This is a blog about our Tibetan Spaniel puppy called Finlay. I'll try to tell you a little bit about his story as he grows up in his first few months.
Nina Ottosson puzzles, Finlay has had a go at one. If you don't know what they are visit Nina Ottosons site to find out more. They really are fantastic ways to keep your pet amused (other toy sites are available!). We preferred to go with the all plastic variety as they are easier to clean and with our previous Tibbies, they would have just chewed the wooden ones whereas the plastic version we have is pretty durable. Not indestructible, it isn't a toy we'd leave Finlay with unattended..... The puzzle we have is classed as "moderate" level difficultly. Our previous Tibbies had a mixed experience with it. Nemo was a lazy boy and really couldn't see the point of doing the hard work and would just look at you and say "do I have to"? He would get there in the end, but he would just plod through it and would rather give up if it was taking too long. Louie on the other hand was persistent and would work at it, it was food after all, although he took a while to figure it out. I've said enough about Finlay and his intelligence over the past couple of weeks, so can you guess how he did with it? Naturally, there's a video.....
More Finlay ball playing antics.... This time with a full-size football! He came across an abandoned football in our local park, even though it isn't much smaller than him, he decided it was time for a kick around. How a 4 month old pup with a small mouth manages to grab hold of a football I don't know, but he does. Clearly he is very pleased with himself.....
I said I'd report back on the puppy romp from last Saturday, well it didn't go entirely to plan. Finlay was excluded for a short period for being too much of a hooligan. When he goes off to play he plays a bit rough and goes totally deaf. The dog trainers are adamant he needs to change his ways and I can see their point (they are erring on the side of caution).....but what is a 4 month old puppy to do when let loose in a field full of other puppies?! It is a tricky one, when there are no distractions he will come when called pretty much 100% of the time. But not at puppy romp. I think it is a matter of time, he'll get there, but he isn't ready yet. It was a stressful time for us, but Finlay loved it. We'll probably go again this coming Saturday, so look out for another thrilling episode of "Finlay annoys the dog trainers" :-)
Finlay had a busy day today, he went and met a few other Tibbies at the Portsmouth & Southsea dog show in Havant. It would have been the first time he had seen other Tibbies since he left his birth home in Perth and he certainly recognised his own kind - I think all dogs do. It was a joy to see him interact with them, dogs and bitches of all ages saying hello to him, he seemed more tuned into them than he does with other breeds of dog. He did try his classic 'mounting' trick on a lovely looking lady, who told him off in no uncertain terms - which was just what Finlay needs, a lesson in manners. He was in love, but I think the message was received. It was really interesting to see another breeder, Pauline Bevis, give Finlay a quick workout, getting him to 'watch me' and stand when asked. It was great to see how quickly he reacts and it seems entirely possible that he could be trained to go in the show ring. We know he is clever enough as he picks up other commands quickly, but seeing someone else work him was great. Mind you, the big lumps of chicken (not sure what it was actually) probably helped. But still, we are giving some serious thought to trying our hand at showing Finlay. We need to find a local ringcraft session so we can try him out. He is only 4 months old and you can start showing from 6 months, so he has a couple of months to practice. Right now, he is definitely not ready, he'd want to go play with all the other puppies. We spent a happy couple of hours at the dog show before Finlay was obviously getting tired, so we went home with a very snoozy pup, didn't hear a peep out of him in the car*. I think he was a bit hit with the other Tibbie owners there.... *Car-wise, I think we have cracked it. He whines briefly at the start of the journey, but soon settles. On the 25 minute journey to Havant, he barely made a sound, this is good. When we got home, we did indeed have one tired puppy. He just about made it inside the front door before he crashed.
Later on, we "rollered" him. This isn't something we do seriously, it is just for fun. We had to sticky-roller our clothes off from the dog show, as Fin is shedding puppy fluff at a rate of knots right now, so he is getting frequent brushes. After we've done us, Fin comes up and asks we roller him too. So with a not very sticky roller, he gets done and loves the attention.....actually I'm really not sure what he likes about the process, but the approach is very deliberate on his part.....this is the result:
Finlay was 17 weeks old today. So what are the latest developments at the Finlay household....? Pigeons, they are being sized up. From his side of the fence, he sits and stalks them, I think the pigeons are being far too casual in their disregard for Finlay, his time will come. Fair enough some of the wood pigeons are pretty much the same size as Finlay, but I've heard rumours that Balgay Tibbies can catch pigeons....I can't say I'm looking forward to that, but Finlay will most certainly give it his all. We may actually have ourselves a ball chaser. Our previous two Tibbies couldn't care less about balls and fetch, they just never really got it. And yet Finlay not only knows what a ball is, he will both chase and fetch it (and of course chew it). I wonder if it is just a natural thing in some dogs and not in others. There there are those fences, Finlay has never liked them. They prevent him from going where he wants to go, he has made it his mission to point out exactly where the weak points in our fencing are, constantly. He has gone over, under and eventually will go through. He really quite enjoys this area of life I think. The main borders of our garden are, we believe, pretty safe. The fencing we have installed is only there as a temporary measure to keep him from getting up to mischief, and he would most certainly get up to mischief. Everything must be chewed, tasted, crunched (including snails) and generally ripped to bits. It is funny to watch, but it is also a bit annoying. This weekend will bring another puppy romp, so will report back on that in a day or two. So close to that pigeon, one day Finlay, one day....
