Pepper 7 months old

Pepper 7 Months

Stella One Year

Ahhh, the joys of home ownership with pets.
An update on our clan! 

No, this isn't the movie poster to the Kevin Bacon movie Tremors, this is our front porch.

'That porch is just one long smorgasbord.'

Pepper ( 7 months) and Stella (1 year) chase in, out and around the porch. Also, they dig up what used to be a graveyard for the previous owner's cat's dead prey, and this is where Stella consumes her mousey conquests in peace. 

Stella healing from spay stitches in the sun.

Stella came at just the right time, I had been searching Craig's List for a female kitten (as they are better mousers), and saw a young girl who had rescued this kitten from a dog mauling, and currently couldn't keep the kitten in her small apartment.

We drove out and introduced Pepper to the kitten, they were liked each other right away.

The kittens name had to be changed (as it was the same as my Mother's - we thought that would be strange). I stressed over picking a name for a few days and finally thought of Stella. It fits her cranky old soul perfectly.

Also, it is a blast to yell out the back door!
 

"Stella!"

"Stella!"

Stella is a muted calico-stripe mix, she thinks she is a dog. I've never had a cat like this.

She obeys commands and is an excellent mouser, she eats her prey, does not give them as gifts, enjoys being outside, tries to follow us on walks and believes she and the dog should be outdoors 24 hours a day. I could not be more pleased! She has been a wonderful addition to our clan.


 
Pepper finished 12 weeks of puppy school with flying colors. She uses a gentle leader, but anywhere we walk, the moment I stop walking she stops, sits and looks up at me for direction. Unless she is surrounded by kiddos,only then do I get a quick glance because she is certain if she stares at kids, they will come over and let her lick them (this theory of her's works because of her soulful hound dog eyes and cute puppy grin).

Our goals at this point have mostly been met and in some ways exceeded!

'Another bath, yes please?'

Both Pepper and Stella Love Bath time! This was very unexpected. It is absolute glee once they are out and being towel-dried off.  So please, if you come over to my house and see paw prints in my bathtub, please don't judge me! Any time they get a chance they jump in to see if they will get a bath.

Greet others without jumping. Pepper loves all other animals and people and if she is on a leash, she knows to be gentle, to sit and let people pet her and not to jump. 

Be able to obey all commands with distractions. She has done perfectly for months with just me, and now she can do this whenever she is on her leash in public, with distractions, at a park, or in a store. Her biggest distraction is Stella.

'I leaves it, I  just sniffing phone'

Learn 'leave it' when she walks by treats or new smells. This is a huge success because of that hound dog nose of hers. I read somewhere that humans have 5 million scent receptors and Pepper has more than 225 million! Very happy this is under control.

An I Need To Go Outside sound....instead of just walking up and going pee in front of Bridgie. She is not a very vocal dog, so we still have to keep an eye on her. She will whine a little, and her tail is really the best give away.

Stella Loves All Other Water Sources More Than Her Own Water Dish. I don't know what to say about this, she has her own water, the dog's water (two inside and two outside) and she prefers toilet water. I told you she thinks she is a dog. Our dog doesn't even do this.




What We Have to Work On

We have made slow yet successful steps in having Pepper not use the grass as a toilet, we will continue to work on it and perhaps next summer we will have clean grass!

With Pepper, our instructor suggested getting her to dance and to retrieve things; 'take this to Brandon' etc. This is not going as easily as we hoped. She will jump all day, but getting her to dance has been harder. We are almost there with having retrieve and take things on command.

Wrestle Time! (notice how Stella has Pepper
at the end of her leash just to tease!)

As I mentioned, Stella is a big distraction for Pepper. Stella likes negative attention, and just as most cats, decides at the most inopportune times to rile up the dog. They like to wrestle, play chase and sneak up and scare each other. 

We are working with Pepper to ignore the cat. Saying 'Look' causes Pepper to look and come over to us, but after a few minutes, the cat will get in front of her...and it starts again.
 

Stella crawling up to distract Pepper's play time

They both play rather gently with each other and they both enjoy it, it's really the noise (play hissing and play growling) that bothers me.

Also since the last time I posted, Pepper took her longest road trip (6hours one way) to my parent's house one weekend. She was in her kennel in the back of the truck and did great. She met my parent's new puppies, Cap (10 months) and Gracie (2 months).

Cap (red & white) Gracie (black & white)

They got along great. As it was only Gracie's second night in her new home, she kept us up all night crying (etc). No one, human nor animal got more than a couple hours of sleep, but it didn't stop Pepper.

The next morning she was ready to play and make friends! We were happily surprised to watch Pepper change her energy level and type of play depending on which dog she played with.

She was rough with Cap, keeping a fine line of dominance between them, then walking away when he got too upset (he is not used to being challenged on his own turf thank-you-very-much!). 

She was firm, gentle and motherly with Gracie, correcting her like a good Momma dog. I was very pleased, we never got to meet Peppers dog mother, so now we know what a great example she had!

Pepper was also spayed in the past few months, and handled it like a champ. The cat, sensing weakness, tried to get my hubby to gang up on the dog.

'Gets her! Don't let her up!'

How she has grown!

Pepper 4 Months

Pepper 7 Months