Champ has been here for a month now and he is still waiting.  He is slow about giving up his extra pounds.  He has dropped close to 4# which is a lot but he has more to give up.  He has taken one good road trip to Ft. Bragg at Easter and survived that.  He did come back with fleas which created a separate problem.  He is apparently very sensitive to them and before I realized what was going on, he had removed hair from both sides of his waist.

We made the trip to the vet the next day because it never crossed my mind that he might have fleas.  My guys had a prior dose of Frontline Plus.  We are generally flea free around here and I thought I had treated him but apparently I did not.  The vet had given him a shot to alleviate itching 9 days prior so he was immediately suspicious and he flipped Champ over and found the first hitchhiker.  It could happened at Ft. Bragg, there are dogs there, we visited a dog park, plus my wife takes in bottle baby kitties and the fleas may have come in with the first litter of the year, who knows?   Still,I felt embarrassed that I had missed the cause but the solution was easy.  He got one more shot just to be sure he didn’t scratch too much and then I went home and broke out the Frontline.  I didn’t want to take a chance so everyone got dosed.

The itching has stopped but the hairless patches are still evident.  It will take a couple of months before enough hair comes back in to cover them up.  But, it will happen, it is just hair.

We tried one sleepover with a potential adopter.  This should have been an ideal home but…  Champ is a very loving dog, willing to get along if the pack leader takes charge, unless there is a food issue.  I guess anyone who is being held on a very restricted diet might have an issue with food.  Anyway, this time, it was not the food so much as he went to the empty dish of the alpha bitch,who rightfully insisted it was her dish, and a tussle ensued.  Not a good thing because in that household, no one is allowed to challenge her.  Those are house rules and all dogs need to understand that house rules come before pack rules.  It may have worked out anyway but the  alpha  bitch was just too upset with his presence.  As a result, he came back before the first night.  We tried, but he is happy being back with his pack.

He has been part of another adventure, also.  The dogs can’t get access to underneath the house but the platform used to raise the heater off the garage floor does connect to the flooring so that there is an air flow from under the house into the garage.  It isn’t big but it does make visitors to the underhouse aromatically visible to terriers.  Anyway, the dogs have been raising hell with that area off and on.  There is no doubt that some creature has set up camp under the house.  I have no reason to go under there, it is just not easily accessible.  The only access is through a closet floor and it is a rather cramped place.  In the Spring, it could still be quite damp from the winter rains.  I only go there if necessary.  I do try to keep the side vents in place but some creature, probably a terrier, has systematically removed those that are on the side away for the garage.  I try to replace them on occasion but recently, the underhouse monster has literally thrown one aside and has stripped out some insulation I had put under the kitchen area years ago.  I found clumps of insulation tossed outside that vent,next to some rose bushes, and the dogs couldn’t done that.  I have suspicions but you never know for sure.

Anyway, in the past week, my guys have killed 4 separate baby possums, on different nights, and brought them into the garage to show me.  Now, Riley, the old man is surely the hunter in chief but late  yesterday afternoon, my laid back pretty boy, Declan, kept going on for a long time but I looked but I never saw anything until I went into the garage in the early evening, before dinner and the prize was laid out on the floor and everyone was ignoring it.

I do have to tell you that I did have a major concern the other night.  I have a HavaHart live trap and I set it outside the vents on the other side of the house, protected from the dogs.  I was hoping for a possum mother in it come morning.  Over the years, I have caught 7 or 8 of them and released them in the wild, across the freeway so the traffic would protect us from further invasion.  About 9:30PM, the strong odor of skunk came wafting through the screen door.  I didn’t look that night, nothing I could do at night and I really didn’t want to know what might be in the trap.  In the morning, thankfully, the trap was empty and the skunk was just a wandering aroma, not a visitor.  Today, after 4 nights, the trap is still empty, the dog biscuit is still there but the peanut butter seems to be gone.  I may try a different bait the next time.

Where does Champ fit into this, well, aside from going in the bark and growl fest at the underhouse beast, his need for protein kicked in the other day.  Riley was in the garage strutting around with this possum child hanging from his mouth, he wouldn’t give it to me, that is a Riles trait.  At one point, he decided that I might have something else he liked so he dropped it in his crate to set aside for later crowing.  Champ was ever vigilant and immediately snagged it.  There was a small chase as Riles insisted it was his, it wasn’t a big scene, just one tug of war which Champ won.  As I approached Champ, his need for protein kicked in, damn the diet, he wanted to eat it.  He settled down and started to chomp down. I didn’t want him to add those calories so I went after him.  I told him to stop, he did.  I told him to Give, to my amazement, for a dog who doesn’t seem to understand Sit, he simply dropped it, right on command.  I disposed of it, thanked Champ for his diligence but no treat.  Extra loving doesn’t come with calories.

So, for those who have the problem, if they are looking for a dog who will be willing to help reduce the rodent problem, Champ is still here and waiting for you to call.  And, just so I don’t forget, he loves to kill the water coming out of a hose or a sprinkler.

Earlier, I sent out e-mails to 15 different people who expressed recent interest in getting a Cairn.  I got a single response asking where he was in residence but nothing else,o follow up.  A later inquiry didn’t work out, for good reason, the couple is older and a they need a calmer dog.  Another inquiry was put off by his size, their current Cairn is a petite female and they had issues with mega Cairn, all more the reason to get his weight down.

So, our mega earthdog in training is still here and waiting…