Gus now weighs 57 pounds, Daisy is topping out at 47. They are just five months old!
Gus jumped up on Sal yesterday and laid his paws comfortably on her shoulders, his face only a little bit lower than hers (mind you, Sal was starting to collapse at the time). Sal has had to ‘insert’ webbing into their harnesses ’cause they have already outgrown them. Their food chart states they might eat as much as 4 to maybe 5 cups a day. They are eating 6 and 7 cups and anything else they can find edible (or not). A typical dinner for them is a handful of celery/broccoli/lettuce with maybe an egg together with 2 cups of kibble plus a chicken thigh (yes, a whole chicken thigh each). Breakfast is maybe 3/4 of that and lunch is half of that.
Not all that food turns into ‘dog’. Some of it, of course, is dog-poop but that is to be expected. At least they are now well and truly house-broken. They manage their own metabolisms. Another part is dog-hair (they are hypoallergenic so they have hair rather than fur). I have clipped them three times already and they are due for a fourth grooming soon. I have removed enough hair to make another dog!
Case in point: the swallows have returned and they are renovating their usual home for the season. That requires tossing out the old stuff and stuffing in the new. Some swallows must have discovered some errant dog hair and they liked it. Yesterday, a swallow swept down and landed on Gus in order to get more stuffing. Gus just sat there as the swallow quickly discovered this stuff was still attached!
They have also migrated outside. I am keen to have them ‘leave home’ and live outside in/on their doghouse or even the outdoor couch and we were wondering when they’d be old enough to handle that trauma. But, over the last few nights, they have already chosen to take to the couch and they stay outside almost all night (the front door is left open a crack in case they want back in but they stay out all night but come in just to wake/woof Sal up at 6:00).
Yes. I hear the woof, too. We are now early risers.
Friends provided some goat bones for them. These bones had a lot of meat on them. And our dogs love bones. But, the first pair of bones just disappeared and so the second set was watched more closely. They chewed ’em a bit and then took off and buried them. That is not easy on a granite rock!
In other words, our pups have learned the value of delayed gratification. They are preppers!
They are getting on and off the boat like veteran seamen. They are comfortable in the water (but not swimming yet) and they can travel-without-puking for at least an hour (we have not gone further). They get along with other dogs, even unsocialized ones. They are great with people, too. But, when our grandchildren visited together with their 90 pound family dog, they were exemplary. Both pups were careful around everyone but especially so with the littlest two-year old.
These are good dogs.
No, I am 100% objective and not biased in the least.
Our Off the Grid Home 
Man oh man those dogs are gonna be huge!
The March 5th puppies pic is the proof.
Good swimmers too?
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Nice to see they are having the time of their lives with you and Sal! They grow very fast, but given the amount of food they eat, I’m not surprised. I wonder how big they will get when they will be fully grown. Isn’t it dangerous for them outside at night (I remember some stories about wolves and cougars)
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There are wolves and cougars and the wolves, especially, go for dogs-as-dinner. But our little chunk o’ paradise is very well cut off from the rest of the island. Almost protected. The wolves would have to swim for a bit (300 yards) and then do another 300 on land to get to ’em. Our topography makes our location almost like a small island. They do not usually want to work that hard. Wolves usually ‘lure’ male dogs with one of their own females-in-heat or try to woo a female with promises of singing and dancing to the latest howling hits (hard to resist) and then they eat ’em up. It helps that they are together….when adults, they will be a bit too much dog for a cougar to attack. The cougar would win the fight, of course, but two adult dogs are too much trouble. The wolves are the bigger threat but we usually hear ’em coming. They sing/howl at night from around the area when they are near. When we hear ’em nearby, we bring the dogs in.
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We have constant floof around the place here, Dave. Some got wrapped our little canary’s claw and cut into its flesh. Some of our baby magpies have also been tangled up in dog hair in their nest and have perished. However, other stuff like plastics and twine can also have the same result. So maybe it is bad luck rather than the hair that is the problem. Anyway, we don’t leave dog hair for the birds just in case. You could spin that fleece. That would be very self sufficient.
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Sooooo?
Hows the boat refurbishing coming along?
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I suppose I should say, “Good!” and leave it that….but…well….I rarely leave a story untold. So….
We painted it as you know but, when you paint a boat on the hard, it has to sit on something and that something creates unpainted bits. Each unpainted bit requires drying time. The last few times we went over, I jacked the boat up a few inches and we painted the ‘spots’. The trouble with that is that we have four coats to put on and the ‘spots’ need the same four coats. So our last few efforts of driving Ms Daisy (and Gus) were for relatively little progress but it had to be done. Plus we have had a lot of rain so even that picayune effort taking so long had to wait for the weather. And then there is ‘life’. Life gets in the way. Sal going to quilting. Sal volunteering at the school. Getting some supplies in. Grooming the dogs. 3-day guests. Taxes. Food getting. Routine chores and special ‘incidents’ that need attending to……..
….long way of saying. “We just are not there yet.”
To be fair, there is no rush. And we ARE old. I do NOT feel pressure except for the pressure I always feel to ‘get ‘er done’. But, at the rate we are going, the good ol’ John R will not get the bottom wet for at least another two weeks. Maybe even the end of the next month. It WILL get done. It will NOT get done quickly.
But thank you for asking and being interested. That actually means a lot.
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we don’t want to put pressure on you by asking what the progress is !
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It’s funny.
I was wondering to myself how the “spots” were dealt with.
Its not like you can move the supports easily.
Big, heavy and awkward to move.
Sounds like me when I’ve had too much to drink!
And the weather this Spring has been brutal.
Essentially rain squalls broken up by …heavier rain showers. Northern BC had snow yesterday and it’s almost May… brutal.
The Snow melt should be epic this year.
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and we have a very dry april month, I guess it only rained for 1 day during the last 40 days! The climate is really screwed!
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