Westgate Chips Ahoy

Why are you lining us up in the back yard? Aren't we supposed to go for a walk?	Now can we go for a walk?	We're waiting....	Oh, man, he's singling me out.
I'm supposed to be on a walk now.	Hey guys! Don't leave without me, okay?

Ooh! It smells so good in here.	Where's the kibble?	Maybe I could sleep in here.
Mmmm. The walls sure taste good.	I hear kibble in a bowl. Maybe it's time to leave.

Canidae

Dobies make good beds	I'll take that treat now	When we're done, can I play with those other dogs?	You want me to stay? What's up with that?
How long is a minute? People say I'm a minute man, but they pronounce it different.	Whew. Time for a down.	I'm a little uncertain. Is this first down?	Is that treat for me?
If you wouldn't hold it so high, I could get it.	Sure I can stand on my hind legs... ...just not when you have the camera.	I'll get it... ...by the hairs of my chinny- chin-chin	Could I tear up my diploma, please?
Okay, we're done. Where's the party?

Dogs make nice mattresses... ...if they'd just stay still	I always wanted to be as big as Ani It merely requires perspective	Sit This isn't very comfortable
Down There, that's better	I'd like to stand up now	Cookies?

What's this birthday thing of which they speak?	Does it come with a cookie?	I bow to your superior cookie provision	I'd like one of those...
Did you say cookie?

There they go! Why can't I go running off like the bigs? I'd come back, I promise I would.	Any toy foxes here?	It can't be a badger... ...cause I'm not a dachshund.	Smells like nobody's home

Upside down? It's easier to get to the wheels. But I really like chewing on the bumper best.	Enough of that...

Now we have made the decision to snip and it all centers around his bad leg. He doesn't use his leg with the sore knee the way he uses his other side, so his leg is not as muscular and because he tends to be stronger on the left than the right, he stands curved so that his opposite front leg is getting over muscled. No show dog here!

I'm a little disappointed. He's the closest I've ever gotten to showing a dog, but otherwise we love him/adore him/find him tremendously entertaining. We're even going to give him a shot back at agility to see if he can manage--the vet suggested going ahead.

His snip surgery will be later this week, I think. We're not really in a hurry since it's not done early, we have time. He's ten months old now and he and Dennis have continued the pissing contest but we are handling that with belly bands. Chips has gotten his off--once after he peed and once before. Dennis has kept his on. It's been okay. We're managing with it.

We took everybody to Arizona and there are new photos but they aren't up yet. Chips was very intrigued by a badger hole and that was pretty cute.

Curt walks all three dogs every morning, but before they go he sends Chips in to wake me up. I love it!! I sometimes am just dozing and I hear Chips' little feet running across the living room and then he jumps up on the bed and comes and kisses my face. I wake up with a smile every morning--but one of those closed mouth smiles because otherwise he sticks his tongue in my mouth, LOL.

One thing we noticed is that the walks tire out the Bigs for the rest of the day, but Chips rebounds after a few hours and I have to retire him out. Yesterday we played ball and he had fun. I put him out in the front with his harness and 15 foot drag lead so I can catch up with him if he tries to leave the yard. But he's more interested in the ball than in escaping. Fortunately it's finally cool enough to be able to do this. A few days this summer I hated even letting them out in the afternoon to potty 'cause it was so hot.

By next week I hope to be able to take them all to the park during the day and let them all play ball and get in a good run. Depends on the weather, though. In October we're going back to Arizona for another few days to enjoy the cold and set up the dog pen and do some more work on making the camp more attractive.

I'd totally given up on the show thing until I got the Santa Ana KC premium list. It's in September, it's so convenient. Maybe I should enter him and if he gets bupkis, I'll snip him. Sure would like to have Susan and Annie see him again, but I am bad about calling them. I vow to call Annie tomorrow to try to set something up. Maybe while I'm in the Valley, I can see Bev, too, or head up to see Tanya.

He's just so purty and has such a sweet disposition and gaits so well and it would be fun to get in the ring with him. But I also have to figure out how to groom him. Susan....oh, Susan!!!

Sometimes even close watching doesn't seem to help decide which times Chips is teasing Ani over her bone and Ani doesn't care vs. the times that Chips is teasing her over the same bone and Ani has to get up and BURF him since he's been ignoring giant dobe fangs exposed by the lips that cover them being peeled back and held there.

