Supervised harmony

Hello again, we're back at you for an update on Buffy and LaFeet's slowly blossoming friendship!

Okay, maybe 'friendship' is an optimistic anthropomorphism, but at the very least, Buffy is now enjoying daily basement hang time with LaFeet and Athena free to roam (and full human supervision, of course). Buffy, as we know, is a chill gal, and LaFeet is much like your grandpa - he's gonna do what he wants because he's old and he's earned the right. As such, depending on the time of day (active or snooziful), as soon as the bunny pen is opened for him, LaFeet makes a beeline for his favorite activity station, the towel-filled carrier that doubles as a diggy box. Buffy is generally already cozy on the floor, sometimes with a nice bone and sometimes not, and each go about their very important business. Here are a couple of shots of Buff and LaFeet cheek to cheek (as in tushies):

 

 

 

Buffy sometimes takes the liberty of rolling over to sniff a bit at LaFeet's rear, a canine custom that LaFeet doesn't quite understand, but tolerates nonetheless. There have been a few more nose-to-nose greetings and Buffy does sometimes get up from her down-stay to do a lap or two before settling back down in an ever so slightly different spot than before. None of this bothers LaFeet in the least. The reason that no photos have been taken yet of Athena's overtures toward her potential poochy playmate is that they are all over with in the blink of an eye. She'll take one opportunity each session to run out from the pen to Buffy, sniff Buffy for a few seconds, and then hop back to the pen. She's calm and clearly undisturbed, but she's taking things at her own pace (which has kind of been the theme of this entire experience). Buffy has, in turn, tried wandering into the bunny pen a couple of times in order to partake of the delicious timothy hay that is stuffed conveniently into the buns' trough, but we've discouraged this behavior since we want to ensure that the bunnies' pen is always a haven only for them. Besides, there are plenty of hay threads that migrate outside of the pen's perimeter, and are available for snacking before I can sweep them up.

 

Meanwhile, Buff is enjoying as many nights on the town with the humans as possible, and has become a welcome sight for friendly neighbors, their dogs, and their children alike (Buffy loves kids and can't understand why some of the little ones recoil from her at first, despite polite behavior and calm tail wagging...I've tried to explain to her that her wolfish silhouette might remind the kids of big, bad wolves from fairy tales...that is, before they get to know that Buffy is really a kind-hearted princess!).

 

 



Buff and mama out at Cassatt's in Arlington

 

And finally, because I KNOW you're clamoring for them...LaFeet's feets:

 



Update! LaFeet steps forward...

Perhaps emboldened by composing yesterday's blog entry, husband and I seized an opportunity this evening. Buffy had spent a good hour+ with us downstairs chillin' with a bone while we enjoyed one of the more addictive Showtime series offerings via Netflix. Still in full relaxation mode, Buffy had her leash clipped to her collar, and then we opened the bunny pen door. Bunnies, as you may know, will not necessarily gallop out of their pen when initially summoned. So we waited for a while, petting Buffy as she lazed with her bone, and then LaFeet (by far the braver and more outgoing of the bun pair) made his move.

LaFeet hopped on out of the pen and came right over to touch noses with Buffy (who was in full side-recline). They sniffed for a few seconds, and then Buffy turned her head away, back to her bone. LaFeet went along his merry way, looping the room and then going back into his pen for some hay.

And thus went the first up-close-and-personal interaction between Buffy and bunny! Athena, by the way, elected to stay with the hay trough for the duration.

Happy Sunday,
Jenn

The sloooooow track

For you Buffy fans out there, we're happy to report that our slow track strategy is going quite well - we're now spending long sessions (movie-length!) downstairs as a furry family together, with the bunnies in their pen and Buffy relaxed in the room off-leash. We've graduated from 'treating' her continuously while downstairs, to treating her initially and periodically, and then treating her only when we first get downstairs and then when it's time to stand up and go upstairs together. Sometimes we'll give her a treat that she can savor for a while, like a dental bone or a frozen marrow bone, but she seems to have learned at this point that downstairs time is for laying down and optimum relaaaaaaxation. In that state, she gets nice pets, massages, and tasty treats.

