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Tango the rescue dog - *Spaying Question*

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I hink tango looks lovely! Well done you for taking on a rescue dog and for giving the whole dog + baby thing so much thought. Tango looks a little like a dog I once had who was a cross between a collie and a border terrier. I loved her to bits and she was just so intellegent and so good that once when I inadvertently shut her alone in a room with a plate that had the Sunday roast on it, on a low shelf, not a bit of it had been touched :angel:

 

About the baby thing, I have not had children but have had lots of chance to observe friends sarting out with dogs and then having babies. What I would say is try to get your dog used to changing routine from time to time because from what I have seen, once the baby comes along, all regular routine goes out of the window and the dog(s) are left wondering what is happening. :anxious:

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Aww Tango looks lovely, how exciting :dance: Wish id seen your post earlier cos we had two children 5 & 7 when we got our first rescue dog. They were both at school, which gave me time to train the dog, and i started work part time. Perfect! No, because only a few months later i fell pregnant with our 3rd child, huge shock! :lol: but worked out fantastically. 3rd baby, Megan, wasnt our child at all, she was definately the dogs pup! :lol: Bess our dog, looked upon megan as hers and would follow her around and 'look after' as if she was hers.

 

Also, like Cheeky Chook says, not all routine is good routine, i dont want my dog jumping up at certain times ie for walks or food, so i do try not to stick too much to a routine because i think its more upsetting to them when a routine is changed, than having no routine at all.

That way, you can go out when you want and not when the dog wants, which will be invaluable with a baby in tow!

 

But in the meantime, enjoy your new doggie :dance: and i look forward to seeing lots of pictures :dance:

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Right folks, the pictures are here!

 

Here is Tango enjoying a walk at Rutland Water...

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...and fast asleep afterwards.

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The rescue had guessed her age at somewhere between 1-4 years old, but we're fairly sure she can't be more than 1 year - 18 months, she is showing a lot of puppy like behaviour. She is VERY interested in the chickens, at the moment she is having to go in the garden on a lead but is now getting very good about coming away from the run when called. Unfortunately if the chickens get a bit close or flap then that's just tooooo exciting... but we'll get there (she says hopefully!).

 

Tango absolutely loves her walks, she is full of energy so it will be great when we can let her off the lead for a good race around. We're doing lots of recall practice on a flexi-lead at the moment, and she's not doing too badly but if there's another dog/sheep/horse/rabbit/person/bird/moving leaf in sight then, at the moment, we've got no chance. We're going to book her in for some training classes as well, so that should help too.

 

The only small problem (well not really a problem) is that we've found she is not fully housetrained. Interestingly, she is totally clean overnight, but we have had a couple of accidents in the day every day. I'm trying to be very vigilant about taking her out regularly and she is getting lots of praise and a treat when she goes outside. I'm sure it won't be very long at all before she is clean in the house though. However, does anyone have any tips for encouraging her to 'go' while she is out on a walk? Sometimes she will go for a wee/poo out on a walk (and be rewarded), but just as often she won't and then I'll have to take her straight in the garden when we get back, or if I'm not quite quick enough there might be an accident. I'm not sure if she's just so distracted by all the interesting things on her walk that she doesn't think about needing to make herself comfortable?

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She is absolutely gorgeous!! :angel: and looks very content in her bed, it is a lovely thing you have done giving her a nice home. I have got two rescued Labs and it is the best thing I have ever done, they reward you with unconditional love and looking at their happy faces makes my day. I wouldnt worry too much about the housetraining, It sounds like you are doing the right things and she will get the message in the end. With ours we just acted like they were the most clever dog in the world when they wee or pooed outside or on a walk, also watch them like a hawk when indoors and any sign that they want to go take them straight outside and again lots of praise and cuddles if she goes. Meggie my youngest lab will now wee on comand with this approach all I have to say is 'go for a wee wees' (I am sad I know) and she will go. If you associate a word or phrase with the action you want them to do, they eventually get the message.

