Gramercy's room

In preparation for Gramercy's surgery (a week from today) we've been having him spend a good amount of time in "his room".  This room is adjacent to our living room and Gramercy can hear us in the living room and see us walking up and down the hallway - it's also a fully carpeted room.  This room also has our desk top computer so I spend a lot of time in the room.  We've moved out any furniture that he could try to jump up on and as you can see there's lots of beds to rest on.  The surgeon has told us that Gramercy won't need to be crated rather, he should be moving around but in a small area and in an area that he won't slip and hurt his back leg.   So, once he has the surgery he will already feel comfortable in his room and then it's just a place for him begin his road to recovery in cozy fashion.

 

Waiting for the big day

 

The "special" box

As you've seen we play lots of games with boxes!  Here's another fun one and we vary the game depending on the dog's comfort level. 

 

Gramercy is a confident boy who is ready to get his prize he just has to decide what smells best today!

 

 

 

Inside the box are all kinds of chews:  Dried tripe, bully sticks, duck feet & trachea chips.  The great part is the dog gets to chose what he or she wants and lets face it, who doesn't like to make their own choices.
 

Decisions...

A braided bully was Gramercy's chosen prize!

A boy enjoying his bone

D was nervous about the box, even with the flap open...

but, we made it a little easier and tada!  Mr. D is feeling proud of himself with his prize from the box!

"LOVE this trachea chip!"

 

Getting busy - such a sweet boy!

An update on the Green feeder

For those of you curious about the feeder - this thing is awesome!   You can see I've placed Gramercy's food around the outside "blades of grass"which are shorter thus easier.  I want this feeder to be fun and the dog who uses it to feel excited about eating from it.  If one wants to place items in the "longer grass" which increases the challenge, put in light weight items.  For example: kibble, blueberries, green beans - something that the dog can flick up and/or around with their tongue.  Catty will flick the items from the longer grass to the area of smaller grass.  I actually love how big the feeder is- you can see Gramercy constantly moving around to get the food.  It also washes up easily.

Gramercy working!

It takes him about 15 minutes to eat his meal in this feeder



Yummy!!
 

Look who's back from his vacay!

Gramercy did great while I was out of town and he's now back with us.  A ton of thanks to the NR volunteer who watched Gramercy!  These pictures were before I left - it was a rare 2-3 hour window of sun in Seattle during the month of February.



"My foster parents think I'm pretty dang cute"

Happy the sun is out

Getting tired...

 

Enjoying the sun with friends

Relaxing on squirrel & duck

He's just too cute

Dreaming of good days ahead

"This sun is making me tired"

Fast asleep...

We met another NR foster pup named Evo!

As I had mentioned, I had to go out of town due to a death in the family.  I took D and we spent a night at my sister's house - she also fosters and blogs with New Rattitude.  Her newest foster pup is Evo and he's a cute little fella who we rescued out of a rural Central CA shelter.  If you know anyone looking for a kid friendly small dog tell them about Evo - here's his Petfinder bio! 

"Hi, I'm Evo!"

He's a sweet boy who doesn't mind the hustle and bustle of an active household

Evo was in heaven with this bone

Evo has great markings and as you can see a very cute face

He's a quiet and gentle boy who can keep himself busy

 

 

 

While Evo was busy with the bone - D was more interested in watching out the window, looking for wildlife

 

 In the video below you see that third spotted dog.... that's Lacey, she was our first foster dog with New Rattitude and my mom adopted her!

 

 

 

"Where are the squirrels?!"

 

Gramercy hopes everyone has a great weekend...

His will be full of fun & lots of naps!

 

 

Gramercy's adventure

As I've said, Gramercy loves to go walking and boy howdy is he in heaven!  Look where his temp foster mom took him - on  a soft outdoor trail. 

"This is awesome!"



"What's that I see?"



"Lots of smells and sights to take in"



"No more pictures, lets go!"

Remember this sweet girl?

It's Buty (pronouced Beauty)!  We fostered Buty back in November 2012 and she was a dog that barely made it into rescue.  Her time was truly out at the shelter and we had no space for her.  Sadly this happens more frequently than I like to think about.  Buty is one of the lucky ones - the dog we had agreed to take, we were able to move him to another foster spot so that gave us a spot for Buty.  This little gal was so sick when she came to us and she was adopted pretty quickly by a wonderful couple in Seattle and a pretty super rattie mix brother named Henry.



