If you follow Bo and Beanz on Facebook, you know by now that we adopted a new dog in April. He isn't a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, he's a mutt rescued from a kill shelter in SC. Based on his appearance and behavior, we think he might be Brittany mixed with Border Collie. We named him Banjo. He was about 6 months when we brought him home.

In the weeks since he arrived, Banjo has become fully house trained. He now knows the following commands:

• no
• sit
• come
• run
• heel
• leash up
• kennel up
• walk
• out
• dead
• paw
• speak
• wait (different than "stay" which is for a longer time and in a down or sit position). The dog can be in any position for wait as long as he does not move
• jump
• down
• drop
• take
• stay
• through (legs and hula hops) 
• watch- a very useful command for photo ops

He also knows his ball from his bone. He knows what "treat" and "supper" are and he knows all of our names (Mommy, Daddy, Beanz, Bo, kitty)

We also adopted a little kitty and named her "Lady Bug". She arrived a week after Banjo. Bug is an orange and white short hair that looks like her mother. Her mother was very much an oriental mix breed and had yellow eyes. We think that Bug will have yellow eyes too.

She and Beanz have become best friends although the first two weeks were very shakey. At first, Beanz didn't like the new kitty. I suppose she didn't understand why this little creature acted so un-catlike. We don't think Beanz was ever around kittens so she certainly didn't understand the behavior. Beanz hissed, growled, and spit at the kitty for two weeks. Ouch!

Lady Bug was only eight weeks when we brought her home. To survive life with a kitten and to protect the dog's eyes, we put claw covers on her, It wasn't easy! It took three people, Rob to hold her, Heather to feed her treats and distract her, and Jane to put the covers on. But once the covers were on we enjoyed life with kitten so much more! Here she is with her little covers:

Now begins the real work - the training. I am attempting to toilet train the cats. Banjo begins obidience training next week. Then we will enroll him in some strenous activity like Freestyle or agility because he is a high energy dog that needs a lot of physical and mental activity. Bo gained weight this winter because I had a hip replacement. As my medical service dog, he spent the winter with me  mostly in bed. So Bo is learning how to use the treadmill because we need to get the weight off him as quickly as possible.

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