| Color: | Red | Coat: | Smooth | ||
| Pattern: | None | Gender: | Male | ||
| Size: | Tweenie | Weight: | 17 lbs | ||
| Age: | 2 Years | Category: | Adult | ||
| Special needs dog? | No | Sanctuary dog? | No | ||
| Spayed / Neutered? | Yes | State: | VA | ||
| " My name is Chris and I am Lucas' foster Mom. I just wanted to give you a little bit more information on Mr. Lucas in hopes of finding him a fur-ever home. As far as his background, his paperwork says that he is scared of men, needs to be muzzled at the vet, has food aggression issues and had been abused in his previous household. From what we can tell, he has no male aggression issues. He spends more time with my husband than I do! When we first got him he didn't like us to put our face in his face. That took about three days for him to get over it. For strangers, I recommend they don't put their face in his face. He has to get to know you first. He spends more time cuddled up to my husband than he does me, and doesn't protest as much when you try and take his toys or food away. When he first got here he would not share his bones or toys with the other dogs. Now they share bones (most of the time) and toys. Sometimes when it it's a really big bone, he won't let the other dogs take it though. He loves squeaky toys and anything with stuffing it in. Unfortunately his favorite thing to do with toys is tear the stuffing out of them. But he looks so happy doing it, we just wait until the toy is 'dead' and then throw it away. He LOVES to take walks. We have three other dogs and believe it or not, my husband and I walk them all together. He likes to pull on his leash a little, but if you keep a firm hand by your side, he will walk next to you. We use a chain collar on him instead of the halter because we've found it works better in training them to heel. He doesn't like to have his gruff pulled and cries like a baby when you do it. He doesn't appear to have any health issues. He's current on all his vaccinations, takes his Interceptor and Frontline monthly, and has already been neutered. In his previous residence Lucas slept with the owner, and tries really hard to sleep with us at night. Sometimes we let him, but most of the time he sleeps on the dog bed in our room with the other 3. Since I work nights we put the dogs in a crate so-to-speak when we're not here or I'm sleeping. We have a doggie door installed, so we just removed a wall of the crate and pushed it against the doggie door. This allows the dogs to come in where the A/C is or if it's raining, but still allows them to go potty and play outside. We have a large backyard and he loves to run around in the grass and play with our other dogs. He doesn't much like to go out in the rain, but if you carry him outside and set him in the grass, he'll go potty. When we get inside he rolls over on his back so you can dry off his feet. He likes to play fetch and will bring back balls to you. He is potty trained. His paperwork said he was crate trained, but we use a doggie door and he only pottied in the house once on his first day here (it was pouring rain of course!) And bless his heart it was right next to the back door. Other than that we have had no other accidents. He does wonderful at the dog park and stays calm even when 50 other weenies are running everywhere. We haven't seen much interaction with him around children, except that he let the boys at the dog park pet him a few times. He is an attention lover who likes to crawl up on your lap and sleep on you. We don't know how he acts with small children. He protects the house very well, and barks for a bit when strangers come in. He just needs someone that will firmly correct him when he does this. We use the loud 'ahh ahhh' hand clap method. He hates to have his nails trimmed. The first time we took him to Pet's Mart and they had to muzzle him. The second time my husband and I did it. We put a muzzle on him just in case, and he growled and protested but we got them cut and dremeled. He doesn't like to have his paws played with, so we do it every chance we get. We are trying to get him used to it, so that he won't protest the dremel so much. Same with the taking of his toys and food. He learned that if he started growling, we would take them away until he stopped. Now he doesn't do it as much. He is learning how to sit on command, but understands 'outside', 'go lay down' and 'watch me'. We make him 'watch' us before we give him any treats or food. He has a one track mind when food is around. He has recently accomplished the doggie stairs. We have regular stairs that go up to our office that he's fine with, but we have a really high bed in our room. Lucas would just stand on the side and wait to be picked up. It took him a month, but he finally uses the dog stairs up to the bed. He figured out that we're not going to put him on the bed, he has to get there himself. We were just laying on the bed watching TV and all of a sudden he was in our lap. We are so proud of him. He's very stubborn. We have been working on 'watch me'. When we first got him at feeding time, (which is one cup of dry Nutra adult chicken and rice flavor) he would gobble his food and growl at the other dogs. We make our dogs sit, and stay quiet while they are waiting for their food. Then we put the food in front of them and they have to look at us for permission before they can eat. Once we give the signal (which we say 'go ahead') they are allowed to eat. It was a very big trial to get Lucas to look at us prior to digging in. He's making very good progress. We have to call his name a few times to get his attention away from the bowl in front of him, but he'll watch us until we tell him he can eat. He loves to go on car rides. He'll either lay down in the passenger seat or ride in your lap. He's not one to stick his entire head out the window, but he'll rest his head on the window seal with his nose in the wind. He has eaten all the stuffed animal toys around the house. We have found a bone that is hollow, extremely hard, and only cost a couple dollars. It keeps him occupied and it will take him FOREVER to eat. We also put some kong stuffing in it every once in awhile for a treat. He also likes the ropes with the bones on them. Those take him a little longer to eat then the stuffed toys. He loves to chase balls. We've found that he pulls the bright green covering off the tennis balls, so we gave him a kong ball to chase around. He'll fetch and bring it back to you, if our other dog Bella doesn't get to it first. Lucas would be between a standard and tweenie but not a miniature. He could stand to lose a few, and would benefit very much from daily walking. It's important that he stays on his heartworm meds and gets his shots every year. Plus the vet will want to monitor his weight and make sure he doesn't get any bigger. He is very energetic and runs around with our dog Bella who is a Bull Terrier pup way bigger than him. They play all day long. He needs a family that will love him, despite his faults, and have the patience to play with his feet and take his food away until he isn't scared anymore. I really hope you can be that family. I know this is probably more than you wanted to know, but I just don't feel I can do Lucas justice any other way. " Please check out more photos of Lucas at http://southeastvadachshundrescue.shutterfly.com |
