Gus had gotten his first haircut and now he could run and jump and move all around the house. He was slowly learning about his new home and coming to terms with Miss Cat. Dave and I went off to work that Monday, hoping that he and Miss Cat would be ok alone together. I took Gus for a walk around the neighborhood before Dave and I left for work. We left plenty of food and water for Gus and moved Miss Cat's food up out of his reach (he seemed to like her food a LOT more than his own, lol). We headed off to work hoping things would be ok between Gus and Miss Cat. Ah, such dreamers are we *grin*. We got home to doggy mess on the carpet and torn up pillow stuffing everywhere. Great learning experience for me, lol. So I got to clean up the messes and get Gus outside so he could run around the yard. If my memory is correct, we had our fence up, but no grass down in the yard yet. That was our next big job and Gus sure helped me a lot (not) other than running around and trying to jump on my back he was a huge help. Actually, he made me laugh, which isn't a bad thing when you're putting in a lawn. We all started on it and Gus and I finished it up one afternoon.
Well, the next week was about the same, Dave and I would go to work and Gus would tear up pillows, chew paper, have 'accidents', you get the picture. So, we decided to take him off to work with us. Working for family makes that a lot easier, plus the foundry is in a big old former garage with some smaller rooms and a yard out back. We brought Gus's food and a water bowl, had a chain with lots of slack so he could wander but not run out of the building and a blanket if he wanted something soft. You also need to realize that although the floors may be cement, they're usually covered with dust and very dirty. So, you can imagine what a dusty, dirty fluff ball looks like, or maybe not. Here's a sample of what that sweet, clean, white dog turned into after a day or so at the foundry:
If you look at his back end closely, you can see that the dark areas aren't shadow, that's dirt! After a week at the shop, he was one dirty dog. The upside was, no messes at home and he's easy to bathe, he's a good boy in the sink while you wash him up and he suffers the drying and brushing afterwards like a trooper. We were still having trouble getting our signals straight when he needed to go outside to do his business, so we had a few more accidents to deal with, but after a bit Gus and I started to understand each other a lot better. He would come and sneeze at me and that meant "I want/need to go out Momma" and then he would do his "I'm soo excited, you better let me out fast" dance :). Once I understood that the sneezing was either his "I need to go out" or "come play with me" signal we did just great!I think the huge upside to being able to take him to work with us, was getting to know each other pretty well, fairly fast. Plus, Gus got a ton of walks around the block with Momma and met other dogs and a ton of kitties that way too. He and I bonded during that time to an amazing degree. Whenever I would take a break and sit for a while, he would lay on my feet, so he knew exactly when I moved. We worked out our signal for walk time and he learned to sit and wait until I had the leash on before he headed for the door. He was still leery of Dave (he still is at times, but it's getting better) and we figured it was some man somewhere along the way that treated this guy so badly. There's an interesting age range of men he isn't afraid of and it seems to be young boys to guys in their 20's and then men 60+ are ok too. It's just men in that 25-60 age range that he's really skittish around, but he's getting better with that and now sometimes follows Dave around the house. But, he's mainly Momma's puppy and that's ok by me!
Gus came to work with us from about mid-May through August 2010. One day he and I were in the yard behind the foundry when we came across a TON of kittens all over the yard, sunning themselves. Most ran when they heard us, but one little guy was all alone and he and Gus became buddies. It seemed that the lady that lives next to the foundry feeds some of the stray cats in town and all the females had gotten pregnant around the same time. There were 3 or 4 litters of kittens that she and her daughter were taking care of. They weren't feral, but they weren't house cats either and they all got along with the Pekingese they have. The day we found most of them in the foundry yard, the ladies were dog sitting a Pit Bull and the cats being as smart as they are, vacated the premises whenever the Pit was outside.
It seemed from watching them that most of the kittens had paired up except for this little guy. They seemed to leave him alone and I figured he was dog bait so the rest could run away from Gus. That was ok by Gus, he only chased them if they ran away from him, but here was a little guy that wanted to play and Gus wanted to mother. The guys came out to check out the kittens one day and Dave fell in love with Gus's new friend. The ladies next door had no problem with us adopting one of the kittens so Ivan the Terrible found a new home.
More about the addition of Ivan to the family next time. I hope you liked Gus's adventures at work and we'll write more soon.
Thanks for reading,
Gus and Anne
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