She looks REALLY good for 15! I forget that Malamutes are SUPPOSED to be a nice, healthy breed - and Staffies and Pitties are super healthy. My boyfriend's Staffie was at least 16 when she passed away. (I say "at least" because they couldn't remember her age when they got her!)
That's adorable. People are silly. When we were walking London downtown, we had a girl accuse London of being a Polar Bear (jokingly) and her drunk buddies actually seemed to believe it. We avoided them at ALL costs.
Poor Miko! Mistaken for a cat. People are just plain dumb sometimes. No one's guessed London is something crazy in a long time but I think it's because he's become a local celebrity in my neighborhood though. Most people have heard ALL ABOUT Malamutes and their history. I'll conquer the world with knowledge some day.
I have a London update! He passed his TDI test today!
I was super nervous and I think it rubbed off on him. During the "crowd" scenario, the pots and pans clanging put him over the edge and I thought that he reacted very poorly/recovered poorly, but maybe I was being too harsh. The tester seemed very cruel during the test but warmed up afterward when she was handing me my papers.
I felt like such a wreck but I'm super proud of London. After the testing was over, he flopped right down on the floor like "RIGHT, NOW I want belly rubs. You people owe this to me."
I've also started him on nosework. He's turning 5 in February and some people had mentioned that he might be a little too old to learn, but he picked up the easy work in the drop-in class like it was nothing. We'll see how he progresses!
If only his mom would stop taking the most unflattering pictures of him and posting them on the internet for all to see.
Haha that picture is great! Congrats on the test and good luck with the nose-work!
I try to get pictures like that of Conker but he always catches me in the act and turns on normal mode before I can get a good one. I really need a better camera, my little digital point-and-shoot is going to crap out on me any day now.
I'm really proud of him. I know I don't NEED a cert to tell me I have a well-behaved dog, but it meant a lot to me when we got this.
London was pretty exhausted after his test. I really thing the crowd scene was too much for him. He also had a full day at work with me, so that probably didn't help him any. He's had lots of spoiling and belly rubs since we got home (and Russell too!) and he's basically slept the entire day away, which is unusual for him.
As far as the nose work goes, the overall consensus was that he's not the "usual" breed for the work and the people there thought he might not be motivated enough to do it... but we'll see! I really think he'll do very well and enjoy it (or I wouldn't have tried it!).
SO... I'm here again to show off my awesome monster. Some day I'll have an NK to post pictures of like a crazy lady shows off all her kids. :1
Here's London from the other day, -actually- spotting a woodchuck before Russell (not pictured: bark, chase, fail. The same tactic was tried on the geese later on in the walk.). It's a bit saturated because I was trying to show my friend that he wasn't dirty, but he's cream instead of white. It's usually hard to see in pictures, but easy to spot in person. The agouti markings on his face are really faded now - but he still has very faint "goggles" and a "bar" down his nose.
Hey @Crispy - there is a different thread going right now about the different brushes people use.... I was wondering if you know if the Malamute and Siberian's coats are the same and if so what brush do you use specific for London. He is beautiful. We have a Sibe cross but she has the complete husky coat... the furminator works great for the under coat and "so far" has not been damaging her top coat like the other thread is warning about... just wondering what you do for him to keep him looking so great!! ) Thanks!!!
Haha, thanks everybody! He looks pretty raggedy in the last couple pictures I've posted so I'll post a few more since I actually gave him the full spa treatment today (brush-out, bath, nails, ears)
@CarabooA - For the brush-out portion, I'll use a few different tools. 1.) Slicker Brush - always my first tool to try and loosen up his hair a bit and get rid of the larger clumps of hair that happen if I don't brush him for a while 2.) Under-coat Rake - I posted this in the other thread. I swear by this thing for all double-coated/thick-coated dogs. It's great at getting into the denser clumps of fur and pulling out the undercoat without damaging the topcoat. 3.) Greyhound Comb - I'll use this to smooth out his coat after his brush-out on days I only brush him or after his bath on days he's getting baths. I don't like to bathe him often - he's a pretty clean dog and a brush-out normally does the trick even if he IS dirty.
I only use a Furminator (I -do- have one) if he's shedding heavily and I never use it close to his "top" - mostly on his back legs, butt, and stomach where the hair is mostly downy and gets really raggedy in his coat-blow seasons. It does work pretty well for getting the hair out, but I did notice breakage on London when I first started using it and his hair is really slow to grow back.