Just to warn you there is usually a two week honeymoon period where the dog does everything to please you and then they start to feel more at home and confident and you can have a short period of them being naughty and testing what you will let them get away with. Be firm in a kind way and it soon passes.

Lots of luck to you :D

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Congratulations, she's gorgeous :D . She looks quite like Riley - same lovely perky ears :D .

 

Hopefully, the accidents will lessen as she gets used to her new routine. We didn't have a problem with that when we rescued Riley but he didn't cock his leg and squatted like a girl after being in kennels 6 months (no territory to mark, I suppose :( ) but he soon got the hang of it again!

 

Love the long shadows photo :lol: .

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Tango is a real cutie, I love the name too. I'm sure she'll get the hang of toiler-going soon. My JRT wouldn't do her business in the garden when we first moved house, I had to take her for a walk a few times each day just so she'd go! But now she's out the garden, doing just fine. Well done on getting a rescue dog. We had one called Misty, a staff x who lived to a good old age.

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Thanks for the pictures. Tango is absolutely beautiful!! Just like a little fox, brush and all. You clearly have some lovely walking country too, but I guess that is par for the course in beautiful Rutland :mrgreen:

 

As everyone else has said it sounds as if you are doing all the right things with the toilet training. I too use a word for it and my dogs now know what 'do your wees' means and duely oblige :D

 

One thing, the clearing up is all important i.e. not leaving a scent behind if she has weed in the house. This is harder than you would think, but given the sensitivity of a dog's nose, just an ordinary scrub is not enough. You need to use something that really takes the scent away so at the very least use a bio detergent e.g. Ariel but better and no more expensive is a pink (rather nice smelling) liquid that you can get from shops that loan out carpet cleaning equipment. This is ace. You can also get a spray from your vet to put on any spots on the carpet but this is more expensive.

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One thing, the clearing up is all important i.e. not leaving a scent behind if she has weed in the house. This is harder than you would think, but given the sensitivity of a dog's nose, just an ordinary scrub is not enough. You need to use something that really takes the scent away so at the very least use a bio detergent e.g. Ariel but better and no more expensive is a pink (rather nice smelling) liquid that you can get from shops that loan out carpet cleaning equipment. This is ace. You can also get a spray from your vet to put on any spots on the carpet but this is more expensive.

 

Ah, okay this makes a lot of sense! She's not really having many accidents in the house now (only one today and I'm determined it's going to be the only one!) but when she does she sneaks back to the same spot. We thought it was because it was in a slightly tucked away spot in the house, but I guess it now smells attractive to her. We said when we got her house trained we'd hire a carpet cleaner and do all the carpet to remove any smells, but a solution to clean up in the meantime would be a really good idea and might speed things up a bit too. I'll try and track some down.

 

Thanks for the pictures. Tango is absolutely beautiful!! Just like a little fox, brush and all.

 

She really is very fox like! If she had a bushy tail I'd actually be quite concerned that we hadn't rehomed a dog at all :lol:

 

You clearly have some lovely walking country too, but I guess that is par for the course in beautiful Rutland

 

We have some incredibly beautiful walks round here, sadly most of them you need to hop in a car to get to :( For all the wonderful countryside we have here, access to it is actually pretty shocking. Luckily we have a good half dozen 'car walks' only 5 mins drive away, so not too far. Some of them I could walk to with Tango, but by the time I'd walked there and back again, I'd have no energy left to go very far :lol:

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Aww isnt she just adorable, gorgeous looking dog, love the photos, the shadow one is brilliant! :D

I bet she cant believe her luck :lol:

Bless her, shes settling in isnt she, making the house her home. With mine, i was told whenever and everytime you see her looking like she wants to go, inside or out, you know the sort of thing, the sniffing the ground, walking in circles, start saying your command then, 'go wee wee' 'go wee wee' (thats what we use :oops::lol: ) but dont praise her while she is weeing, or she may not empty herself completly, the second she has finished, timing is everything! praise her like crazy like she is the best dog in the whole world! and give a small treat. Hopefully, she will soon get the idea :D

We also used a spray from pets at home to clean up any accidents called 'wash and GET OFF' it neutralises odour so stops repeat offending.

