Pepper

Pepper's Forever Home

Pepper has joined the Harris household - Andrew, Sandra, children Jacob and Mia along with 3 cats - Mingy, Floyd and Toot, Chester the guinea pig and 4 geckos. Sandra is a vet and it was obvious from the home visit that they love animals very much. Pepper, a very loving dog, has found the perfect home and will give them years of play and joy.

Thanks to foster mom Siobhan for taking such great care of Pepper and preparing him for his forever home

Pepper enjoys his favourite spot - the rocking chair

Pepper Update, Feb 23

This is from Pepper's foster mom:

I received the results of his fecal test yesterday and he has 2 bacteria in his system: Giardia and Coccidia. As a result he is now on 2 different antibiotics to clear this up (metronidazole and sulfadimethoxine). He is doing really well on these so far and it has made a huge difference in his bathroom training.

Pepper is now house-trained. He has not had an accident through the night in at least 5 days and he has not had any accidents in the house in 4 days. He has actually even started going to the door to let us know that he needs to go out. At this point he has not been left alone in the house for any longer than 4 hours. I can't comment on how he would do alone for an entire work day alone. We leave him loose in the house so that he can go wherever he likes.

Over this past weekend we had a birthday party for my daughter so Pepper was exposed to a house full of people (he loved all of the activity) as well as a large number of children (ages from 1-10 years old) He was really very good with all of the kids.

We have also fixed the food guarding that he was doing previously. As well, he no longer begs assertively. He has been a total joy to have here. He is very very adaptive so he adjusts his mood to what is going on in the house. Anyone who comes to visit us wants to take him home (some of them haven't even been dog lovers)

Pepper Update, Feb 12

Pepper went for his vet checkup on Saturday morning and it went really well. He loves everyone and the vet was no exception. There were 2 cats at the vet. The first one he paid no attention to and the second that was crated, he really wanted to go and see. The vet has given him a clean bill of health. He was micro chipped and dewormed. We are just waiting on the fecal test results.

He continues to get along very well with my daughter. He has even been tested once as my daughter really thought that the tip of his tail looked fun. His house-training is coming along. We have removed the pee pads ( he didn't use them) and we have just got the newspaper down to 2 spots in the house. The back door and the living room (he has a fondness for my area rug).

He really enjoys his walks and running around the back yard with my other dogs. He is also really getting the hang of peeing and pooping for treats. His accidents through the night are down to only one (on average) It will still take a while to get him totally trained. I think about 2 weeks (my best guess at this point)

He is good with sharing his treats with my dogs but on occasion he continues to guard his food. He isn't being aggressive so much as protecting the things that he really likes. We are continuing to work on this. He is very submissive to my Samoyed X. My small Maltese he likes to challenge though. He is not trying to hurt either one, just to play. When we have people over or when I come home after work, he gets really excited and jumps up and is very vocal. I am trying to ignore the noise and teach him to get "off". He is already learning this one very well. He really likes to beg assertively when we are eating. We do not give him any people food so I think he will understand this and give up soon.

You can tell that Pepper has been well loved as he has no real fear issues and he trusts that everyone is going to be as happy to see him as he is to see them.

Break time at the park

Introduction, February 8th

Pepper is a lively, 11 month old pug mix puppy. He is part Pug, Boston Terrier and Jack Russell Terrier. He is very affectionate and playful. He gets along well with other dogs, initiates play and submits to the alpha dog. He loves a good game of tug or fetch. And when play time is over, he will go into his crate for quiet time or be just as happy to lay down beside you.

Pepper has been paper and pee pad trained. He will need work on transitioning to regularly eliminating outdoors on his walk. He knows his basic commands of Sit, Sit-Stay and Come. He is up to date on his shots, neutered and weighs 17lbs. He will be going in for his vet checkup and micro-chipping on Saturday. In the meantime he will be fostered with 2 senior dogs, his foster mom and dad and their little girl.

Pepper pins Odin down for the count

Odin is back up as Dante the Ref intervenes