the dogs… Lana's heat is over. And after a week of separation they are all back together, and around me during the day. Finally time to write an update about Myla, Lana and Skipper.

In the relatively short time that Skipper lives here, we have had quite a few options. After barely a week, Lana decided to get into heat. After barely a week we discovered that Skipper appears to have a #allergy and the second week it was especially busy keeping the dogs apart.

The third week this turned out to be impossible and we had to keep the dogs apart against our will and Skipper had to live in the kitchen and Lana and Myla in the living room. After about 3 days Myla indicated that she preferred to stay in the kitchen with Skipper and so I only had one dog in the living room and two dogs in the kitchen… which meant that I had to split myself in two during the day. This is of course not possible so it was especially important for me to divide my time between the dogs.

Where I'm normally used to having all three of them around me in the living room, I now had to really divide my time between the living room and the kitchen to ensure that all dogs could get enough attention. This was not so easy if I write it down now because Lana was extremely affectionate in her period, but she also did not use her ears at all. Never again say that dogs do not suffer from #hormones, because they do.

Skipper learned that he is a man!

Skipper, who is urinating as a puppy at the age of 1, suddenly learned that he also had hormones. And suddenly discovered that he was a MAN, but also that he has a darn good nose that told him exactly that Lana was ready to be mated. So every time I had to go through the kitchen with Lana to walk her out, I had to do a big exchange trick for a few days. Keep the door open for Skipper to see Lana. Lana then in the living room and make sure Skipper walked into the living room to sniff Lana's ass. When that moment arrived, I had to quickly get Lana out of the living room before she would drop out at Skipper and I would have an even bigger problem, and if Lana was in the kitchen, I would quickly slam the door on Skipper's sick face. Phew… I get hot again when I think about it.

But with a lot of art and flying work, I managed to get through the day like this during the day without any gnawing and snarling in such a way ... and thank goodness without cover between Skipper and Lana. Because as much as I love and love them both, a litter of puppies was really something I was not hoping for at all. That is why the measures we have taken, as coverage had to be avoided absolutely.

All in all, these were difficult days and building trust between the dogs and building trust with Skipper was unfortunately very low. I thought that was the most unfortunate, but there was simply no other option.

Now a short update… how does Skipper do it?

Although I thought that there could not really be worked on #confidence lately, the opposite appears to be the case. And I also thought that I could not really have worked to give Skipper some rest in his beautiful head, but the opposite has also turned out to be the case.

Where Skipper immediately wanted to bite our hands to play, we have already been able to reverse that behavior by consistently giving him a #Kong in his mouth where he can bite to play. Which was also exciting because our little Myla has always suffered from #possession-aggression about toys. So if she caught the Kong, which of course she does… it would be exciting to see how Skipper would come to see what she was doing with the Kong. Fortunately, it is not so bad and Skipper, like Myla, proves to speak the dog language well and since Myla is very consistent, no significant incidents have happened so far.

However, with Lana it is a different story. Lana is a dog that is not very social at all, and she snaps at her much harder than necessary. Which sometimes leads to even Skipper who turns out to have a lot of patience to get angry. That is a point that makes it equally difficult. In addition, Lana is also inconsistent, making it unclear to Skipper what she wants now. One time she will contact herself, which of course we also encourage and reward her for, but 2 seconds later she can suddenly snarl and snarl him very hard… and that makes it very unclear for everyone.

She also suffers from possession-aggression now and she also seems to be uncertain under the new situation where she suffers from a kind of #jealousy. Lana immediately expresses this in being no longer toilet trained. During the many walks she does nothing, and then as soon as she gets in, and I leave for a little moment, she does what she needs. This is of course not desirable… but at the moment I don't know how to turn this around again very quickly. There I still have a challenge ... because leaving it for what it is is not possible.

NEW WEBSITE ...

I am also working on my own website on which I will also post blogs, including about the dogs, but I also want to keep track of what I do in the field of photography. And I want to offer #fotoshoots to people who know that their beloved dog will die soon. Making the last memories… and showing the unique bond people have with their pets. What a dog means for an owner, but also what an owner means for a dog.

This idea came to me after Rowan's death. Of course I have thousands of photos of him. And they are all precious to me. I still look at it every day, just to see his sweet snout. But the photos that I find most valuable now, there are only a handful at the most… and that turns out to be the photos where I stand with Rowan. Where you can clearly see the band we had together, those pictures say more than 1000 words. And those photos now give me the support I needed after he left. Those pictures give me the confidence that I can build such a bond with Skipper… because after all, when Rowan came into my life as a puppy, he was only a puppy like 1000 others. And yet he was the sweetest dog in the whole world to me, and I was his whole world. Those photos are so very dear to me now… and I want to do that for other people too. Because how often do you take a photo yourself where you stand up with your pet? I didn't do it often, too little afterwards… But the few pictures I have always show me that he was, and will remain, my ...