Bodie #2 Yellow Labrador Retriever Mix Male 1 Year Old ID #2860

Meet Bodie. This handsome young boy is thought to be about a year old and was found wandering as a stray.  No one came looking so Brookline was pleased to add him to the family.  Bodie is your typical energetic young dog who also is extremely cuddly and thinks he’s a lap dog.  Stay tuned for updates as he settles in.  And enjoy his blog from the bottom up!

May 11, 2021

I apologize for the delay in the Bodie update.  Bodie went to temporary  fosters while we were visiting our brand new grand baby in Oregon.  We’re now back and Bodie is just about ready to find his furever home.  We learned a couple of things about Bodie when he was with his temper fosters – one is that he did fine in the crate downstairs in their home at night.  I think why it stopped working here is that he’s a smart boy and figured out pretty quickly that he’d rather be with the resident dogs in the master bedroom.  That being said, he should be able to do either in his furever home.  I have to say he’s very good about curling up and going to sleep on the bed and staying still- always a good quality when space is at a premium.  He does wake up early though although it’s hard to say who is the instigator there since there are other four legged candidates!

Another thing we discovered is that Bodie loves having a fenced in yard.  This way he can run around to his heart’s content and his fosters didn’t have to worry about him getting distracted and wanting to go see what the fun neighbors  were doing. He played a lot of fetch.  We continue to experiment here with letting him off the leash(dragging the leash) in the back yard when we’re right with him as he’s not a runner and we are far from from any roads and traffic, and for hte most part he’s pretty good, but eventually he gets distracted and if we hear out neighbors out (who have kids and a dog) he wants to go say hello.  Yesterday was the first day that when we called I’m back as he started to go that way that he listened and turned back!  Good boy Bodie.

Bodie’s temporary fosters affirmed that Bodie likes to steal things to get your attention, and since his foster dad was working from home and had Zoom meetings where he couldn’t be distracted, Bodie also did some crate time for those meetings and did pretty well.  A high value chew or a stuffed kong is the ticket to getting him to go in happily and to stay quiet until he finishes it or falls asleep.

I’m working on his placement questionnaire now and as I type, he’s passed out after a good walk.

Bodie is going to need a family committed to continuing with his training  and giving him the exercise he needs.  They will be rewarded with a very sweet and loyal addition.  Bodie has the characteristics of both a lab (people pleasing and highly trainable) and a hound (loyal and intelligent and a bit stubborn).  He’s going to make a wonderful addition to the right family.

April 25, 2021

Time sure does fly when you have a young dog in your house as they keep you on your toes. We’ve now had Bodie for a little over a week.   Overall Bodie is doing very well.  He is completely house trained although we are not able to leave him are roam if we’re not home.  He gets along very well with the resident dogs but he can’t quite yet be trusted to not get into something he shouldn’t.  I swear though that I think he grabs things he’s not supposed to to get our attention, and it works, as mostly he is happy playing with the assortment of toys we have for him.  I’m pleased that he is not a destroyer of the soft toys because that gets expensive.  He also loves balls and chew bones.

He’s doing OK with naps in the crate as long as we have exercised him first  and have given him something high value to encourage him to go in and for him to chew on before he gets sleepy and crashes.  He did win the battle of not sleeping in the crate at night and has found his spot on the king sized bed with his people.  So he’d probably be best going to a family where that is OK or desired.  I’m happy to report that he mostly settles quickly and he’s not the first one to wake up in the morning, so he’s a good bed sleeper in my book.

Overall he’s doing well on leash- sometimes he’s pulling but mostly he isn’t.  He does get excited when he sees people off in the distance.  We’ve met an assortment of dogs and when they are chill, he has been too.  If they are barking and excited, he acts the same so we’re working on some counter conditioning so that he has better manners.  He does love playing with the dogs here but he likely old benefit from a younger dog that wanted to wrestle and play chase as much as he does.  The resident labs tire out way before he does.