:D

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Another house training tip that someone once gave me for my rescue greyhounds was that, as dogs are basically clean animals and don't wee where they eat, if a particular spot becomes a favourite area for peeing, feed her once or twice right there, putting her dog dinner dish on the spot. That way she comes to think '"this is where I sometimes eat and so not a peeing spot".

 

I can't remember how long you said Tango had been in kennels, but the trouble is that if a dog has been in kennels a while they start to think of any space outside their immediate bed area as a weeing area even if they were once house trained.

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Well, we're just over a week into our new life as dog owners. House training is going well and we've now had two accident free days :dance: I've been given a bit of advice that we need to keep going with the house training for a good couple of weeks yet, as although she now seems to be clean in the house she may well be used to being taken out rather than asking to go out for a wee, so we're still giving lots of praise and a treat when she goes in the garden.

 

Tango has had lots of new experiences this week, she has met my Mum and Dad's elderly terrier X and my brother and SIL's bichon x cavalier CK (looks like a loo roll :lol: ) and tried unsucessfully to get them to join her in a game. We had a family picnic yesterday afternoon, so all the dogs went, and as we were picnicking in a secure field Tango was able to have her first run off the lead. Wow, what a brilliant time she had! Lots of running round (we're now convinced she has some whippet or similar in her, watching her speed and gait), sniffing and stealing picnic food when backs were turned :shameonu: We practised lots of recall too and she was really good, just the occasional moment of selective deafness when she found a particularly delicious smell :lol:

 

She went to the vet on Friday to have her microchip done and a health check. She passed with flying colours and we have now learnt she's a bit younger than we thought - the vet thought 1 year old max. Beautiful clean teeth, ears and eyes etc. Then yesterday afternoon we met with the dog trainer as we will be starting training classes in October. She showed off her sit, paw, and down beautifully (we have been teaching her this in the garden to try and distract her from the chickens). The trainer said she will be easily trained as she is very biddable and reasonably food-oriented. He thought her weakness is likely to be recall, as this is a typical terrier trait, but with time and patience this shouldn't be a problem.

 

So all in all, a great first week!

 

So now another question has cropped up. Following her check up at the vet, we're 99% certain she hasn't been spayed, we have no history on her as she was picked up as a stray so we can't check if any previous owners have had this done, but the vet couldn't find a scar and of course she is still young. However we are going to have to wait for her to have a season as the vet won't spay her just in case she has been done. So... only having had experience of keeping boys before, what do we need to do when she comes into season? We know she'll need to be kept on a lead when she's out and about and there will be some bleeding, but how much should we expect? Is there any way of minimising the mess? Will we need to walk her away from other dogs even if she's on the lead? Lots of questions, but obviously we want to do the right thing for her and - most importantly - we don't want any puppies!

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Awwww, how lovely to hear all about her first week and such a busy and succesful week too :clap:

She sounds just wonderful :D

When shes in season there wont be much mess, you'll just notice the odd drop of blood about the house thats all.

No need to walk her away from other dogs as such, i never did anything different with my old dog and she never got caught out :wink:

Would love to see some more piccies of her though :D I bet you have a million by now :lol:

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What a lovely update :D She is clearly so loved. I do wonder if she has some collie in her as my dog, who looked very like yours, did and of course they are bright as bright.

 

Regarding your questions about her heat . . . I've not found the mess much either. You just need to keep your eyes sharp in order to spot the odd drop in time to clean up while it is wet, as obviously blood stains. It might be an idea to get her used to an old dog blanket, using it in her bed so that when she is on heat she can sit on that beside you in the sitting room etc.

