Well, it is done - Chico has met the mammoth!!!!!

Others outside in car so no interference, treats, clicker, harness, garden!!

I took Brice outside and did a bit of focus work with the clicker, then I casually opened the kennel door but threw Chico a handful of food into the kennel so he went backwards rather than bursting out into Brice's space.

I went to sit calmly on the WET seat and continued doing the clicker work with Brice. Chico arrived (ps I know he has food manners when using food like this and Brice knows the exercises concentrating on food well) on the scene as he realised there was more food possibly in the offing .


Ok - what is the big thing???


Or perhaps more importantly hand out the sausage!!


Brice was surprisingly intimidated as Chico wasn't really making eye contact or overtly 'noticing' him


But bravely came closer (for sausage )


Then he decided to risk sniffing


...


While Chico remained focussed on the possiblity of food


or more food??


Brice then retired inside and the victor claimed the garden!!!



Brice is now in the kitchen, Chico is alternating between exploring the house and lying on my feet.

I was expecting Brice to be a lot more confident and I will need to get the boys together a bit more as this anxiety has surprised me. It is better than aggression obviously but I can't have Brice stressed either.

OMG that Chico looks like my Jack.

You must be pleased their living with each other! Murphy wants you to share the sausages though, there his favourite food. The sausage and he appears from anywhere in the house!

i would say calm and nervous is much better than out right overly excited aggression, I would be happy with that for a first introduction, Titchy greet's a lot of dog's this way but then he isn't really a playful dog either, not with other dogs anyway, perhaps just a cautious pat on the back for now and hope that we get to do the huge round of applause later on.

When a dog completely ignores another dog I find it completely throw's them, if you think it's a bit like us going into a room with an overly playful puppy and completely ignoring it until it calms down, it confuses them because they are used to getting lods of attention when jumping around at someone's feet

I know what you are saying Selina and it went well - it just threw me that Brice was obviously quite intimidated and wanted to retire to his safe place quickly (the kitchen) which of course I allowed and he hasn't greeted Chico through the kennel bars at all since.

I am not daunted and am sure I can get past this, I just need these two to not need more careful management than I already have with Mugi!!

What I want is to get to the point I can assess how Chico manages Brice initiating play as that is where my trouble started with Mugi - he couldn't cope with a playful mammoth and retaliated with teeth . Mammoths, like elephants hold grudges and after having a badly bitten elbow Brice now wants to pulverise the Brittany before he can sink his elderly fangs in again!!!

My plan is to try to replicate the same interaction tomorrow and take it from there, if I can advance them into more interaction great if not I will resort to Plan B - Debbie doesn't know she will be part of Plan B yet . The reason I am doing this at home is Brice is sooooo powerful and to seperate dogs if it went badly I need to know I have a physical barrier that I can segregate behind as a mammoth is strong and I know my physical limititations - I know my kennel is strong and one or other dog would be flung behind bars till I could calm things. That is less easy to manage in an open field and certainly not something I can do on my own. If Debbie reads this she would have Chico NOT THE MAMMOTH!!

I know my B-in-L would help too but the trouble is he doesn't read signs well and panics in a scrap so although the brawn would be useful I know from previous that in fact it can cause more trouble sadly.

Eh? Me?



Good job the weasel will be incapacitated me thinks

Well, we didn't get as far today as I went to open the kennel to see Brice disappearing through the dog door back into the house .

I decided that perhaps I am pushing him too fast and perhaps he is worried Chico will do what Mugi did - ie bite him badly. What is good though is that he is taking the line of leaving the arena rather than going in with aggression.

So todays small step was having both boys at the bars of the kennel initially with me outside feeding treats to both, then me inside with Chico and feeding treats to both so Brice chose to stay close. A bit later I just sat outside with them and no treats and both noses were pushing through the bars alternately to have a sniff and a nuzzle of each others lips.

Either later today or tomorrow I will try the kennel open again.

Brice - the BIG HAIRY MAMMOTH is still intimidated. I have not yet got him and Chico together again but hey, I would rather take this slowly.

Chase and Chico are like norty boys together and play for hours!!!

Freddy is being a bit silly, he doesn't want to play with Chico but he is not happy Chase is having fun with him - go figure!! Out he is fine with Chico and being reminded he does not have to monitor play sessions is helping him.

Mugi only gets to meet Chico out and about anyway and they are fine together.

Chico has been back to the vet today, his ears are improved enough for him to have his vaccination although he will continue meds for a fortnight - he is as good as gold for me to clean and insert the meds. His lumps and bumps can be left as "observe", he has put on 400g, his heart and lungs etc are all good. His only problem really is he has some cloudiness in his eyes which is prob the start of cataract. As he shows no sign of sight issues I don't think he has any worries.

Training wise he is a really nice lad, he constantly checks in with me, his recall stays fab, sit is coming, lead work is improving as long as I am concentrating, retrieve had a blip today as he was not giving me the dummy and we had a slight grumble. I still took the dummy and stopped that game as I didn't have a spare to play swapsies with - will do a bit more work with him on gaining confidence about giving up a prize. As he has been kennelled a while I do not feel this is a huge problem, just a confidence thing.

I think you're amazing.

Learning so much from you to use with Cleo 'the beast'

So want Brice to take to Chico but keep his dignaty !

Hope all goes well

Just loving all the updates about him

me to, from a personal level it's just great to see someone putting so much time and effort into introducing a dog into the family but from a welfare point of view between this and the Mimi threads its also great that we get a chance to show you what goes on behind the scenes of rescue and how we do things differently with differnt dog's.

They aren't all treated in the same way, each dog is different and has to be fully assessed differently and handled differently to.

If you all could have seen Sue's weekly progress report on Chico you would have had a fit of the giggles, I did.

One of the questions we ask on the weekly progress sheet is
What sort of home is this dog suitable for?

Guesses please?

MINE