I guess sometimes ya just wanna chew on the bone without a toy fox terrier boy standing perpendicular to your nose. *shrug*

I have to say the the moments after the burf are the ones I really wish I could get on video. Chips backs up and looks at us like "Wha? I wasn't doin' nuthin' and that bad thing YELLED at me!" Then he starts an elaborate series of locomoting back into the danger zone through slides, flips and rolls so he can stay lower than Ani's face even though Ani is lying down. Or I wish I had to clicker to free shape on soe of the belly crawling, loops and rolls.

Fun to watch and fun to snuggle like a baby, tooo.

It's not hurt as much as it was initially, but today after many days in a row of it seeming to be fine, I noticed him limping again and standing with it off the ground. I need to get a pool for him to swim in to exercise so the muscles on his right don't continue to atrophy. He is slightly more muscular on the left...nothing most people would notice, but I can see it.

Also we need to get some new pictures. He's gotten to what is probably his mature size. He is about 11 inches and about 8 pounds, but I don't know for absolute sure on either weight or height. I am learning to see the difference between him and dogs of similar height but lower weight. He seems to have a deeper chest, IMO.

He's been doing something sort of annoying at dinner time. He does his trick for his supper and then refuses to go in his crate to eat it. Instead he jumps up on the sofa and runs around the room like a goof. This started very suddenly and we have no clue what it's about. I'll write about the solution later.

Chips is doing really well. His knee seems to be back to normal and every morning Curt gets up early to beat the heat and takes all three dogs for a walk. It's pretty cute and they're loving it!

We are working on teaching him some new tricks and integrating them along with old tricks, so he "sits" "stands" "stands & watches me", "bows", "downs" and sometimes offers amusing variations on these depending on how desperate he is for whatever treat it is that he's getting.

He's doing well with Ani and Dennis. I'm embarrassed to admit that because I've had some other things going on lately he still is unneutered. He and Dennis are occasionally a little touchy, but Dennis DOES NOT want to get into a confrontation with him, so they both back off.

ONe of his favorite games is to watch Dennis and Ani wrestle on the floor while he runs back and forth on the sofa yarping up a storm...like the captain of an old fighting ship!

he also loves to puppy up to me where he puts his head under my chin and rubs it around. He does this to Ani, too!!! Then sometimes when she's lying on the floor working on staying cool, he'll have to lie down next to her and chew her ears...but just a little bit!

He is still a tremendous joy! (First I typed "job" instead of "joy" and he's a little bit of that, too.

We've pretty much decided not to show Chips. A lot of this has to do with our new goal to move to horse property some time next year, so I don't want to spend extra money on travel, entry fees and so forth and because my health is so touchy, I always end up entering more shows than I attend.

Also, he is still having some problems with his knee and I don't see him being able to show and walk correctly without pain meds or surgery on his knee. Right now, just being a dog he can do without prophylactic knee surgery (unless it isn't substantially better by the time it's cool enough to go back to agility) but if I showed him, the surgery would be necessary now, I think.

He's a lovely, lovely boy and I would like to show a dog sometime in the future once we get our housing situation straightened out and so forth, but Chips won't be the one. I can practice with him, though, LOL. As I've said, he doesn't have to be a conformation dog to make us smile, he just has to be his happy, sweet, silly, loving self.

Which he will be with one sort of major "alteration." Yes, it's time to have him neutered as the next step in dealing with the pissing contest. His boyness won't magically go away after he's fixed, but fixing is part of correcting the behavior.

So, sometime next week, he'll be going in for the surgery. I'll update when I know when.

So, yeah...Chips isn't neutered and Dennis is, but there are certain things that make them both know they are boys and that there is a girl here, too, Ani who is spayed. Dennis assumes Ani is his bitch, Chips would like to assume that, but it isn't working that way.

So we have been having some "marking" problems in the family room and laundry room. I have not been healthy enough to be Cesar marching everyone every day, but I can deal with this situation by not allowing it to occur. So I've instituted a "nobody is loose and unsupervised in the family room" plan and it seems to be working okay and not being too much of a hassle.

I spend so much time in there anyhow, that having them all in there is more common than not and neither of them is bold enough to pee with me right there. When I leave the room, I just take Chips with me because I suspect he does it first and Dennis follows. This has worked perfectly for two days. No peeing yesterday or today. It's a little bit of a hassle, but I'm willing to do it just as we did jail for pillow rippers earlier in Ani's life.

