If you're planning on purchasing a wolf hybrid... and if I were to do it again... here is my advice:
Make sure to go hog crazy on the photos in the first 6 months. I took insane amounts of photos, cut back (because I was afraid of becoming the crazy "first time mother" that takes 20 pictures of her first child drooling or something equally nutty), and now regret that I don't have more of her from that age. They grow up too fast. I also regret not buying a larger SD card for videos to be longer than the ones that I got.
If you and your spouse don't already have children this will be a view of some VERY related methods of dealing with this breed. Although, myself, I haven't had children... I can only imagine from being around enough/babysitting my fair share.
The breed is SO smart but the real key is to always have your dog around you when you're home from work (even if she's in her kennel), so that she's your pack member.
Socialize her LOTS when she's 3 months + (not too young because you don't want everyone's dirty hands touching a puppy too young). Jason and I lived 30 mins outside of town, a lot of our friends didn't want to drive that far to come see us so one regret is that we didn't socialize Tundra as much as we would have liked to.
On the other hand, she's a lot more protective of us, a lot more attached to a small handful of people who did come around(which can be viewed as a good thing). But if Jason and I wanted to go on vacation it makes it a lot more difficult to find someone to look after her now that we've moved to ON and she isn't used to anyone around here that came to visit often.
Decide before with your spouse what rules are you going to have for things like the dog sleeping on the bed, jumping up on couches, kennel training/ verses not (I do NOT regret kennel training her!!), walking techniques (is she going to always be on the right/left/ between you two or is she going to be allowed to walk ahead) -- you laugh but Jason and I didn't communicate before we started walking her and we weren't consistent with the same technique (although I like to jog so mine are a bit different).
Wolf-hybrids are smart, they can be trained very easily if done from a young age, its just a matter of figuring out with your spouse how you want to train your wolf-hybrid, what you're going to allow and in what situation. You'd be surprised at how many things we bend on. I started out at "No, the dog is NOT allowed on our bed, EVER. EVER!" to "The dog is allowed on our bed only just before bed if we're watching movies and she has to be on a special "Dog" blanket so she doesn't get her hair all over our duvet.
As I've been laid off it's bend further to when Jason leaves for work and I crawl back into bed to warm up. I'll turn over and see Tundra pushing her boundaries creeping slowly off her special blanket. She knows better. She's too smart. (:
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Moving 5,000 Km Across Canada
Wow, honestly didn't think anyone read this blog... okay so I've been asked to update... thank you for your kind words of encouragement. There are a couple reasons we haven't updated in a long time:
So how did the 5 day (1,000 km per day) drive go? It was long. It was cramped.... Tundra had the most luxurious place in the entire car. We drive a Pontiac Vibe with a hatchback section that is PERFECT for our dog (its completely plastic back there to contain her dog hair and she can't bug us while we're driving because she's in the back).
We stuffed it to the brim with her dog bed (photo to the right) and our bedding for our destination under that. Lets just say she's uber spoiled! I could barely move my front feet where I was sitting in the passenger seat.
So how did our dog handle the move? She was a doll the entire trip. She is so smart too... every couple hours I would bring her water to keep her hydrated but she would drink VERY little until we would stop at a hotel for the night. She LOVED the hotel experience! My goodness her favorite part was sniffing every single corner of the place until the lights went out.
We were worried that she wouldn't sleep ... and the first night I was sort of right... she wasn't used to the unfamiliar place so I switched sides of the bed with Jason (he was the majority driver and needed his sleep) and laid next to her and held her leash so that she only had enough length to lay down or reposition herself. When she knew that she could no longer roam around the room she was a good girl and finally laid down to sleep. She got better and better...she is now a fully certified travel/hotel dog lol
Tundra was a very very good girl the entire trip. She would lay down or she would look out the back hatch and the only time we had problems with her was when a semi truck decided it would be a good idea to tail gate us. She would start barking and yelling at him to get off our ass. It was funny. Good girl.
We packed the car to the brim and at one point we couldn't even see her (barely) but EVERY time she would hear us open a bag of chips she would be all stealthy and creep up over our junk to come see us in the front seat to have a treat LOL.
Here is a photo of the mooch.
The nice thing about wolves is they are used to being starved for days if not weeks on end. We only starved Tundra the first day of the trip so she would understand there is a LOT of driving to be done and not as much time to stop every 2 hours for a poop. But she was very good, as well, about going bathroom when I commanded her on our gas-ups.
This move was very important for her... As you can see we didn't have a lot of room in our car so we decided to leave her kennel with the movers and not bring it. Tundra has slept every night of her life in a kennel (we kennel trained her) and now all of a sudden we drive forever and she gets to sleep on her bed in our room. Well... she just LOVES it... not to say she didn't love her kennel. I would find her very often sleeping in it with the door open before we left for our trip.
Tundra now sleeps in the kitchen in front of the side door (her favorite spot) or in our room on the floor on her own bed. She is a good girl that will wake me up only once in the morning for a pee.
Her yard is very large and completely fenced in the new house... we can now let her out the side door to pee instead of having to leash her and take her EVERY TIME SHE HAD TO FART let alone do her business. That was annoying!
