Daisy

[Fluffygal]

Daisy has gotten a bit leggy as she is growing pretty fast. Hard to believe she is 13 weeks now.

The other day she decided to mess with poor Cloud who was being relentlessly chased by Phoenix the Peacock. Cloud was not in a good mood at all. Daisy wanting to play kept sticking her big head in his face. Cloud raised his hackles in warning and then pounced at Daisy to flog her, Daisy dodged, wagged her tail, and made the mistake of sticking her face back in the rooster's face. Cloud was not happy about this at all and flew at the pup furiously with his spurs in ninja fast mode. All it took was the contact of the kick itself to send a very startled Daisy running and yelping away straight to her goat buddies pen. I soothed the puppy and checked to make sure she was ok. Her pride was more hurt and she was definitely frightened by the rooster. Shortly after the incident Daisy was playing with her toy and decided she wanted to be in her buddies pen to sit in the shade to watch them. Well Cloud was already in the pen happliy eating left over goat chow. Just the sight of Cloud made Daisy yelp and run off.

I did not interfer with Cloud & Daisy when she got the lesson as I was watching closely; but was prepared to jump in when needed. I knew she was pushing her luck; but sometimes the lesson of respect is needed. She does not try to chase the hens now and seems to be content to watch and pretend to ignore them.

Daisy is only being allowed out now under supervision as she has been wanting to chase and ruff house with the goats. I am trying to break her from this. So far she listens to the verbal reprimand and if NO does not work I follow it with a loud noise. Going to the store today to grab some of that bitter apple spray as I read another post to spray this on the goats to teach the puppy that they are not to be mouthed on. She only does this with Bebe, Cotton, and Clover as these are the 3 that will interact with her.

Cotton pretty much ignores Daisy while she sniffs him over; however, when she acts like she wants to play and get mouthy he gives her a headbutt to tell her to back off. She seems to respect him on this and will then trot over to Bebe. Bebe has really come out of her shell and has become quite the mischeivious little goat. She actually encourages the chase by running up to Daisy, wagging her tail, prancing, leaping, butting Daisy, and then taking off. She loves to get Daisy to play with her; but her play is encouraging Daisy to be bad. Clover would prefer to be left alone. Poor Clover is the best fainter of the 2 fainting goats and will lock up easily. So she really cannot get away when Daisy is wond up. When she faints I have watched Daisy sniff her in concern, put her paw on Clover, and push to get her back on her feet. It is like she is trying to make sure Clover is OK.
Bebe on the other hand finds it amusing to scare Clover into falling over and is she does not fall over will push her over. Bebe can be a real brat at times.

The other 2 goats (Abel & Fiona) want nothing to do with Daisy at all. They run away from her everytime she gets too close. She really just wants to watch them and sniff them. We are going to be changing the pen setup to try to get these 2 to be closer to Daisy so they can get more used to her. The 3 that are bonded with her have their pen right next to Daisy so they interact through the fencing everyday with each other.

My biggest break through with Daisy is that she is no longer acting shy to me. She will now come up to me for petting and take treats from my hand. She is slowly starting to come on the Come command. She still barks at Dad; but, he is making an effort to interact with her more too so she can learn that he is a good person. I am also working on leash training which is the new hurdle for her. She does not like the leash and will sit and lay down if a try to get her to move forward. I wait for when she moves on the leash then move along side her which tends to make her wig out. Hopefully with lots of patience we can get over this hurdle before the next vet appt latter this month cus she is gonna be too big to carry then.

Daisy is my first LGD so I am learning along with her on this journey. Right now I am hoping I can survive puppy hood. She is a smart pup and shows signs that she can grow into a great dog. Hopefully I don't mess up too much along the way.

 

[Moonshine]

great read. I'm in the same boat as you. Got my Ana a week ago. She is 8 weeks and she came straight from the barn. She had sores from fleas and no human contact or very little. She will let me love on her but I usually have to talk her into it. She's doing okay on the leash and our fence walks. She is very smart and had Sit down by the 5th attempt yesterday. I'm trying not to throw too much at her at one time so I don't burn her out on training. She is so sweet and I can tell she is going to be a great guardian and companion with time.

