Stump Kid Link Love 3: Step-In Handlers, Fostering Pets & Healthy Weight

Cold, snowy days mean no training and really short pup walks, so that leaves more time for reading! Again, here's another collection of some good dog-related reads I hope you enjoy as well:

Can Other Handlers Run Your Agility Dog (Agility Fusion): The headline alone caught my attention. I've had Merinda run Dally at a trial once, when I suffered a stress fracture in my foot. It took a little bit, but they were a good team. I think Dally would probably run with a particular few, with good enough treats and time. LaMesa, however…no way. She'd be too busy trying to find me. I've tried to run my friend's Papillon before…and been "Gussed" (meaning he just ran off). It's not easy to run another dog or have someone run your dog. But just the basic obedience so someone can easily just walk our dog is key for any dog.

Top Ten Reasons Why People Foster Corgis (The Daily Corgi): This will tug at your heart strings, but this post has a lot of valid points about fostering a Corgi (or any other dog or cat for that matter). Fostering a pet will not only help save a life, but make yours because you will gain friends and forever connections when your foster is adopted. My one concern would be getting attached way too easily, which I tend to do. But that's why I volunteer at the humane society. Think about it.

Keeping Your Agility Dog's Weight Healthy All Year (Agility Fusion): As a Corgi owner I'm always concerned about Dally's weight…year-round. Winter is always a concern because I feel like we're less active than we usually are during the summer, so I try to do things like walks through the park so the girls can go off leash and run through the tall grass--I call it "cross country training." I also cut back on the girls' kibble and add more veggies in their dinner. I also worry about my weight during the winter, which can affect our performance in agility, so it's important to remember yourself, too.

Hopefully you enjoy these posts! Share a favorite read in the comments below.

The Stump Kids' New Kitty

Last month we adopted a cat. It happened a little earlier than we expected–Matt and I had talked about the possibility, but we figured his cat, Sean, was happier on his own. After weeks of him meowing a lot, being needy, and basically starting to act like the dogs, we figured maybe he was lonely for some feline company.

I started volunteering at the Woodford Humane Society in Versailles earlier this summer, so I was basically already scoping out all the cats. We knew we wanted to get an adult (did you know that adult/senior animals are the hardest to adopt out?), and that the cat had to be alright with playful dogs and other cats, of course. See, our two dogs definitely love to play, whether it’s with us or the cats, so the cat has to be alright with that.

So we checked the online posts to narrow down the cats we wanted to see in person, then spent an hour or so at the humane society loving on all of the finalists and trying to decide who we liked. We purposely did not bring a carrier with us because we wanted to sleep on it and come back later. If we had had the carrier then, we probably would have made a quick decision–not good.

After a couple of days of thinking and talking it over, we went back to the humane society with two possible contenders in mind. Welcome Sarabi to our family: 

Yeah....she's a happy girl.

She’s a big sweetheart with the littlest “mew” voice. Her name, Sarabi, is Swahili for “Mirage” and is also the name of the mother lion on The Lion King (I couldn’t even recall her name!).

Caught her red-pawed in Matt's drawers.

She gets along well with Sean–we’ve caught them playing every once in a while. Her favorite hiding spots are under the beds, and she loves sitting in the open windows. (We have no clue how she’ll act when we actually have to close the house back up when it gets cold.) Though she doesn’t care much for the dogs…yet. She’s not really scared of them, just tries to ignore them for the most part. She teases LaMesa a lot to get her to chase her, but then LaMesa ends up being the one in trouble. Poor dog.

This is the first animal I’ve adopted from a humane society–all of my previous animals have been barn cat rescues, or from a breeder. But we definitely feel good with our decision.

Any tips on blending new cats with the old dogs?