My latest guest star: Tibor the Border Collie (or "How I Became a Seeing-Eye Human")

I would have said your the opposite. Your heart's so big you can do it.

 

A got that a lot from one of my neighbours in Spain...she couldn't get why I didn't just adopt Toby (Alf) permanently. And even though I fostered, I never could figure out how people could do the guide dog puppy walking until following your adventures here on the forum. Now I DO get it. I'm not sure if I could do it myself - I think I'm more suited to the foster biz - but I can see how it would be a wonderful thing to do for someone with a big enough heart (to steal from @SwampDonkey)!

 

We had a pretty good night with only a few sessions of what I'm coming to think of as Tibor's "leaky tire" whinging. I'm grateful that it's loud enough to bother me but NOT loud enough to disturb any neighbours, especially as I'm essentially in the cellar of a building with 2 foot thick walls (probably over the past four hundred or so years used both for beer storage and the odd bit of Teutonic counter-reformation torture).

But - and for me this is huge - Tibor just now went into his crate, turned around, lay down and is SLEEPING IN HIS CRATE with the door open. Wooohooooooo!!!!

The magic of Kongs stuffed with liverwurst!!!!!

So I'm going to say if we accomplish nothing else today, I'm still counting it is "good day".

He was also able twice yesterday to make it to his potty spot (about 2 minutes walk at a normal pace) without marking or sniffing. He seems to have gotten the picture that whatever else we do, first we go to his potty spot and have a wee.

The rest of the walk is hit and miss still in terms of marking, but the scratching and spinning behaviour has improved. While I'd like to think it was because of my marking and positive reinforcement (thank you, liver), I'm beginning to suspect that the really frenzied marking is actually Tibor's way of mapping his new neighbourhood and that once he has marked a street several times, it's "signpost" is in place for him and he doesn't need to "repost" so often. As an experiment last night, I suddenly took him onto a new street slightly over from what has become our normal route, and he went right back to the scratching and spinning.

Knowing that this "mapping" may be the cause of the frenetic marking helps me work with it a bit and also could be valuable to let potential adopters know. It's also really interesting to me if it is true and changes my strategy for walks. Where Toby in Spain needed new smells and sights constantly to keep him happy, Tibor seems to need a worn pathway for him to relax and walk normally.

I'll keep working on that theory - that keeping the same route through town will help him relax - and see how he improves in the coming days!

 

Emily, don't sell yourself short. You said his previous fosterers were driven batty by his constant marking, yes? And you're already seeing improvements in his walking/marking? That's all you, amazing lady! You're doing that! He sounds like a massive challenge, and your journey with him is going to make very interesting reading for the rest of us, but if you can get him to the "go for a nice walk without constantly weeing" stage then Rachael's right, you'll improve his chances of adoption bucketloads. He's a beautiful-looking dog, he'll get snapped up once you've ironed out the big creases.

 

That's good progress! He's lucky to have you giving the time to explore the reasons for his behaviour and then persevering with developing strategies for helping him. That should make a huge difference in finding the right home for him.

 

Great work Emily

 

I do have a feeling it's sort of a combo of things and not down to any amazing training skills. I'm grateful to @snowbunny for suggesting to look at the marking with a LAT approach as I wouldn't have tried that otherwise. But I'll take the compliment and say "Thank You", anyway!

No diss to the other fosterers at all, but my suspicion is that Tibor didn't actually get taken out as much as they said he did. The other two ladies had their own dogs, and walking Tibor with a dog of your own and trying to "iron out his creases" as you say, would have been a nightmare. So I think simply sticking him with someone (me) with no other dog so he gets all the focus is probably a real positive factor in itself.

I also think Tibor is very smart and is really starting to simply benefit from consistency. Every time he wees on command in a designated potty spot, he gets praise and pets (and sometimes liver!). Every time he does a quick sniff without spinning and weeing he gets praise and pets. He's getting better about using my left leg to guide his position for walking. I think it's starting to sink in: he walked across the main square late last night with me at a decent pace, with his head high and a big doggie grin. It didn't last long, but it was a start. I was proud of him!