 

[Fluffygal]

With lots of love, patience, and consistancy your Ana will come around.
I got Daisy at 9 weeks old. She was never socialized to human contact. Her parents were on the job at the farm protecting game chickens from coyotes.
It has taken awhile to get her to warm up to me, but once she decided I was a good person she really started showing improvements. Everyday I would sit in her pen with her while she ate talking to her and petting her. She went from running from me to allowing me to approach to pet her and finally to where she decided to just come up to me for petting. She does love to be petted.

This morning she did much better on the leash. I was able to get her to walk with me for a short distance. I rewarded her with lots of praise and petting which works best with her as she does not respond to food rewards.

Here are a few pics from this morning of Daisy hanging out in her pen.

This pic you can see how leggy she is right now. It is fun watching the grow through all the goofy stages.

Blue the cat likes to squeeze under the pen when I am in there to try and steal my attention. Daisy thinks Blue has come over to play. Bebe was standing outside the pen in the background. Bebe was like are you coming out soon?

Bebe loves to play with Daisy and will hang about the pen till Daisy get to come out. Bebe is the most favorite of the 3 goats Daisy loves to hang out with.

 

[Moonshine]

She's beautiful! She looks a little like my baby who's is Pyrenees/Anatolian. I love how you have the blue pool in there with her. I'm patching one up for Ana too. I have a farm cat, among other cats, that loves hanging out with the animals. He doesn't bother any of them he just likes to hang out and check everything out. It cracks me up cuz my other cats could care less about all the other animals but he thinks he needs to be right in the middle of everything! His name is stormy.
Ana

Stormy on top of the rabbits hutch.

 

[Fluffygal]

Ana looks so sweet and Stormy is a pretty barn cat.
Yep the pool idea works great. Got it from reading one of Southern's tips. Ofcourse, Daisy thinks she must flavor all water pans n bowls with her puppy feet.
Any pan or water dish that she can soak her paws in cool water really helps them cool off on these hot summer days. Lots of shade helps too.
I did put a concrete block in her pool incase any of the chickens or small birds get into it so they have a way to get out. Had to put a brick in the bucks water pan as toads kept getting in; but could not get back out. Silly toads, yukky for the goats though.
The Cardinals love to visit Daisy's pool when she is not in it.

 

[Moonshine]

How funny. I was wondering why she kept dipping her paw in the water pans. That makes since now that she kept doing it in the heat of the day. I love reading stories like yours because it gives me hope that my baby too will come around. I read it this morning and then walked out to the goats and Ana greeted me before I got there. She was so excited to see me and let me love on her! I was so excited that she is finally coming around and learning she can trust us.

 

[Fluffygal]

Yep these dogs are easy to fall in love with. Once they decide you are part of their group training just becomes easier it seems.
Daisy still lets us know she is a puppy though who loves to play puppy games.
Got my camera charged so maybe I can catch Bebe in the act of playing with Daisy. Had the camera out yesterday and they were all like Oh lets not do anything interesting cus she is watching us.

Well today is Fiona and Abel's turn to free range so Daisy will be with these 2 more skittish goats.

 

[Moonshine]

Oh cool I'd love to see the two playing! My goats just run like a bunch of scaredy chickens. But in the baby's defense she does get chewed on a lot. I need to pick up some bitter apple so the dogs will quit chewing on her.

 

[Fluffygal]

Well I didn't get to catch it on camera today.
She did pretty good with Fiona and Abel out along with being good with the chickens. Wish Fiona and Abel were not so skittish around her as I would like to see her bond with them the way she has bonded with the other 3. That is why we are prepping a new spot for the buck pen that will be on the other side of Daisy's pen. Daisy will be between both goat pens which will hopefully allow the 2 scaredy goats to calm down around her.

 

[Moonshine]

That sounds like a good idea. I didn't realize you were so close I live in Jasper TX. Well today was a good day for Ana. I swear everyday just gets a little easier with her. One of the other dogs that she loves to wrestle with got her ear and she had a scratch on her nose this afternoon. I decided I'd feed her and the goats in the goats pen so they'd all be together and happy cuz they were eating. Well she followed me in to eat and didn't want to leave. Idk if she was upset about her ear or what. I offered her to leave on 3 different occasions and she just laid down each time. I walked off to where she couldn't see me and watched her for a while. She likes to put her head on the goats backs and hang on them. As long as she's not using them as a chew toy or chasing them I'm ok with it. She made one of the goats get up so she could get a stick the goat was laying on so she could chew on it. She cracks me up.