Sick girl with a bad cold while in foster care

 

I'm happy to say that we recently recived wonderful update on this sweet rattie girl.  Buty is now Ellie and here's what her mom's had to say about her:

Ellie is truly a sweetheart and it's been awesome to watch her come out of her shell and see her personality develop. Ellie, (the artist formerly known as Buty) settled into our house right away- I was amazed at how smooth the transition was, she was absolutely meant to be in our lives because she fits right in with the rest of the gang! Our cat Lucy and her occasionally snuggle and follow me from room to room which is just adorable! I refer to the two of them as "the girls".

Henry and her are quite the pair as we all knew they would be. They snuggle and wrestle, play tug of war, spend lots of time chasing each other and playing in our yard- it's just been so wonderful and we truly feel as though we made one of the best decisions we've ever made! She is still pretty chill but is much perkier now that she is at a good weight and feeling better.

People often ask "How can you foster and not keep them".  Of course we can't keep them all and we view what we do as pet sitting these pups.  Fostering is hard for a lot of reasons but in the end the payoffs are well worth it! One of them being that we hear wondeful stories like Ellie's -  of new life and second chances.  So here's to Ellie AKA Buty she a girl I think of often and I happy we were able to help her.  Happy life sweet, sweet girl.

Ellie in her cozy beds



Henry & Ellie - how cute are they!




Ellie & Lucy - sleeping on mom's lap



Pretty, Pretty girl





Sleepy pups





Ready for life!  Both Henry & Ellie are rescued pups living an amazing life

Gramercy is on a vacay!

I've had a death in the family so I've been out of town - lucky for me, one of our foster parents is watching Gramercy.   He's in heaven as he's the only dog in the house which means lots of Grammy time!  I'll still be blogging so stay tuned...

A video of Grammy and Opossum having fun in the first couple of hours!

"What is this fun toy?"

"I have it now!"

"I'm winning!"

"I love tug of war!"

 

Gramercy says thank you!

In less than a month Gramercy has raised all the money needed for his surgery!  Pretty amazing and it speaks to all the wonderful people out there who are kind enough to sponsor Gramercy.  So a big thanks to all of you from Gramercy as well as from the New Rattitude volunteers. 

Gramercy's surgery is scheduled for Thursday March 7th.
 

"Thank you for helping me"

Gramercy's version...

 of singing along and directing the music!

 

 

 This lasted for about 5 minute and then he conked out on his bed.

Opossum & Awesome Opossum

The opossum toy is VERY popular in our house - so much so that we had to purchase a 2nd one.  The first one was picked out at the pet store by past foster boy Balboa but, D fell in love with opossum and it soon became know as awesome opossum.  

 

As you will see Gramercy likes new opossum so both boys are happy ratties!

 

Say hi to opossum!

Gramercy loves squeaking opossum



D loves to carry awesome opossum around and then started teasing Gramercy, trying to get him to take it away. D is way faster than Gramercy but, once in a while Gramercy would grab and run with awesome opossum. 

 

Pretty soon awesome opossum lost his tail in a game of tug and we decided it was time for a new opossum.  

"I love opossum!"

 

 

Who knew...

That Gramercy likes to play with a ball and he brings it back to you!  This boy is super smart and a "ball" to play with.

 

"Hey foster mom - do YOU know what to do with this ball?"

The fuzz on the floor is a toy that lost his guts in a game of tug!



"Are you impressed with my fetch skills?!"

"PLEASE throw it again!!"

New toy in the house...

We had to go the pet store to pick up the soap in yesterdays post and of course going to the store means a new toy!  Check out the new toy Gramercy picked out for himself!  It's his favorite toy line Go Dog - Furry Flatties he now has the set which includes a squirrel & opossum - stay tuned for tomorrow's post featuring the opossum!

 

As you can see Gramercy quickly tested out Mr. Squirrel and it was all love and fun.

 

"Hello my little friend"

"I have you now!"

"Resting with my buddy"