He looks very handsome after spa day... Thanks for the run down of how you take care of his coat! Mirra needs much the same - I think I'll keep using the furminator for when she is really blowing her coat and rake the rest of the year. )
@Losech - They always look so fabulous! Whenever I groom London and ESPECIALLY after I send him to the groomer, I love how his "mane" foooossshes back and forth in the wind or whenever he takes a step. The end result of the grooming process is always way more dramatic with a double-coated dog or--my other favorites--the wire-haired dogs. (We should have thread all about the befores and afters of grooming)
@CarabooA - I think Sibe coats are a lot softer than Malamute coats. All the Sibes (sans one) who come to work and my coworker's Sibe are much softer than London, so that might have something to do with the guard hair breakage. I say: use what works (and I've seen the furminator pull some crazy amounts of hair out of places I didn't think London had much)! I swear by the undercoat rake, though - even then, you have to be careful because if the undercoat isn't loose enough, it's sometimes hard to get the brush through.
@Crispy - Thanks! That does sound like Mirra's coat - extra soft and fluffy, almost puppy like still- I've only known one Malamute personally but from what I remember (it was a long time ago) his coat was much stiffer than Mirra's ever has been. But yes, when she is ready to lose all that fluff I can NOT believe how much hair comes out of her and the furminator has been the only one to get it all out and the only one that she will actually stand still for!! We joke and say that we could make dog wigs for all those hairless breeds out there... lol (no offense to the hairless lovers!!!) )
I figured I'd do a London update since he came out with me and my friend to Block Island to visit some family and hang out.
Block Island is a pretty dog-friendly place - a little island off the coast of Rhode Island. It's a total tourist trap, but my grandmother worked and lived out there for a decade and a half so I still go out and see some family friends and get completely spoiled by the natives - a luxury I apparently can extend to friends and puppies in my company.
Only... London hates the ferry.
Really interested in the waiter who got us our clam cakes for breakfast.
Hanging out in the shade on the side of the road for a bit so London could relax. It wasn't supposed to be higher than 75 on this particular day and it climbed well above 80 by the afternoon.
That's so cool! Conker's tail is really short. I love dogs with long tails. London's color is really awesome in that picture too. He looks like liquid silver.
Haha, I just had to post the picture because of one of the last comments on how long his tail was. I see it all the time so I forget how ridiculous it looks, but we were with a few other malamutes a few weeks ago and I realized: wow, your tail makes you look goofy, dude.
And he just got a bath in that picture so he's super clean and bright. He tends to lighten up in the winter (maybe because of all his cream/white colored undercoat to spread the black hairs?) and look more of that "liquid silver" than black grizzled.
This is horrible, but I'm still pretty amazed he did this... Last night, I ordered dinner for everyone because I wanted to take the lazy route out... London took it upon himself to eat a box of pizza, an order of cheese bread, an order of bread bites, buffalo wings AND desert: the lava cakes. After hours of fretting and watching, I decided that if he didn't die from some horrible stomach-explosion, I might actually kill him.
Oh yeah, and he had to jump up at least five feet in order to pull the boxes down and get to them. He did this in the time it took me to the drinks set up. I especially like how each box is opened and flattened instead of torn through and he politely unwrapped the tin foil on the wings and ate it on "his" couch.
awful.
hours later, he couldn't figure out why his stomach hurt so much...
HOLY CRAP! Bad, bad, BAD Malamute! That definitely would have killed Conker. He's got violent reactions to pizzastuffs, it's never fun or pretty when that happens. (You'd think, being yelled at like a million times by now, that my siblings wouldn't leave pizza where Conker can get it.) It's funny though, how London opened each box and unwrapped the foil. At least he was polite...
On a different note, Conker lightens in the winter and darkens in the summer too. The vast majority of his undercoat is white/cream with a few bits being light red or gray, so it only seems natural that it would make the coat appear to lighten. Though at the rate his overcoat is turning white, he might be a cream before he's a senior.
Comments
Funny story: I was walking her one night (many years ago) and someone asked me if she was part bear.
To further emphasize the stupidity of some humans; someone once asked me if Miko was a cat.
That's adorable. People are silly. When we were walking London downtown, we had a girl accuse London of being a Polar Bear (jokingly) and her drunk buddies actually seemed to believe it. We avoided them at ALL costs.
Poor Miko! Mistaken for a cat.
By the way, I love London's pictures. I've always had a liking toward malamutes
I was super nervous and I think it rubbed off on him. During the "crowd" scenario, the pots and pans clanging put him over the edge and I thought that he reacted very poorly/recovered poorly, but maybe I was being too harsh. The tester seemed very cruel during the test but warmed up afterward when she was handing me my papers.
I felt like such a wreck but I'm super proud of London. After the testing was over, he flopped right down on the floor like "RIGHT, NOW I want belly rubs. You people owe this to me."
I've also started him on nosework. He's turning 5 in February and some people had mentioned that he might be a little too old to learn, but he picked up the easy work in the drop-in class like it was nothing. We'll see how he progresses!