Frankly I wish I would make up my mind to show Chips and start doing it OR just get him neutered, but it hasn't been a month yet since his last anesthesia, so there's that too. And now that the behavior has started, it will be harder to stop even after he's fixed. But Dennis had bad habits when he was young and neutered late, too, and he's turned out all right.

Chips' knee is quite a bit better. He is jumping up on the couch again and I don't think I've seen him limp but one or two times. I guess it's time to start looking for shows to visit (to get used to the ring) and shows to enter so that we can see if he's got anything anyone likes or not.

I've been corresponding with some UKC people on their Yahoo list. They are more active than the AKC list which I'm a little sorry about because UKC shows here are so rare and Chips can't be entered in them anyhow. But at least one person from that list also shows AKC so that's good.

I'm starting to think that maybe this is really my breed. By that I mean the breed I want to really, really get involved in. I love TFTs and there are good reasons for showing a newish breed in AKC since you kinda get to know everybody around and I would like that.

So is there a little black tri show bitch in our future? We shall see. Not before we move, that's for sure.

I realized after Curt put up new Chips photos, that I never mentioned what happened with his knee: Dr. Beely said it was not a bad injury at all...that he may have torn a little piece of his anterior cruciate ligament or stressed it, but did not need surgical intervention at this time. He said that if the injury recurs or becomes chronic, he MIGHT need to go in and put in a stitch or two, but for the time being we should let Chips decide how much he can and can't do until it heals.

Well, it's taken some patience on my part to just let nature take its course...I really wanted to hear that there was something that could be done NOW to fix it, but after it's been a couple of weeks, I can see that Chips is limping much, much less...only a step or two here and there and he can even run and play a bit.

He is hesitant about jumping up on the couch or the bed, which is great 'cause that means he's limiting himself AND the other reason it's great is that he doesn't get stuff up there and have to jump down. For the time being, we lift him up on the couch or bed and also lift him down.

Showing, showing, showing. I hate to say it but I still want to show him...or try at least. But Dr. B described him as "cow-hocked" which I didn't think that he was and that kind of stopped me flat again.

What I am thinking about is trying to arrange a meet with Susan so she can see him yet again and help me decide if it's worth it. If she's iffy because of the changes his body have gone through, then we'll have him neutered. As it is I am putting off neutering him because he was just anesthetized for his teeth and I want to give him a break between anesthesias given that he's such a little guy.

He is so funny because he really has decided that Ani is HIS bitch although she doesn't seem to understand that nor does Dennis. He kind of tries to guard her by curling up next to her, but she takes off half the time. Sometimes he gives Dennis the old fish-eye when he is around Ani and DEnnis just seems to sigh and shake his head over such silly teenaged antics.

The biggest problem right now? Marking. I've caught Chips in the act itself but I am not completely absolving Dennis. We do sometimes keep them separated with Chips having to be in his pen (urine free) when I am not directly supervising him. He needs more leadership style exercise which he hasn't been getting so much because of his knee, but now that he is getting better, we are starting to take him on short walks.

Probably the best news from Dr. B is that he encourages us to keep him doing agility because it is a lot better for him than letting him lose muscle tone. He is getting better enough that a return to agility this summer (weather permitting) is likely.

To some extent after the dental surgery and after he hurt his knee I was worried I had made a bad decision in getting another dog, maybe I leaped in to get this dog too soon, etc., but Chips is such a great little guy I can't have regrets very long. I know he's supposed to be our little pup.

In fact, I'm so taken with TFTs I've actually entertained the thought of going into showing and breeding them. I wouldn't breed Chips, but I'm thinking about maybe a little show bitch sometime in the future. But this is sort of only in my secret heart of hearts.

It's the other leg that hurts sometimes So I'll scratch with this one	But not while you're watching	I'm going to rest now	My, what a long nose I have... Better to get into trouble with.
This leg makes a nice pillow

We are taking him in on Tuesday night at 9:30 pm. This vet (Dr. Beeley) likes to work nights. He is our favorite vet in the practice and it's a relief to have Chips see him.

Chips is doing okay...we're trying to keep him a little busy, but not doing things with his knee much. AND he's not supposed to be chewing really either.

Chips seems to be feeling better today, but he's cautious with his knee. He doesn't want to jump up on anything and we've been preventing him from jumping down. C took the Bigs on a walk, so Chips stayed home with me and puppied around in the covers in the bed and then played with his bee until they all came home. He was very excited at snack time and ran faster into the living room than I've seen him go in the last couple of days. I'm still calling the vet tomorrow. Maybe it's just a strain.....