Precious' Story
September 2005

Zion-BG's Precious Gift O'Foxy aka Precious
b.. 4/05/2004 | sire: Zion's Color-Me Blue dam: Zion's Foxy Wildthing

I brought Precious home with me after Homecoming. Precious is Lisa's son, David's dog, and she's now 17 months old. At first, I wasn't sure what to expect from a dog that has lived most of her life in a kennel. I was very pleasantly surprised! First of all, she's a sweetheart! Very affectionate, and loves to bury her head in my lap and get body rubs and scratches.

Second, I was very worried as to how Orion would deal with her. Orion is very protective of me. They love each other! I was so happy! I take them out in my backyard to play, and they chase each other around, steal the ball from each other, wrestle each other. It's amazing to watch those two together. Precious is a lot smaller than Orion, but she doesn't give him one break. Orion tries to grab her neck, and she just twists down, and bites his legs! They both end up lying down playing mouth to mouth. It's so funny! Precious is very fast, she runs circles around my not so graceful Orion. She also out lasts him. He will collapse on the grass, and just watch her keep going, running circles all around the yard. She has more energy than he and I combined! LOL

When I first brought Precious home, she was a little leery of all the new things in my neighborhood. She's used to country living, and I live in one of those neighborhoods where the houses are all lined in a row, all look sort of alike. So, to boost her confidence, I started walking Orion and Precious together. Yep, I'm insane! You know those western movies, with the guy driving the coach, with the horse reins in both hands? That's me when they both decide they have to get to a smell NOW! But, they also listen most of the time, when I tell them to wait, as I disentangle myself, or pick up after them. Orion will only do his business during his walk, he won't go in our yard. Precious wouldn't go during our walks, but would wait until she was in our yard. She's now starting to go during walks also. I wish I could get Orion to go in the yard. Life will be much easier come the snows if he would. Precious' confidence has grown from walking with Orion. Nothing bothers him, and now, nothing bothers her either. If something she's not used to happens, she looks at me to see how I'm reacting. If I tell her it's OK, let's go, she just keeps on going!

However, during the day, I had to stop taking them out together. The other day, a neighbor was walking his corgis, and both my dogs decided they wanted to go say hi. So, they dragged me clear across the street to see the corgis. I almost had a heart attack, as I knew Precious is friendly, but Orion isn't. While Precious said her hellos, Orion just stood there, not quite sure what to do. I put him in a sit, until the guy walked away with the corgis. But, later on, I found out one of the corgis had bit an eight month old pug whom Precious has made friends with also. So, I can't take the chance of them dragging me again, next time it may be towards an unfriendly dog, or if they drag me across the street again, we could all get hit by a car. So, I now only walk them together before work, when it's so early, I know there aren't any dogs around.

Precious has learned to sit before I let her out of her crate. She used to go nuts when she knew she was coming out. Now, she sits and waits. She also knows she has to have her feet wiped when we come back in from outside. She stands there while I lift each foot and wipe it. And she loves to have her teeth brushed at night! That one, she picked up from Orion. She's mainly chewing on the brush, but I'm getting a few strokes in. She knows when I say outside, she runs for the laundry door, or when I say downstairs, she runs for the basement door. She goes up when I tell her upstairs, and down when I say downstairs. She kennels up when asked, well, most of the time on the last one! LOL She loves to steal toys and run into her crate. She can collect quite a few in there! But, Orion will help himself to them when he wants. Now that she's much more comfortable here, we're starting to do some obedience work too. I'm not good at teaching obedience, so we'll see how that one goes.

And now, we're going to go take our first bath! Oh boy! LOL