 

Don't let her off the lead, especially in the second week when she will be quite flirtatious. :whistle: I did find that my little girly attracted all sorts of rogue males regardless of size and we had a small JR coming to visit (and pee on) our front door and a Great Dane . . . who nearly reached the door handle :shock: The girly I refer to was a greyhound. I also had a very pretty dainty little blond, long haired, lurcher boy who once took a huge shine to a female basset hound :roll:

 

In the first week she may seem a bit down in the whisker :(

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More pics are here!

 

Posing

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Poor Mr. Duck being killed for the 100th time

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And again

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Tugging games are great fun!

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Need a rest now after all that playing

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And... the dog that looks like a loo roll (he's had a haircut since this photo, so looks much more loo roll-y now than in the pic!)

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Thanks also for all the lovely comments and the help and advice given, it's been really appreciated. We're so enjoying our new furry companion and I'm sure there will be lots more stories to share in the future.

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She's lovely the photos are great. We recently had our first season with our rescue pup I kept wondering when she was going to come into season and eventually she she at about 16 months but you can't miss it everything swells up and its quite obvious although she didn't bleed a huge amount it did last for a couple of weeks. She was most depressed for the first week kept looking round at her back end and nipples as if to say what's going on and she also went off her food which is not like her! I'm leaving it 3 months for everything to go back to normal before having her spayed. I was careful where I walked her as there are entire males and some temperamental dogs local to me so when I did walk her I took her in the car to some fields where I could see who's coming and avoid any trouble although she didn't really want to go I think she is a big softie or was just hormonal like the rest of us girls in our house! :lol:

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Tango loves the duck toy, but I don't think it's going to last long. She's only had it 48 hours and already I have had to perform brain surgery and stitch up another couple of major lacerations :lol: Maybe the manufacturers need to make a reinforced version for terriers?!

 

Oh Tango is the prettiest girl in the world. I love those ears

 

Thank you! She really is so pretty, she might just be a mongrel, but she's a stunning mix :D So far guesses have ranged from terrier to whippet to collie, I think there is a bit of all of those in there somewhere, meaning I possibly have a dog that can chase at high speed, round up and then kill. Just need some retriever in there and I think I'd have the ultimate working dog :lol:

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She is just gorgeous... and she looks so happy with that duck!!

We spend a lot of time fixing Charlie's toys too, or buying new ones as they get damaged quickly... I do wish dogs' toys were slightly more resistant to dogs' rough play...

Good luck Ducky! :P

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Good luck Ducky! :P

 

He had to have his leg reattached this morning :lol:

 

Tango also caught a pigeon on her morning walk today... a real one :shock: One minute she was sniffing in the hedge, next minute she emerged with a pigeon in her mouth! I was only 30 seconds out of my front door at this point, so how embarrassed was I walking up the street with a dog with a pigeon in her mouth. Thankfully she got bored with it and dropped it fairly soon (she wasn't going to give it up for me) otherwise she could have been carrying it round with us for 45 minutes!

 

On another matter, does anyone have any tips for improving her recall? It's only been 2 weeks so I'm not expecting miracles yet (but I can hope :lol: ), but she's a smart cookie and has started evaluating the treats I take out with me on a walk. Biscuity training treats get sniffed and rejected, as does cheese most of the time, hot dog/frankfurter sausage has a better success, but not brilliant - she more or less totally ignored it yesterday. Basically, she'll come back for the first treat and then if it's not tasty enough she won't bother coming back again until she's ready! I should add, at the moment we are only walking her off lead in secure areas, so she can't disappear any where. I wouldn't dare to let her off the lead anywhere not secure just yet. I think somone mentioned liver cake on another thread, am I likely to have better luck with this? I appreciate that recall is always going to be her weakness, she's a good old mix of breeds but her personality is strongly terrier - not noted for their great recall!

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Hmm if she's not that impressed by food treats on recall you might need to find something else that she really really loves, like a play with a tug toy or a squeaky toy of some sort. When you see the sniffer dogs they always seem to be rewarded with a game for doing their job so the same might work for Tango?

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