We all got up dreadfully early so that BJ and I could go to an agility trial in Hillsboro (1.5 to 2 hour drive). Auntie Tami graciously offered to have Joey stay with her for the morning so that I didn't have to worry about how many hours I would be gone from the house. Because of the trial logistics (part of a county fair), I had to travel light - one small dog, one soft crate, water, tuggie bone and that's it. That left Marcus to stay home by himself.
While Joey was at Tami's, another clicker friend, Heather, came over with her 7 month old Border Collie puppy, London and her parents who all wanted to see what a Beardie puppy looked like. Joey played with London along with Tami's two Scottie/Cocker mixes, Norbert and Nessa. Heather and Tami both took a multitude of photos which Joey's blog has sorely needed and they each wrote a blog entry about the visit. What nice Aunties they are!!
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HEATHER'S COMMENTS:
Hey Helix!
It was so fun to see little Joey today! The biggest surprise was how WIDE he was compared to London, he's like twice as wide and half as tall! Beardies are built so differently than border collies!
Joey was super gentle with taking treats, and totally accepting of being handled and restrained. I didn't get a lot of name recognition, but once I was able to get his attention he had good focus and a very cute and patient sit (with an adorable head tilt!). Which was good, as getting pictures of hairy dogs is HARD. The camera DID NOT want to focus on the poor guy!
Joey was very excited to see London when he arrived, your true bouncy beardie baby! London was like, "I"m way too mature these days to play with BABIES." And sauntered around the yard showing off his new leg lifting skills. Joey was definitely more dog focused while we were there. I didn't see him really solicit attention from the people, but he was more than willing to get some love when we went to him, not shy at all.
Surprisingly, London and Norbert hit it right off this time, perhaps because London is so used to playing with fiesty terriers! But once Norbert got London to play, London finally caved in and played with Joey as well. Joey has excellent dog communication skills from playing to calming signals to respecting an irritated lip lift, he did fabulous with all the dogs. He followed London around like a little shadow, it was adorable. He was quite the flirt as well, not the least discouraged when London didn't immediately play with him. He even tried to mount London at one point! London's self esteem must have skyrocketed today as he was so popular.
I was a little concerned with Joey's movement, but I'm not familiar with Beardies at all. He seemed very unstable in his back end and walking on the back of his hocks. I've never seen a puppy move like that before, is that normal for a Beardie and he just needs to grow into his legs?
All in all, my impression was a very confident, sweet, stable, even tempered puppy for whom the world is a very new and exciting place and he's ready to take it on. Fearless little guy, totally secure with strange people and new dogs.
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I, too, have noticed and been concerned about Joey's bumbly-stumbly walking style at times. If I saw what he does in an adult dog, I'd be off to the vet for a neurological exam! I put the question to the Beardie e-mail list and received assurances that's quite normal for a growing Beardie. He does look gorgeous when running flat out though! So I'll quit worrying about that for now.
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TAMI'S COMMENTS:
He sure has grown since we last saw him! He's as tall as Nessa, but twice as long, and a long tail to boot. We forgot to give Norbert some rescue remedy and melatonin before Joey's arrival. So he snarked at Joey I think three times and I said, no more Norbert needs a time out.
Joey got to wander around in the back yard with Nessa for a while and then I popped him into his crate with one of his kongs. He quickly had the peanut butter out and kibble falling in the pan of the crate. It was the smaller kong and so I thought he'd eaten all of his kibble and gave him the bigger kong. It wasn't until Helix was scooping them up later that I find out that he still had some kibble in the kongs. Oh well, he seemed to enjoy the veggie-chicken glop that Norbert & Nessa eat. It's certainly easier to eat than kibble without some of the teeth he's still growing in.
Joey and Nessa were back outside when Heather and her bunch arrived. Mom, Tracy and Dad, Craig came along to get a look at their first beardie. So Joey got some one-on-one time with London before Norbert joined the show. Joey was trying so very hard bouncing all over and play bowing to get London to play with him. London wasn't terribly impressed with the show, but did do some running around with him.