He's got his ball, and he knows what to do with it....
Down with all fences! He may look small and cute, but there really is some power in those back legs. It's really quite frightening, this beast we've taken on :-)
There won't be something interesting to say about Finlay every day, but there will almost always be something he does that makes you smile. Unlike our previous Tibbies, Finlay is very reactive to stuff he hears and sees on the television or sounds coming out of my phone. For instance if you record him woofing and play it back, he immediately rushes around trying to find the invader in his house. So it is when he sees himself on my phone screen. We decided to try and take a puppy selfie today, and of course he could see himself being filmed. This led to his 'paw waving'. This is an action that he does, which many Tibbies do, where they wave their front paws in a certain way. This isn't a perfect example, but it gives you an idea of what he does quite a lot to attract your attention. The other thing he does is verbalise a lot, grumbling, moofing and woofing as he sees fit. I'll wager this is the cutest puppy you'll see today.....
We got Finlay's proper kennel name through today, he is 'Balgay Kitang Po'. It means excellent/first rate in Tibetan. I think it is a great name and describes him perfectly, but then I am biased! So, what Finlay merriment have we been treated to today?! When he first joined us, there was a telephone table in the hallway with a phone and a broadband router. It didn't take him long to work out how to knock the router off the table, this made Finlay happy.....He would woof at the piece of plastic on the ground and take pride in being a destructo-puppy. After the 3rd time the router hit the deck, I decided it was time to move it somewhere else, as it had managed to survive 3 tumbles but wasn't likely to survive any more. So now the table only has a telephone, plus a few less cables. We've never had a cable chewing Tibbie before, but this one does like to. Finlay also likes it when I rush to stop him messing with the remaining cables (great game), so I have tidied them away as much as possible. Now there is nothing much left to mess with, he just goes under the stairs and woofs for the sheer hell of it. As the video below will show. I think he is just biding his time before he hatches the next grand plan!
Well, Finlay is still proving that he has bags of energy and it is pretty hard to wear him out. The trouble is when he has all that pent-up energy he has to take it out on someone and that someone seems to be me. He loses his bite inhibition and the ability to obey the word "no" when he is at his worst, and it is something he only seems to do with me, not my wife. Don't get me wrong, this isn't something he is doing all the time, just when he is at his most wound up. One of our previous Tibbies was the same and he grew out of it and I'm sure Finlay will too. I have previously said that nothing fazed Finlay, but yesterday we found something that does. A new dog coat. Now we aren't one for dressing up our dogs, but bearing in mind Finlay's fur coat isn't entirely weather-proof yet, we thought we would get a coat to keep him dry when he goes out on the rain, seeing as how it seems to be the rainy season already. Happy with his new coat, Finlay is not! He stands there in a kind of "I can't move with this on" fashion, he whines and looks sorry for himself, something we've not seen before. Quite different to the dog that was fearlessly playing with 'Nero' the rather large Doberman puppy earlier. Nero was very good with Finlay and didn't play too rough, although Fin gave it his all naturally. He did squeal once when Nero trod on his paw, but that didn't stop him. But his new coat did. So we have some acclimatisation to do with the new coat. Strangely he managed to be naughty and escape through the stair-gate upstairs in his coat, so he still has enough courage for that! Look at that face.....what is this bloomin' coat!
The only time his tail has been up wearing the coat....when he was being naughty...
Finally I wanted an excuse to use this photo. I accidentally took some photos in "burst" mode on my phone, and I use Google Photos which automatically backs up my pics to the cloud. Every now and then Google 'auto-creates' a photo or video out of what I've taken and it created this Gif. So I can't take any credit for the auto-create, although I took the original picture. This look I call "oh god, dad has got that blimmin' camera in my face again"....