Buff chillin' in the den - the bunnies' pen is off to the right

 

Buffy HAS developed an occasional taste for the wayward bunny poop nugget that is flung from the pen, and if she's feeling especially snacky she'll cruise about for a bit looking for morsels (she also likes a strand of hay now and then). She won't consistently listen to me when I call her away from her doody patrol, which means that I'm not 100% in control at all times downstairs. As such, I still feel there's work to do before we have the bunnies released when Buffy is in the room, even when she's starting in a down-stay and on-leash. She rarely even pays attention to the rabbits, but we are still cautious. We are strategizing a next step, with Buffy on-leash, being treated while in a down-stay (we still put the leash on her downstairs occasionally just so she's still used to it) and with the bunnies allowed to emerge from the pen. We'll keep you all posted!

 

Buffy's diet is also going well, and she has now been transitioned to high-quality food via slowly reduced portions. We're keeping her treats nutritious and relatively "micro" as well.

In other fuzz family news, LaFeet still detests being groomed, Athena loves strewing strands from her trough of hay, and Buffy is busy friending all of the neighborhood doggies.

 

 

 

 

A Shift in Strategy

Buffy has been a member of our family (ahem, Pack!) for two weeks now, and bunny room exposures continue, however via a different tack than the one through which we began. While Buff is the epitome of good/calm/chill upstairs, on walks, and virtually everywhere else, we recognized that her interest in sniffing around the rabbit pen, and her whining, while not necessarily aggressive, is NOT the calm/submissive/indifferent behavior we'd like to foster. Shortly after our last blog post, we chose to shift gears.

For the past week+, we've been taking Buffy downstairs for short, relaxing visits together in which we praise her focus on us, ending the sessions as soon as she exhibits anything other than utter calm (if she starts to look over repeatedly at the bunny pen, if she starts to whimper, if she shifts her weight around, if she licks her lips...basically anything other than a down-stay flopped attitude, like what she does upstairs). We also - and most critically! - enlisted the expert services of a professional dog trainer, who conducted a home visit with us yesterday morning and opened our eyes to a host of techniques to employ with Buffy. Vicki, with the All About Dogs outfit, made the utmost of our time together, and equipped us with the following important...and humbling...information:

1) Buffy is too tubby! Poor Buff, her veterinary visit only yielded that we should be conscious of her frame but not try to whittle it. Vicki very helpfully pointed out how to identify a healthy dog physique and suggested that Buffy's hesitancy to jump up onto things isn't early onset arthritis - it's heft! And...

2) the treat sizes we were giving to Buffy for training rewards (and for being adorable regardless) were wayyyyy too large. Vicki enlightened us to the fact that a dog experiences the same reward effect from a crumb of a treat as it does from a human-sized morsel - especially so for "high value" treats like pure meat. So, the chunks of hamburger at our family's 4th of July BBQ weren't the best ideas? Neither so entire cookies administered for a good sit/down/down-stay? Whoopsies, our bad. Resolving to reform for the dual purposes of getting Buffy to a healthier weight AND extending our training possibilities, we learned from Vicki to break up each morsel into tiny mini-morsels. Voilà, 1 treat becomes 30, and Buffy has 29 more opportunities to learn.

3) The stronger the bond we forge between us and Buffy, the more obedient she can be, and the better she can behave the way we want her to downstairs. So enhanced training begins, including much practice with calling her and keeping her attention on us, despite myriad distractions (Vicki calls it the "Name Game"). We've now prepared little baggies of micro-treats stashed around in different locations (bedroom, living room, kitchen, outdoor walking satchel), reserving the primo mmmm, delicious gotta-have-it high-value treats for downstairs. And what dog wouldn't want to behave like a pro downstairs in order to be rewarded 30 times with chicken breast shreds? I'm reminded of a story that my mom told me of an old friend trying to break her chocolate addiction and lose weight - slicing a Hershey's kiss into slivers with a razor blade. Hey, whatever works.

Vicki taught us all of this and more, and we're very grateful and believe the lesson fee to be money well spent. I haven't felt this good about a cash investment since buying my first salad spinner or the Otterbox for my phone or a simple coffee grinder. Everyday essentials worth every penny.

We are now working with Buffy downstairs at her own pace, with frequent (as frequent as possible) short visits that include lots of eye-contact work and praise/reward treats for total relaxation and focus on us. We're trying different configurations in the downstairs room, trying to see if Buff can stay super relaxed and eyes-on-us even when she can see the bunnies hopping around in the background. LaFeet and Athena, it should be noted, are still cool as cucumbers. I have used the opportunity to pet the bunnies briefly while Elliott remained focused with Buffy, and then returning immediately to pet Buffy for a job well-done.

