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I forgot the camera...
Jul. 13th, 2006 07:25 pm...but we went to see Santana today. Turns out that we were misinformed regarding the cat. He's only used to the neighbour's cat. That is, that he would ignore it and/or walk away when it came round.
He's so much more beautiful than on the photo - and skinny, and strong. When he was eager to rush out the door, I had a hard time holding him. Aaaand apart from being housebroken, he knows next to nothing, only his name...and apparently "sit", which he was not inclined to show us. If we take him, it'll be start at puppy obedience training step one.
We did not see any sign of nervousness, which is this breed's biggest problem. While walking we met other dogs, a jogger, a tractor and a man on a bicycle. The dogs were appropriately greeted, all others were passed with just the merest twitch of a fluffy ear. Santana accepted our presence, but was politely ignoring us most of the time. We were merely the people holding the leash. This doesn't worry me at all. Belgian Sheepdogs tend to be the same way when meeting strangers. This is a rather important trait with herding dogs and means that they will not get distracted when working, and that they cannot be lured away from the herd they're guarding (They are of course different with members of their family and people they know). The important thing is that he let himself be handled and touched, although we were respecting his reserved nature. No point cuddling a dog that would prefer not to be cuddled by strangers, even if he accepts it graciously.
So...cat compatibility might be a problem. The lack of training is a problem because of his strength, it's hard to remain motionless when you're being tugged along by a 32 kg dog - and this is what he weighs in his skinny condition. Training will also be more difficult because of his age, he no longer has that puppy eagerness to please and it will take him longer to learn new things.
We're going to sleep on it and then perhaps go see him again on Sunday, and then (if he's still available, he's a beautiful and relatively problem-free dog after all) perhaps take him home to test the cat compatibility.
He's so much more beautiful than on the photo - and skinny, and strong. When he was eager to rush out the door, I had a hard time holding him. Aaaand apart from being housebroken, he knows next to nothing, only his name...and apparently "sit", which he was not inclined to show us. If we take him, it'll be start at puppy obedience training step one.
We did not see any sign of nervousness, which is this breed's biggest problem. While walking we met other dogs, a jogger, a tractor and a man on a bicycle. The dogs were appropriately greeted, all others were passed with just the merest twitch of a fluffy ear. Santana accepted our presence, but was politely ignoring us most of the time. We were merely the people holding the leash. This doesn't worry me at all. Belgian Sheepdogs tend to be the same way when meeting strangers. This is a rather important trait with herding dogs and means that they will not get distracted when working, and that they cannot be lured away from the herd they're guarding (They are of course different with members of their family and people they know). The important thing is that he let himself be handled and touched, although we were respecting his reserved nature. No point cuddling a dog that would prefer not to be cuddled by strangers, even if he accepts it graciously.
So...cat compatibility might be a problem. The lack of training is a problem because of his strength, it's hard to remain motionless when you're being tugged along by a 32 kg dog - and this is what he weighs in his skinny condition. Training will also be more difficult because of his age, he no longer has that puppy eagerness to please and it will take him longer to learn new things.
We're going to sleep on it and then perhaps go see him again on Sunday, and then (if he's still available, he's a beautiful and relatively problem-free dog after all) perhaps take him home to test the cat compatibility.
