"Orion is doing very well! On our scale here at home he's
been hovering around 41 pounds since his vet appointment on the 14th.
His weight gain seems to have slowed down a bit as he's getting older.
He literally went from 20 pounds to 32 pounds in just a week and change!
He's very athletic and looking more like his dad every day! He's
even sporting the little pink nose that Petaga has, just in a different
shape. He is extremely sweet. A couple of the little
girls on the street come over every Saturday afternoon and ask to take him
for his "walk" (a little tour down the street and back again)
which he adores, and then they go nuts in the backyard tiring each
other out playing ball, tag, chase, or just romping in the snow for a
good hour or two. Both the girls and Orion seem quite pleased
with this arrangement. We started him on Eagle Pack which we located
at a holistic pet store in town. It's supposed to be in the same
range as Prism, and Orion seems to like it very much.
Having
two of this gorgeous hybrid yourself, I think you have your own
opinions on them, however I would like to say a few things about them…
First, that we have not noticed any of the common Husky traits that
are less than desirable for some people: such as food aggression, toy/bone
aggression, or shyness around strangers (he growled once at our other dog
when he was 11 weeks old or so when he was chewing on his bone and was
approached, and our other dog pecked him on the nose as if to say
"Stop that nonsense", and he has relinquished his
toys/bones/food to anyone and everyone ever since, without even an ear
twitch). Our vet is amazed by his relaxed and incredibly friendly
personality. Also, though he is still a pup so I cannot say for
sure, right now he has absolutely no doggy smell to him whatsoever.
One of the little girls that play with him has a dog and cat allergy,
albeit not a severe one, and she does not have any sniffles or scratchy
eyes when she plays with him or pets him. I hope he stays that way,
because it's great. You can see more and more NAID traits coming
through in him every day. He watches everyone all the time and is
acutely aware of where everyone in the house is. He knows when
someone leaves, even if he hasn't seen them all day, and goes to their
bedroom door and whines, and then goes to the front door and looks for
them. He loves all over any guest that comes into the house, and
loves to be surrounded by people. He does seem to have a bit of
anxiety when he's left alone, but he's getting better with this, and has
not been destructive at all with regards to chewing on things he
shouldn't. He adores other animals of any kind, and loves to be with
our other dog. The two are good buddies now. :) He has also
started puppy class, and the trainer recommends that we do sledding with
him when he gets older, like we hoped to, and that we look into training
him as a therapy dog because his personality is so amazingly laid back and
loving.
He's
very spoilt and very happy and looks forward to his new girlfriend in the
spring. Thanks again for this amazing guy, we look forward to
furthering this hybrid here in
Canada
.
Sheena,
Mike, Orion and Sambuca in
Ontario
,
Canada
!”
_____________________________
"Hey Karen,
Just thought I'd pass along an update on our fiery little Orion, and his
antics as of late! :) I attached several pics, it would be great
if you could post them so everyone could see how Chucki and Lunar
Eclipse's brother is doing! :) Orion would be super grateful,
as he's pretty full of himself and wants his siblings to know that he's
doing just fine! ;)
I thought we'd let you know that today he is 9 days away from his 8
month birthday! :P He's a big boy when you look at him, but
doesn't weigh quite what you'd expect him to. His weight at home
showed almost 70lbs, but at the vet's it shows 63lbs,
as of last week. He honestly looks like he weighs at least
80lbs. He's very lithe and athletic looking. The vet
measured him last week and it he is 26.5 inches at the
top of his shoulder, and 41.5 inches from the tip of
his nose to the tip of his bum (tail not included). We are trying
him on a new Canadian made food called Orijen, and he
is getting cuts of frozen (but thawed) venison once a week, which keeps
his teeth in amazing shape. It's great the way those bones really
help those teeth stay white, shiny and clean. He does have 'puppy'
breath, but with all the crap he digs up in the backyard that doesn't
surprise me. The vitamin supplements are keeping his fur bright
and shiny, and now that he's done blowing out his winter coat for
summertime he barely sheds at all. There is still no doggy odour
to him, he almost smells sweet, like cotton candy or something similar.