Meanwhile, we need to prioritize helping Buffy shed a little weight. I have begun to ever so slightly decrease the dry portions of her meals, and of course we have changed the sizes of her treats. In addition, we've been exercising Buffy as much as possible - a challenge in the Northern Virginia summertime heat and humidity for a long-ish haired black and chunky pooch. Short and frequent walks are the ideal (toting cold water!), supplemented by training sessions and playing with toys inside the house. We keep our domicile comfortably cool, but the downstairs is especially chilled, and a very enticing place for Buffy to be in repose as a reward.

Lastly, we bought a FURminator brush. If you have a dog with an undercoat you should buy one. Log onto Amazon immediately, I'm serious. In fact, add the FURminator brush to the list above of worth while purchases - slide it right above the coffee grinder, but still below the salad spinner (a rabbit person to the core, after all).

Until next time,
Jenn

First Encounters

On our second night with Buffy, Elliott and I determined that she was ready to come downstairs on-leash to see the buns inside their pen. This would also give the buns an opportunity to see and hear Buffy and for us to gauge their reaction. Elliott's father came over a few months ago with his senior dog, to whom the bunnies reacted very nonchalantly, and we feel that Buffy has a similar energy. Again, Buffy is a very friendly and calm girl – I don’t think that a visual introduction with the bunnies would be possible this early on if that wasn’t the case.

First, I took her for a nice walk in order to get her as tuckered out and relaxed as possible. After she’d had some water and cooled off from the trek, we reattached her leash. With the buns secured inside their pen, I walked downstairs first and commenced the bunnies’ lettuce buffet. Elliott came down afterward with Buffy (on-leash) and sat with her at the other end of the room. She was definitely interested in what was going on inside the pen - while it wasn't aggressive posturing, it wasn't tail-wagging either, so Elliott would correct her and instead praise her when she sat calmly and laid down. The buns could see Buffy, but they were relaxed enough to keep eating. Athena had a large “hairy eyeball” trained right at Buffy, but she chowed down nonetheless. Buffy wouldn't stay seated for long, and would get up and prick her ears forward, but we repeated the process of having her sit and lay, followed by praise, a few more times.

...after about 4 or 5 minutes, we brought Buffy back upstairs, praised her enthusiastically, and then fed her dinner. We got tips on this technique from the writers of this very blog: show the dog that the bunnies are important members of our pack, that they are getting dinner first, and that doggy is rewarded for calm and friendly or indifferent behavior near the bunnies – then doggy gets dinner!

We did this again the second night, except that we added a new element - I reached in and spent some time petting the bunnies while they ate. Buffy started wagging her tail at this, and eventually laid down, wagging her tail and starting to whimper. Elliott corrected the whimpering, but we think that she may have been a little envious of my giving attention to the bunnies. Her energy was positive, however, sort of like she wanted to be part of the petting fest too. Afterwards, we took her upstairs, praised her and gave her dinner.

Elliott and I were so impressed by her nature during these dinnertime encounters that last night we took another small step toward pack bonding...

We brought her down together at the end of the evening (our schedules didn’t accommodate us being home at the same time when everyone in the fuzzy pack needed their dinners), with the goal of chillin’ out together for a decent chunk of time. I walked down first, followed by Elliott with the Buff on-leash. Buns were in their pen. As soon as we all sat down on the carpet, Buffy started wagging her tail and kept on wagging for almost the entire visit. She was so gentle and well-mannered, that we let her get a little closer to the pen and do some sniffin’ around it. The entire time we praised her for being such a nice and gentle girl and I petted the bunnies too. LaFeet and Athena were never startled or disturbed, and went about their business eating hay and chewing cardboard. The buns got some raisins as treats and then we gave Buffy a treat for sitting and laying with us humans. After sitting for a while near the pen, we turned on the TV and kept relaxing. After a bit, Buffy started whimpering and doing some yawning while she was laying near the bunny pen. Her tail had also stopped wagging. We sensed that she beginning to feel frustrated that she wasn't allowed to be inside with the bunnies, so we calmly called her back to the foot of the stairs, had her sit for a small treat, and then brought her upstairs and gave her praise and another small treat for a job well-done.