Norbert watched all this from the other side of the sliding glass door and wanted to come join in the fun. Since he'd been snarky with London when he was small, but did fine in April we suspected things would be okay, but still brought him out on leash. Brandon kept him on a pretty short leash for a while and let London and Norbert do the whole sniff and check greeting. So he took him off leash. Norbert promptly went into hump meister with London.
London must have taken the humping thing as a sign of hey let's play because there was whirling dogs from that point on all playing around. Norbert even accepted Joey in the area and a sniff check by him. Nessa was in the whole mix watching things closely and bouncing around a bit too, but more on the sidelines like Joey was. The only difference was that Joey didn't want to be on the sidelines, he wanted to be in the middle of it too.
London or Joey found a couple of toys that were in the grass and not picked up so we took care of those so there wasn't any resource guarding issues. I gave London a blue ball that appeared in our backyard months ago and neither of my two showed any interest in. It very quickly had a hole in it and a loss of air. London has a very good shake-kill on him and quickly killed the ball. Joey tried getting it when it was dropped but London quickly convinced him that it was his. It wasn't until London found the molecule ball that we actually saw a lip curl telling Joey to 'back off bub this ball's mine'. Joey was very respectful and backed off.
After London and crew took off we all went inside and I tried to get Joey to take a nap. You would have thought with all that running and bouncing that he'd be a tired boy. Nope! He was more than willing to be a snuggly pup. He preferred to sit mostly on my lap and draped across my body. I soon began to suspect that the draping was a ploy to get closer to the curious items on the end table - like the lamp, bowls, and the plant. He was terribly fascinated by the plants. I'm not sure if this means that Helix doesn't have houseplants, or they're just different kinds. He managed to scoot himself up my body so he was draped over me and onto the end table several times and then there was just the plain trying to stand on the end table. Luckily he's long but not heavy!
I tried having him sit with Brandon and he was doing the same thing. Flopping over belly up - rub my tummy please. Then moving on to draping himself all over Brandon - much easier to do as he has a longer body with all that height. Joey had the funniest little move he kept doing with Brandon of trying to tuck his head under his chin, when he wasn't trying to slither over his shoulder and check out the plant on the end table behind the chair. He was very persistent in wanting to check out that plant too, and got moved out of the chair after he tried to take a chomp on the plant. Silly boy!
We moved into the family room to watch a show, and Joey didn't want to sit on the couch with me and instead went and draped himself along the sliding glass door. After he started bouncing the bell there I took the hint that he wanted to go outside. So he and Nessa went out to explore around again. Joey also showed that one of the reasons he wanted out was for a brief potty break. Good boy! Joey then decided to try his luck with getting Nessa to play and was more successful this time. They were bouncing around a chair and planter on the corner of the patio and starting to have some fun. Joey barked his excitement which caused the fun police to come out - Norbert. Sigh. Forgot to put the block up on the dog door before we came out and Norbert came and snarked at Joey.
Once back in I decided it was lunch time for all puppies so everyone to their crates. Joey actually hung out in the kitchen with me and started on his plate. Helix had forgotten his breakfast, so he had lunch for that. So he got as mentioned above some of the veggie-chicken glop. From there we went back out onto the couch for some snuggle time to see if we could promote nap time. Nope! Back to the draping, this time the threw in some flirting by licking my ear and neck and having fun making me giggle.
Shortly afterwards Helix showed up so it was a matter of washing hands, getting to sit down and look at the pictures on the camera and then loading stuff up and heading down the road towards home.
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We made it home in time for a brief down time, shower, load up the truck and then off to work. Friday is my swing shift day, 4 pm to midnight. Joey was just so relaxed and calm at work. He hung out on the tether in the hall outside my office and played with a few toys, dozed or kept an eye on me. He had a very full day - no wonder he's so relaxed and calm at work!
More playdate photos here and here.