Much of Savage's training and experiences have been limited a little lately; for the past week I've been sick and haven't been spending a lot of time outdoors. We have gone on a few walks and have been visiting friends and their dogs. We went to the harbor and walked around on the Lake Superior shoreline. This was Sav's first experience with moving water. So far all he's known is snow and ice. He seemed a little wary of the waves. So many new things!
We visited my cousin and her 4 year old Doberman, Dillon, and he and Savage played until Dillon became too excited and started knocking the puppy over. Savage gets overwhelmed when there is a lot of activity going on.
I got a great deal on a huge load of turkey backs (39 cents/lb) so we're set for food for awhile. I have another butcher who will save chicken livers for me, since Sav still won't touch beef liver. That seems to be the only food he's picky about.
As far as ear-taping goes, here's the story so far. I began trying to correct the right ear that was folded over his head by wrapping them without a stay inside the ear and no brace between ears. This caused them to fall out to the side, which is what I wanted, but of course the left fell out farther since it didn't have to work against the way the right was turned in. Make sense? I used a kind of taping system that K. uses, which is plain masking tape round-wrapped all the way up the ear. The only drawback to this is that the masking tape doesn't "breathe" and therefore, has to be redone often.
Well, this worked for a few days and then the right ear started leaning in again, and I went back to Caulk-Sav'r foam and athletic tape. Only at this point I had run out of cloth tape so I used masking tape in place of it. Everything looked even and straight and beautiful. However!!! This morning R. and I took off the taping to let the ears get some air and clean them. It seems that the edges of the masking tape on the bottom had cut into his ears a little down at the base near the front fold in the ear! I freaked out and applied Betadine madly, and plan on leaving the ears free for a while. I also ordered 12 rolls of Johnson & Johnson Zonas tape online! Both ears are doing their best to stand even through all the mistakes I've made with them. Other than those small cuts they look healthy and relatively strong. I will contact K. and ask her opinion, but I think if these cuts heal soon, I have a good foundation and with a little more preparation (Zonas tape) and care the ears should be okay and on their way to standing. None of this seems to bother Savage. In fact, he doesn't even scratch at his taping anymore. We shall see.I finally got around to sending in his AKC registration. With the basic registration and a three-generation AKC-certified pedigree it cost $32. They also give you a free trial of health insurance, which I plan on utilizing. It took me ages to decide on his registered name. I wanted his "call name", Savage, to correspond with the registered name, and because of the gun company Savage Arms we finally decided on "Saturday Night Special". He is kinda gun-metal blue, anyway. I've been clipping his nails every week, though I am still very conservative about only taking off the hooks. I end up feeling sorry for my puppy because I feel I'm making so many mistakes in ear-taping, training, etc. But then I look at him stretched out in the sun on the futon, snoring away like crazy, and I think he's probably pretty content. He gets all the love in the world from R. and I. Maybe I'm doing okay with him.