 

Buffy’s energy seemed friendly and calm during the visit (more than 10, less than 15 minutes), with the exception of her whining near the end (which meant that it was time to back upstairs!). We think that her whining near the end was her wanting to be “in” with the buns. Of course no one is ready for that, so we’ll keep bringing her down on-leash for longer and longer periods of pack relaxation time.

If anyone has any advice at this point, by the way, we are all ears! We are new to having a dog in our family, and while we've studied up (and are very fortunate to have found a great girl like Buffy), we want to keep learning from more experienced doggy/bunny bonders.

 

Stay tuned for next updates, and thanks for reading!

 

 

 

Kind of obsessed with LaFeet

Hi folks, my name is Jenn and I'm grateful to be sharing my fuzzy family's experiences with the readers of Dog Meets Bunny! Thanks to Michelle for inviting us.

First, it bears stating that I am a life-long rabbit person, who for the past 8 years has been borderline obsessed (and outright worshipful) of one of my rabbits, LaFeet. LaFeet is 12 years old this July 2013 (quite mature for a bunny!) and I adopted him while living in New Orleans in the year following Hurricane Katrina - those who know NOLA may recognize LaFeet's namesake in the famous pirate. LaFeet is a rescue from the DC shelter, and took an airplane - two, actually - to come and live with me in Louisiana. When I moved back to my native Northern Virginia in 2006, I decided to find LaFeet a doe-friend, and worked with House Rabbit Society to adopt a lovely voluptous lady bun, Athena. Usual for bonded rabbits, these two are the best of friends, and I'm convinced that cohabitating with a vivacious younger mate is part of why LaFeet is such a happy and healthy senior bun. Hopefully the same holds true for people, since I just married a younger man this spring - love of my life, Elliott.

I'll try not to shock anyone with the myriad tales of my LaFeet fandom, but suffice it to say that he was the inspiration for my Halloween costume a few years ago (a giant LaFeet suit sewn from scratch) and my mother helped me felt some of his fur to include as a rosette in my hair clip for Elliott's and my wedding a few months ago. So yeah, love that rabbit. Athena too, of course.

As such, Elliott and I hold our bunnies' health and safety in the highest, so our longing for a dog friend meant a careful consideration of the challenges. Everything I'd read online - including this blog! - said that it really comes down to the dog. Since Elliott and I would be first-time dog people, finding the right pooch would be especially key. We reached out to a few local rescue orgs and heard about a special girl named Buffy.

Meeting Buffy and her foster dad at a Lost Dog Rescue event last week, we knew she was the one! Buffy, a shepherdy mix who's about 6 years old, is very calm and friendly, likes other dogs and cats (foster dad reports Buffy/kitty snoozings), is totally housebroken, responds well to rewards, and is an all-around mellow happy girl. This was our chance. We wound up bringing Buffy home that evening!

We live in a two-story single family home with a yard, and the bunnies live in a big pen in the downstairs. The top of the stairs is blockaded with a gate. The first night we just let Buffy get comfortable with us in upstairs land, getting to know the house and the smells and the yard and our bedtime routine. The next day we had lots of fun with her and in the afternoon brought up one of the bunnies' favorite digging towels to sniff. Buffy calmly sniffed it and we praised her for being gentle and friendly. I also made sure to pet her and share the smells of her on my hands with the bunnies downstairs throughout the day.

Buffy responded so well to the *sniff* test that we decided to bring her downstairs on-leash that evening to see the bunnies be served their leafy greens dinner. Read the next entry to find out how that went!

New Guest Poster

We'll be bringing on a new guest poster soon. Jenn and her husband Elliott write:

"We just adopted a wonderful doggy girl named Buffy. She's about 6 years old, a rescued shepherdy mix (?) who is very sweet, well-trained, and calmly demeanored. We brought her home on Friday of last week!

"We also have two bonded rabbits in our furry family, one of which is 12 years old! LaFeet and Athena (LaFeet is the elder) are important parts of our lives and their well-being is paramount. I've had bunnies all of my life and have long wondered how to compatibly bring a dog into the household. Now that I have a life partner (and a staggered work schedule) and we're living in a single family home, it was time to go for it. I was actually inspired by some of the stories on your blog."

We're looking forward to hearing how Buffy and the bunnies work out together!

THE CAST

LaFeet: Object of Worship (courtesy Houndstooth Photography)

Athena: Voluptuous Younger Lady (courtesy Houndstooth Photography)

Buffy: The Happy Hound