Rody is the newest addition to our clan, and we're in the process of making it permanent and official... in this photo, he was only about 7  months old, and housetrained after only one accident in the house... he peed on the floor one time, I picked him up and took him outside, and he's been using the doggie door ever since. He greets people calmly and appropriately, doing a lop-sided sit to be petted.  He walks well on-lead, with a headcollar, as this helps to calm his reactive nature when greeting strange people and dogs.  He's really a very smart little heathen dog! lol

Rody was pitched out someone's car window on the interstate in Indiana like a piece of garbage, and was very lucky that the next car carried Kathy Lovan's hubby... he picked up the little guy, and took him home with him.  Kathy does Rottie rescue, and she contacted me for help with him.  We thought at the time that he was a purebred Saint... but we've since re-evaluated him as a Belgian Terv or maybe a Sheltie mix (I'm leaning more toward the "Sheltie" diagnosis, as time goes on... at this writing, he's pretty small for a Terv).  He *IS* a CHEWER (I cannot make the letters BIG ENOUGH to really get this across -- HE CHEWS ALOT!!)  We've learned that Rody has that perfect scissors bite... his teeth go through phone lines and TV cable like that's what they were intended to do! lol  He has special fetishes for both shoes and underwear, and has decorated the back yard with both on many occasions.  Luckily, our use of a doggie door facilitates his love of doing this. {grin}  Our neighbors may not consider themselves lucky, as they're the ones seeing my panties all over the place.

Rody is being trained using the clicker method.  He's got the basic manners down, but we're working on retrieving to help focus his prey drive on INanimate objects {grin}, and some more intermediate obedience work, now.  He's crate-trained, enters the kitchen on-command, sits on-command, walks well on-lead, knows a variety of tricks including "sit pretty", "talk-back", "say howdy", "flop", "jump", and is currently learning targeting with a laser -- I'm planning to use this to teach him weave-poles and some other agility work.  He's really a joy to work with, as he's much more energetic than Saints are -- this is a double-edged sword, though... his intelligence and energy level are a combination that DEMAND a much more active level of participation by his owner (that's ME!)  He's very intelligent, and picks up on body language very quickly... he seems to be very "in-tune" to our moods.

He's a very personable little guy, and my dogs all just love him... Zoe, in particular, seems to be under the impression that Rody is Her Puppy.  The other dogs are admonished if they get too rough with him, and Rody is allowed privileges that have never been tolerated from other dogs, by Zoe (and Zoe has always been very forgiving of other dogs!).  Cis and Clarence both play with him (and even Cis lets him get away with an awful lot!), but he's frequently seen hanging from one of Zoe's ample body-parts. lol

We're working on remedial socialization with both strange people and dogs (and both on-lead and off-lead), because Rody still has that genetic tendency toward getting a little freaked-out on the initial meeting, although he then calms down and plays.  True to herding nature, Rody doesn't respond well to greeting on-lead, but does much better off-lead.   He's learning to walk easily on a head-collar, and it seems to be helping him to calm.

We welcome Rody Demon Spawn into our home and hearts!