If only his mom would stop taking the most unflattering pictures of him and posting them on the internet for all to see.
I try to get pictures like that of Conker but he always catches me in the act and turns on normal mode before I can get a good one. I really need a better camera, my little digital point-and-shoot is going to crap out on me any day now.
Funny picture, he looks kinda tired
I'm really proud of him. I know I don't NEED a cert to tell me I have a well-behaved dog, but it meant a lot to me when we got this.
London was pretty exhausted after his test. I really thing the crowd scene was too much for him. He also had a full day at work with me, so that probably didn't help him any. He's had lots of spoiling and belly rubs since we got home (and Russell too!) and he's basically slept the entire day away, which is unusual for him.
As far as the nose work goes, the overall consensus was that he's not the "usual" breed for the work and the people there thought he might not be motivated enough to do it... but we'll see! I really think he'll do very well and enjoy it (or I wouldn't have tried it!).
Here's London from the other day, -actually- spotting a woodchuck before Russell (not pictured: bark, chase, fail. The same tactic was tried on the geese later on in the walk.). It's a bit saturated because I was trying to show my friend that he wasn't dirty, but he's cream instead of white. It's usually hard to see in pictures, but easy to spot in person.
The agouti markings on his face are really faded now - but he still has very faint "goggles" and a "bar" down his nose.
Thanks!!!
@CarabooA - For the brush-out portion, I'll use a few different tools.
1.) Slicker Brush - always my first tool to try and loosen up his hair a bit and get rid of the larger clumps of hair that happen if I don't brush him for a while
2.) Under-coat Rake - I posted this in the other thread. I swear by this thing for all double-coated/thick-coated dogs. It's great at getting into the denser clumps of fur and pulling out the undercoat without damaging the topcoat.
3.) Greyhound Comb - I'll use this to smooth out his coat after his brush-out on days I only brush him or after his bath on days he's getting baths. I don't like to bathe him often - he's a pretty clean dog and a brush-out normally does the trick even if he IS dirty.
I only use a Furminator (I -do- have one) if he's shedding heavily and I never use it close to his "top" - mostly on his back legs, butt, and stomach where the hair is mostly downy and gets really raggedy in his coat-blow seasons. It does work pretty well for getting the hair out, but I did notice breakage on London when I first started using it and his hair is really slow to grow back.
after the spa day
@CarabooA - I think Sibe coats are a lot softer than Malamute coats. All the Sibes (sans one) who come to work and my coworker's Sibe are much softer than London, so that might have something to do with the guard hair breakage. I say: use what works (and I've seen the furminator pull some crazy amounts of hair out of places I didn't think London had much)! I swear by the undercoat rake, though - even then, you have to be careful because if the undercoat isn't loose enough, it's sometimes hard to get the brush through.
Block Island is a pretty dog-friendly place - a little island off the coast of Rhode Island. It's a total tourist trap, but my grandmother worked and lived out there for a decade and a half so I still go out and see some family friends and get completely spoiled by the natives - a luxury I apparently can extend to friends and puppies in my company.
Only... London hates the ferry.
Really interested in the waiter who got us our clam cakes for breakfast.
Hanging out in the shade on the side of the road for a bit so London could relax. It wasn't supposed to be higher than 75 on this particular day and it climbed well above 80 by the afternoon.
I had to share this because of how ridiculously long London's tail is. I thought he'd grow into it when he was a pup. I was -so- wrong.
And he just got a bath in that picture so he's super clean and bright. He tends to lighten up in the winter (maybe because of all his cream/white colored undercoat to spread the black hairs?) and look more of that "liquid silver" than black grizzled.
Last night, I ordered dinner for everyone because I wanted to take the lazy route out... London took it upon himself to eat a box of pizza, an order of cheese bread, an order of bread bites, buffalo wings AND desert: the lava cakes. After hours of fretting and watching, I decided that if he didn't die from some horrible stomach-explosion, I might actually kill him.
Oh yeah, and he had to jump up at least five feet in order to pull the boxes down and get to them. He did this in the time it took me to the drinks set up. I especially like how each box is opened and flattened instead of torn through and he politely unwrapped the tin foil on the wings and ate it on "his" couch.
hours later, he couldn't figure out why his stomach hurt so much...
It's funny though, how London opened each box and unwrapped the foil. At least he was polite...
On a different note, Conker lightens in the winter and darkens in the summer too. The vast majority of his undercoat is white/cream with a few bits being light red or gray, so it only seems natural that it would make the coat appear to lighten. Though at the rate his overcoat is turning white, he might be a cream before he's a senior.
I love pizza.
Bella used to be horrible with counter surfing I think she'd go for the pizza too if she could.
Saya is too polite for that she never gotten into people food and when Bella did Saya just lay there didn't eat a bite.