Because we are living in a large(r) city in Ontario now, she is getting more socialized. We moved Nov 24th 2010 and were in ON by Nov 29th 2010 I have been fortunate enough to have some amazing friends here already. We invited two couples over for New Years and even though Tundra is very not used to people being around she was an angel and found refuge under the coffee table. This location was ideal for the least amount of being bugged and petted by everyone (she doesn't like strangers to pet her).
I have to say I love Tundra more and more as she ages and grows. She now listens very well, she's much more obedient. And I find that I only have to punish her once for something she did wrong and she will 9/10 times NEVER do it again.
We have also switched Tundras diet now that we're not living near our friend/trainer/breeder how would feed her if we were late coming home from work. Without the constant switch up in food, Tundra is now on a Raw meat diet. You can buy the food in tubes that you slice up. The main reason for the switch, aside from comments received telling me how horrible iams is for dogs, because she wouldn't eat her food anymore! She would literally lick all of the kibble clean of the wet food but refused to eat it anymore. So we decided that it was now in our budget to feed her Raw food. It probably costs us about $70-$80/month but she's our fur baby and she's worth it. I usually make extra rice and mix it in with her food. She now loves dinner time again.
Something adorable is how when we first moved here and Jason started work, she would sit for hours by the window watching for him to come home. She would cry every time she would see another dog being walked and she would just stand there at the window that was perfect height for her... waiting for her "Dad" to return.
So I leave you with photos of a very confused dog in the packing stage of our journey. She knew something was up-- she became more whiney, she wouldn't leave our sides. I joke that I should have named her "Shadow". Shes much closer to us now, as well, because she doesn't have anyone else around like she did at her last home (4 other dogs - 2 other humans around).
If you liked reading our blog, try Ash's blog from Aberdare Wales, United Kingdom -- http://raising-luna.blogspot.com/
He is writing about his experience raising a wolf-hybrid too.
Til next blog...
- The economy has effected us so badly that we have finally made a decision to move 5,000 Km across Canada where our line of work is more stable.
- Moving/packing/unpacking
- New Job for the boyfriend/ job hunting myself
- Life gets carried away!
We stuffed it to the brim with her dog bed (photo to the right) and our bedding for our destination under that. Lets just say she's uber spoiled! I could barely move my front feet where I was sitting in the passenger seat.
So how did our dog handle the move? She was a doll the entire trip. She is so smart too... every couple hours I would bring her water to keep her hydrated but she would drink VERY little until we would stop at a hotel for the night. She LOVED the hotel experience! My goodness her favorite part was sniffing every single corner of the place until the lights went out.
Tundra was a very very good girl the entire trip. She would lay down or she would look out the back hatch and the only time we had problems with her was when a semi truck decided it would be a good idea to tail gate us. She would start barking and yelling at him to get off our ass. It was funny. Good girl.
Here is a photo of the mooch.
The nice thing about wolves is they are used to being starved for days if not weeks on end. We only starved Tundra the first day of the trip so she would understand there is a LOT of driving to be done and not as much time to stop every 2 hours for a poop. But she was very good, as well, about going bathroom when I commanded her on our gas-ups.
This move was very important for her... As you can see we didn't have a lot of room in our car so we decided to leave her kennel with the movers and not bring it. Tundra has slept every night of her life in a kennel (we kennel trained her) and now all of a sudden we drive forever and she gets to sleep on her bed in our room. Well... she just LOVES it... not to say she didn't love her kennel. I would find her very often sleeping in it with the door open before we left for our trip.
Tundra now sleeps in the kitchen in front of the side door (her favorite spot) or in our room on the floor on her own bed. She is a good girl that will wake me up only once in the morning for a pee.
Her yard is very large and completely fenced in the new house... we can now let her out the side door to pee instead of having to leash her and take her EVERY TIME SHE HAD TO FART let alone do her business. That was annoying!Because we are living in a large(r) city in Ontario now, she is getting more socialized. We moved Nov 24th 2010 and were in ON by Nov 29th 2010 I have been fortunate enough to have some amazing friends here already. We invited two couples over for New Years and even though Tundra is very not used to people being around she was an angel and found refuge under the coffee table. This location was ideal for the least amount of being bugged and petted by everyone (she doesn't like strangers to pet her).
I have to say I love Tundra more and more as she ages and grows. She now listens very well, she's much more obedient. And I find that I only have to punish her once for something she did wrong and she will 9/10 times NEVER do it again.
We have also switched Tundras diet now that we're not living near our friend/trainer/breeder how would feed her if we were late coming home from work. Without the constant switch up in food, Tundra is now on a Raw meat diet. You can buy the food in tubes that you slice up. The main reason for the switch, aside from comments received telling me how horrible iams is for dogs, because she wouldn't eat her food anymore! She would literally lick all of the kibble clean of the wet food but refused to eat it anymore. So we decided that it was now in our budget to feed her Raw food. It probably costs us about $70-$80/month but she's our fur baby and she's worth it. I usually make extra rice and mix it in with her food. She now loves dinner time again.
So I leave you with photos of a very confused dog in the packing stage of our journey. She knew something was up-- she became more whiney, she wouldn't leave our sides. I joke that I should have named her "Shadow". Shes much closer to us now, as well, because she doesn't have anyone else around like she did at her last home (4 other dogs - 2 other humans around).
If you liked reading our blog, try Ash's blog from Aberdare Wales, United Kingdom -- http://raising-luna.blogspot.com/
He is writing about his experience raising a wolf-hybrid too.
Til next blog...
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