Things got a lot calmer after the first truncated day. A little bit of pecking order battling with Lizzie in the AM, but that seemed less intense than last night. I think Lizzie is beginning to understand that it is OK if she isn’t the top dog.
We have switched his (and Lizzie’s) food to the Merrick grain free Salmon kibble. Two meals, and so far good poops.
I am not yet ready to declare the conflict between the two hounds settled, but I am confident enough to order a customized collar from HotDogCollars with his name on it. Next up will be to get a large 2 Hounds Designs harness.
More Observations
- I am not sure who is stronger, Lizzie or Cer, but my bet is that they both are about equal. They both are about on par with my old mastiff. A dog that was about double the weight of the two of them together. Yikes
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Cerbie has a lump under his right shoulder. Feels like a fatty cyst. On the list for when we get to the vet.
Cerbie likes to walk in the morning. He isn’t terrible at it, but definitely needs some “heel” and other manners. Laser focused on the squirrels that taunt us, he needs more work on this. Unfortunately, Lizzie gets excited to go, but then refuses to go beyond the driveway. Alas, I return her to the house, and take Cerbie on a real walk (so far, we have done “hell strip” loop, and the Henderson loop added together. Probably 1.5 miles) But this needs to end, as today, Lizzie broke into Barb’s office (Sugar taught her to open the doors, bad Sugar), and pretty much destroyed a couple pairs of glasses, shredded some items from the desk, and pushed her iMac around, while trying to watch for us out the window. Sigh.
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Cerbie is eating well, and pooping well. The new food is working well with him so far. He and Lizzie gobble it up when I put it down.
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Cerbie is a sloppy drunk. Ok I just wanted to use that term, but he is a big slobbery drinker, much like Tate was. We have ordered a dish set that has shields to hold back the worst of the mess. He is a lot like a Mastiff, with big jowls that seem to just funnel water on everything. In fact if you saw him without any size comparison, he is built like a 1/4 scale mastiff. Perfect!
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Cerbie has stinky ears. Not the brown goopy yeast-like glop, but they are (or were) oily. Fortunately, I have plenty of the ear cleaner from our Greyhounds, and that is much much better. He wasn’t happy that I cleaned them, but, too bad. I have thumbs.
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Cerbie has good teeth. Need to buy a toothbrush and keep them clean. Like Lizzie, it is a habit to get into.
While his name was a phonetic Cer, and Cerberus was his longer name (at least that we heard), he is quickly becoming Cerbie. I like it. Will get tags with that on it.
Today, we are going to take the pair of them to our local Unleashed by Petco. Kira there is helping us work on the stranger danger with Lizzie. We did take her and her visiting cousins, and that helped a ton (an Unleashed staffer gave her treats and some head scritches). The plan is to have Kira love on Cerbie, and Lizzie to want some of the attention, and forget about her fears.
At least she has stopped trying to mount him. Cerbie – rightly – wasn’t playing that game.
48 hours in, he is going to work out. I will admit that by 10PM in the first day, I had my doubts.