Dog Care and Pet Care Merit Badges

Mouse: There are two merit badges around pet care, with one specifically focusing on dogs.  Since we already have a dog, we decided to get a new pet in order to complete both badges.

Or at least, when we decided to get a new dog, it sort of worked out that we could focus on both :) Allow me to introduce you all to Badger, our Bernese Mountain Dog mutt!


Mouse: Badger was found in a junk yard where he had either been tethered or where he retreated after being tethered.  He was found with a rope wrapped around his neck and body, surviving off whatever he could find in the junk yard and covered in ticks.

Needless to say, he was extremely excited to be a part of a loving family.  This is how he slept on my lap on the way home from Georgia.


Wolf: I was in Canada for about a week, and Mouse found Badger online just before I left. I thought for sure I would return from my trip and have a new dog. Somehow he held off and we made a weekend vacation to to pick Badger up from his foster home. We took him on his first long walk down to River Street while we had a few pints.



Mouse: As a side note, Gypsy (our Chocolate Lab, Pitbull, Boxer mutt), wandered into one of Wolf's coworker's yard about 8 years ago with no collar, also covered in ticks and with an awful skin condition where she was losing hair.  They posted signs and tried to find any owners but eventually gave up and she came to live with us.  She's lived a fairly spoiled life since then...  She also insists on having a Raven Scout nickname, so she goes by Dragon now.



Mouse: As part of the dog care merit badge, we'll be keeping a log of our dog care activities for 2 months.  And as  part of our pet care merit badge, we'll be reading a book about training our dogs and training both dogs to do at least three commands.  Badger, who doesn't know any commands yet, is already starting to master "sit" which will hopefully help reinforce Gypsy's response to that command as well...



Mouse: I sketched a dog and labeled the primary body parts in my raven scout journal.  I also documented in my journal the seven major dog groups and selected a dog from each group to profile.  I went with the following dogs for each group and did a sketch of each with information about each in the journal: 

Terrier Group: Staffordshire Bull Terrier (Pitbull)
Toy Group: Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
Working Group: Bernese Mountain Dog
Sporting Group: Labrador Retriever
Hound Group: Scottish Deerhound
Non-Sporting Group: Shiba Inu
Herding Group: Australian Shepherd


We currently walk both pups first thing in the morning and then again in the afternoon.  We've also started taking them up to the dog park to practice training outside the fence with other dogs as a distraction a few times a week.  Badger is fairly indifferent to other dogs, but Gypsy gets a little excited - we're working on it :) On the weekends, we try to get in a hike or long walk.

Wolf: Badger even got to experience his first road trip and hike over Labor Day weekend - more on that awesome hike in a later post. And we plan to take him out to Umstead State Park this weekend before the rain comes!

Mouse: They are both very tired pups at the end of the day.



Mouse: Last week, Badger experienced his first trip to the vet.  Outside of some parasite problems from living in a junk yard, he's in great health and we've got him started on medication to get him all better. Everyone at the vet loved him and wanted to give him pets. And we can't wait to post some pictures of Badger's first trip!

Wolf: Oddly enough, as a nurse, I was extra concerned about Badger's health problems. Poor little dude had to get his rear end shaved up because he had some icky wounds that required some good cleaning. After a week on antibiotics, it's almost all better and his hair is already growing back. We will be returning to the vet for a check-up and discussion of heartworm treatment in a week and a half.

The adventure continues...


-Mouse














Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Establishing the Raven Scouts

As we prepared for merit badge requirements, we also began reading about the Boy Scout Oath, Law, Motto, Slogan, Sign, Salute, and handshake... these figured fairly prominently in some of the merit badges so we wanted to have a firm grasp... we liked a lot of what we read, but didn't really feel like certain aspects were a great fit for what we were doing. It's important to remember we're amending something written for boys and we're adults... some of these tweaks are to be expected :)  Ultimately we felt that, in the spirit of this whole process, we should come up with our own oath, etc.   We also thought we might be able to approach this a bit more efficiently and combine some of the above... so we whittled it all down a bit and made it our own.  To start, I got us all cool journals to document everything we'd be doing. Before we get into what we created, it may be worthwhile to share the boy scout versions so you can have a basis for comparison. Scout Oat...
Post a Comment
Read more

My First Merit Badge Bike Ride (or, How I Relearned to Make a Cue Sheet)

We haven't had a chance to take an archery lesson - translation, I kept forgetting to email the local archery teacher this week about beginner lessons - and so today, in the absence of a new challenge, I decided to start ticking off on the cycling merit badge. The requirements for the badge are naturally more for the novice cyclist, so like other aspects of our journey, I plan to tailor the requirements to suit my level and desire for experiences and gaining knowledge. I started out by making a cue sheet. For those of you unfamiliar with cycling, a cue sheet is a way of planning a ride. It entails the turns onto different roads and often incorporates the length of time spent riding on that road. I haven't made a cue sheet in years - my style of riding is more often to go out and go adventure cycling by taking turns onto roads previously undiscovered. However, I wanted this to fit in with the planning and preparedness aspects of being a Scout. It was a really gorgeou...
Post a Comment
Read more