He is SO SO SO soft, his hair is thick but it's very soft, especially
behind his ears and on his neck, but even down his back. He has a
nice long strip of black guard hairs along his spine that compliments
the rest of his dark fur, and just the slightest hint of orange/red
behind his ears and on the hocks of his back legs. Did I also
mention that he trims his own nails? Every couple of days he goes
over his entire foot and chews off the tips of his nails and spits them
on the ground. We have only trimmed his nails once, the rest are
worn down naturally by playing and digging, and by his nibbling.
It's very amusing! His blue eye is not so vibrant as it once was,
it has changed color to shade of bluish/white/almost purple-ish color.
And his brown eye has some gold flecks in it right around the pupil.
He has very pretty eyes! :)
As far as personality goes... wow, what a lover. He loves to dig,
and dig.... and dig... haha. We yelled at him for digging up the
yard, so he stopped doing it... except when it rains and it's all
muddy... which I have attached a hilarious picture of!.....I poked my
head out of the upstairs window and saw him digging and grabbed
my camera and called his name... and he looked up and I
snapped this great pic!.. But other than that, instead of digging
up the yard, he goes under the deck and digs up where we can't see him
do it! The brains of that dog astounds me sometimes. When he
doesn't listen to what we say, I know it's not because he isn't
intelligent, it's because he's being a stubborn little turd! His
favourite past time, other than digging, is sitting outside and just
watching everyone and everything. He doesn't get spooked by
airplanes or anything flying overhead, he just stares at them as they
pass by. We took him to the Canada Day fireworks downtown tonight
by the waterfront, and there were about... 5,000 or so people there.
It was dark, loud, and very crowded, and he didn't bat an eyelash.
Every second person stopped to pet him, and he just loved on them, and
continued on his way. He's very into doing his own thing, if
someone wants to pet him he's super friendly, but he doesn't hound them
for attention. He does still jump up on strangers or even people
he knows because he's excited to see them, but he will NOT jump up on a
child or an adult of a shorter height, or anyone who is
elderly. He must sense that they are smaller than him, or more
delicate and he doesn't even try it. He just rubs against them
like a cat, wagging his tail. He's such a darling. The loud
noise of the fireworks didn't phase him at all, he looked up from his
spot on the grass once to see what was making the noise and when he saw
that we were okay with it, he just went back to lying doing and watching
all the people. Other dogs were yapping and barking, and he
totally tuned them out! He never barks...ever... he yaps when he's
playing with Sambuca our Dach/Chi, or with the cats, but never barks...
When our other little guy barks his head off, Orion just puts his paw
on him, as if to say... 'Shut up!'... But boy does he ever howl
when we come home or when he's excited! And it's a beautiful howl
like the dogs at your kennel, I could close my eyes and listen to it
forever. It's so unbelievably serene!
He graduates from Advanced Obedience in two days! After that he
will be going for his Canine Good Neighbour certifications, which will
then show up with his name when he goes to dog shows, which is a great thing
for him, as it's the stepping stone towards two things: becoming a
registered therapy dog, and/or become a member of the rally-o or an
agility competitor. His teacher says that she thinks he thinks
that he's wonderful, she's never seen a Husky hybrid or a dog that looks
like him, who acts the way he does. He is often used as a
placement between dogs in the class who don't get along because he loves
EVERYONE, his favourite "girlfriend" in class is a Pug named
Missy. LoL. What a monkey he is! His teacher thinks he
will make a wonderful therapy dog if we choose to go that route, but
also that she would really like to see him shown in the obedience and
agility rings, because no one ever sees a dog like him compete at such
things (it's usually Aussie's and Border Collies and the like), and that
he would be wonderful at it! So we are going to register him for
his CGN certification first, and then work towards the dog shows that
are coming up this fall! :) It'd be nice for our future pups to
have a Champion sire!
Just wanted to give you an update, we are excited to bring home our
little panda-bear girl in two weeks! Orion is excited to meet his
future wife!
Thanks Karen, look forward to seeing you soon!
~Much love from Orion, Sambuca, Sheena and Mike in Kingston,
Ontario. Canada~"
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