The Tale of Two Montes

Monte has been here for a little over 24 hours now - and there are certainly TWO Montes. There is sweet, affectionate, loving Monte (I call this one Mellow Monte) and there is Bossy, Closed Ears, Digging in the Garbage, Whining for attention, jumping up Monte (this is Monster Monte). The boys (Jackson and Patrick) are very tolerant of Mellow Monte, but have a short temper with Monster Monte. Here they are sleeping together last night before bed time.

We learned last night that he certainly IS part beagle. Beagles make a very distinctive noise, and he was making it - last night at 1:30am after everyone had been asleep for 2 hours. I woke up and cleaned his poo and he calmed down and went back to bed. We have been working hard with him while he is in his room because he is just bolting out when we start to open the door. It's dangerous he could get hurt or someone else - so we're patiently getting to him to sit nicely with the door open before he can come out. (Rewarded with lots of treats of course!) Same thing with people leaving out the door. He tries to bolt out the door (which is especially dangerous here because he'll fall off the walkway to the floor below!) So, again we are making him sit patiently and wait while people leave.

First thing this morning we woke up and Monte is the epitome of a morning person! So I loaded him and Jack up and we headed to the dog park (I forgot my camera - bad Auntie!) Monte had a great time with all the dogs and was very good. It was really hot though, so we didn't last too long. The day went well, Vince came over to visit and Monte liked him. He sat right on his foot. Vince said that while it made him hot, he was too cute to move.

After dinner Monte was BAD! He kept trying to get into the garbage and actually knocked it over at one point. What a stinker! I took his Monster Monte energy and tried to wear him out playing tug with him. He loves all the boys toys and tries to lay on as many as possible while he plays with his toy of choice. Patrick had had quite enough of this and decided to steal back the orange doggie. Monte - tripling Patrick's weight was not going to let go easily. So they played a MAJOR game of tug - eventually Monte won. Jack saw that Patrick was obviously out-matched and decided to join in the next round. Two chihuahuas against vs Heinz-57 dog. It was a good battle, but they all gave up when I got up and walked away! You can see he loves the orange doggie most. He almost always has it near him or with him. I put it in his cage while we're out to keep him company.

Today Monte worked on looking and paying attention when his name is called, sit, down, no bite and "off". He has sit pretty well (as long as you have a cookie or lots of praise!) and "off isn't too shabby either. He got new litter today and a new harness!

Tomorrow he has his vet appointment, so he can't have anymore food or water for the evening. He's laying down beside me as I type this being Mellow Monte for the moment. He sends his love!