Of course, having said all that, I completely expect one of those "backsliding bursts" of the unwanted behaviour before the behaviour really improves. It always happens, so I'm sure the hurricane is imminent.

 

That's enormous progress especially that he chose to sleep in his crate

They are all so different aren't they? Gypsy loved new places and challenges and was matched with an owner who had a very varied lifestyle. Bruce loves routine, the more predictable the better. So his new owner has a job and the same routine every day.

If I ever (or is that a 'when'?) I find big dogs too much I may think about fostering little ones


.

 

Wonderful progress, Emily! And there you were thinking you wouldn't get more than a couple of metres every time you went out. Bah, have some faith in yourself

 

Well, it only lasted about ten minutes but I was still happy about it!

 

Ciao tutti!

Here is I, the great and mighty Tibor. Si, I am Romanian, but that's pretty close to Italian, so that's how you can imagine me here... having a bellissimo Italian accent to go along with my happy smiley face. Just think, a few countries over and instead of ending up in that schiffo dog shelter in Romania, I could have been hanging out with George Clooney on Lake Como. Davvero, it's true what they say about "location, location, location."

Today I am here to confess a few things. First, this horrible foster lady has turned me into a Kong addict. I did not know about these tools of the devil before coming here. But now it is all I can think about, "Kong, Kong, Kong". I dream about my Kong. I call it my amore. Foster lady says I'm getting "all Gollum and my preciousssss" about it...though I do not know what that means. She is a bit pazza (that's "crazy" to you) if you ask me.

I have had three Kongs already today and it is NOT enough. I cannot live without the subtle combined flavors of chicken, liverwurst and that soupçon of rubber. Che bello! Che delizioso! I must have MORE! Sigh...this foster lady is ruining me.

My second confession...yes, I did do a poo on foster lady's foot during our passagiata last night. Yes, I did do it on purpose. Yes, I did enjoy it. Yes, it was the perfect consistency to be impossible to remove without hot water and scrubbing. What can I say, I can tell a good dog joke and laying a perfect log of poo across her shoe right there in the middle of the main street was l'ultimo in dog jokes. How do they say in English? That is how I roll!

I'm sure to have more updates later on what else I can poo on or eat. I know, I know.. you are all envious of my exciting life. If the envy gets too much for you, may I suggest chewing on a Kong? It just makes everything soooo much better.

Alla prossima!

 

Ciao tutti!

I have visited Romania many times

 

Please can we have a photo of the great and mighty Tibor

 

May I ask, what was foster lady doing that meant she didn't notice the squatting-over-foot scenario unfolding beneath her nose?!

 

Really? I don't think I know anyone who has been there! This is all part of your former career as a super top secret counter intelligence operative, isn't it? It's ok, you don't need to answer.

 

I'll try to take some better pics of him this weekend, but there are some photos of him earlier in the thread, too.

In the meanwhile, here's some shamelessly lifted off Facebook (from my friend who has the rescue group so not too illegal or anything).

First the sad one, in the dog "shelter" (for lack of better term) in Romania:




Then some much happier ones:

 

Haha!

My husband was international director of a charity and, in the early days after the revolution, drove trucks with relief supplies to Romania. They then opened about 20 children's centres to help Mums keep their kids - many were put into orphanages due to poverty as Ceaușescu 'encouraged' huge families.

Him and my sons did two charity bike rides, one across Romania and one round it, visiting all the centres.

So Bună ziua to Tibor!

 

If only I could have found someone to bet with, I would have won money on the fact that YOU would be the one to ask that question.

Tibor had a large poo on the main street in the old town - very narrow but shared with humans, bikes, buses - I was picking up that poo, plus trying to keep him out of the line of fire from traffic. I tie up the bag with the first poo, look down, and there was this perfect log of loose poo going across my trainers and over the laces. Ugh.

It was one of those, "Do I laugh or cry?" moments. You gotta laugh...

And I honestly did think, "I really should take a photo of this or Fiona won't believe me." Would have done it, too, if my hands weren't full of dog poo bags and leash!

 

Priceless!!

 

Wow, that's amazing!

If you ever feel like channeling Tibor in Romanian, you've got the job.