We don’t have a fenced in yard and so we’ve done some limited fetch with him dragging his leash.  Mostly he’s happy and content to stay put and chase the ball around, but he’s also occasionally decided that he’d rather not listen and go to one of our neighbors.  It’s pretty easy to tell when he’s getting “distracted” but he’s not getting a lot of off leash time which would help him get the exercise a young active lab needs.  I did try jogging with him a bit yesterday  and he’s pretty ideal for that, although he kept looking behind him the way he did the first day I walked him.  He seemed a bit nervous to be somewhere new.

For the most part Bodie has become very calm in the house, but occasionally he gets worked up for reasons we haven’t quite figured out.  What I have discovered though is that making him work and engaging him in a game can break the cycle, and get him calmer.  His favorite game is catch the tennis ball.  For as much as he loves the game, you’d think he’d be better catching it lol- but we’re working on sit, catch it and drop it commands and it’s coming along nicely.

Bodie loves to snuggle and cuddle and at times thinks he’s a lap dog.  He still follows us around to make sure he knows where we are and what we’re doing.

April 19, 2021

Another good day. No accidents for two days (knock on wood) and he seems to be relaxing more (that three day rule!).  He was not happy about being in the crate last night, and his bark will test the best of you, so he was allowed on the bed.  he slept the whole night through without an issue, so we’ll see where he sleeps tonight.  He did nap in the crate today- he was lured by a knuckle bone, chewed on it for about 5 min and then fell asleep on top of it.

April 18, 2021

Bodie is settling in nicely and doing a much better job knowing which are his toys to chew on and which are not. And he loves his toys- soft toys, balls, squeaky toys, and chew bones. It is a bit like having a little kid in the house as by the end of the day we have to go around and put all the strewn toys back in the toy baskets.  Wouldn’t it be nice if he could be taught to put them back?

Bodie is walking quite well with a harness and is not much of a puller.  When he does pulls some is when he is headed in the direction that he knows is towards home.  Much like a horse!  He enjoys his walks and has been great with everyone he has met (two and four legged), although he was quite surprised by and interested in the mountain bikers we encountered.  We haven’t seen chipmunks or the like yet, so I’m not yet sure how interested he will be in them.  One of the resident labs loves to chase them.

He’s peeing on command outside but he hasn’t yet learned to give us much warning when he needs to go number 2.  We have caught him in the act and gotten him out just in time, but we’re hoping that he’ll soon be a bit more predictable and on a more regular schedule.  We all know how hard traveling can be on our guts.  Plus we’re transitioning him to the same quality food that the resident labs eat.

Bodie is 11 days post neuter so we’re just starting to let him play some.  I never know if I’m going to get a model that fetches, and I’m happy to report that he loves it.  He runs and gets it and comes back but hasn’t quite mastered dropping it, but having a second ball does the trick.  He also had a brief wrestling match with one of our labs and humored the other with chase me (which she loves) but again we’re trying to keep him quieter for a bit longer.  He’ll be happy when those restrictions are lifted.

He again did great in the crate at night, and tomorrow we’ll begin working on some daytime crate training; since he’s not reliable free roam without someone home, he’ll need to get used to his people being gone some to run errands and the like.

April 16, 2021

Bodie made the long trip north, only to get off the transport van and hop into another car for another couple of hours to go to his foster home.  He wasn’t much of a fan of this idea, and if we wasn’t actively being pet in the back seat, he decided to serenade me with his big bark!  Needless to say it was a very long ride.  But when we got back, dog intros with the resident three labs were made and went very well.  And we went off for a walk to explore and burn off some energy before it got dark.  He’s not used to being on leash so there was lot of zigging and zagging and abrupt stops, but he was getting the hang of it by the end.  Then it was time to explore inside.

It doesn’t seem like Bodie has been in a house as he was very curious about everything.  He found hte two toy baskets pretty quickly and entertained himself by trying out a lot of them.  He also found a few things that weren’t toys (like the TV remote and a sofa pillow) so we’re keeping a close eye on him until he figures out what he is allowed to have.  Bodie didn’t seem to understand the stairs but once he tried them, he mastered them quickly and so he was able to go upstairs with everyone else at bedtime.  I am happy to report that after his long long day, he settled in the crate in the master bedroom with only a faint whine or two and slept the whole night without making a peep.