Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Riley joins the play group

Riley (front) and Trooper (rear)
Trooper's nose is brown because he's been engaged
in a major excavation project in the dog yard.
I've had the female rottweiler Riley for a couple weeks now.  I've been keeping her in a kennel by herself during the day, and in a crate in the shed at night.  She had been doing some vomiting so I wanted to keep an eye on her.  I tried her with Lana briefly several days ago and it went well enough.  Both girls come across as rather dominant so I wanted to make sure they were well acquainted before I put them together.  I assumed that she would beat up Hank, just has Lana had done.  That's just the way female dogs handle Hank.


Trooper and Riley dancing.
She wanted to lead.
She hasn't gained any weight so I think I'll worm her again, although her poop looks good.  A vet visit may still be in order, but she seems happy and healthy so today I decided to let her meet some other dogs.

 
Riley meeting Lana, up close and personal.
Lana mostly just wanted to be with me.
I started by taking Riley into the dog yard alone with our Trooper.  Trooper has the worst social skills with people of any dog we've had since Gypsy.  But as bad as he is with people, he's that good with other dogs.  He's like Molly was in that respect.  He gets along with other dogs, can read them well, can draw them out, and plays appropriately.  She initially tried her dominance routine.  He didn't react to it badly, but told her off when he'd had enough and she backed off without escalating things into a fight.  She also responded to my verbal correction, which I was glad to see.
 

Riley with Hank and Lana.
Lana may like the fact that Hank will have
someone else to bother for a while.
After they were together for a while I brought in Hank and Lana.  Hank initially tried his badass routine, but she ignored it as all dogs seem to do.  She was more interested in Lana and followed her closely for a while, but there was never a problem between the two girls.  Hank was mostly upset that she was interested in anything other than him.
 

When Riley and Lana had exchanged pleasantries to their mutual satisfaction, she turned her attention to Hank and they were soon running and playing together. 


I think she's very happy to have the company and it will make things easier on me to be able to keep all three of them together in the big kennel, dog yard, and the shed at night. 





 
Hank and Riley soon found a game they both enjoyed.



You would think that betting on the rottweiler in a tug of war would be a safe bet.
But Hank is a tenacious little mofo who doesn't give up until he gets what he wants.

 
Trooper got involved and made it a three way tug for a while.
Lana had no interest in the tug game, didn't see the point of it.
Trooper soon went back digging and left Hank and Riley to shred the blanket.


2 comments:

Lindsay said...

I'm amazed that someone hasn't snatched up Lana yet. I simply adore her! It is so weird to me.

Anonymous said...

What a great play group you have going on there! I'm with the other poster- I dont know why no one has grabbed up Lana or Hank. Both seem to have tremendous personalities and love.