Markus’ Door Greets, His Orderliness, Picking Toys and Another Food Update
Markus working on his BeneBone with his working stance
Raising Markus is the series where we share stories about our time raising Markus. Said to be aggressive and having gone unadopted for over a year, Raising Markus is the story of a rescued dog from Korea given a second opportunity, now in Vancouver, Canada. This series will include the lessons, joys and struggles of dog owners fumbling our way through our first adoption. The hope is that if you're considering rescuing a dog of your own, our stories are useful to you.
This week, I talk about Markus’ greetings at the door when we come home, his orderliness and how we pick out his toys.
Markus’ Door Greets
I spent the past week in San Francisco for a work conference, so I didn't get to see Markus for the week. My wife and I shared FaceTime calls and we would have Markus on the screen, but it didn't seem like he recognized my voice through the phone. I’m not sure if I believe it when people say their dogs recognize them through their phones - I have yet to see it. Then again, my dog's technologically challenged!
Anyways, there's really nothing like coming back home to a dog who's excited to see you. Whether it be just the day or after a weeklong trip like I just had, you just feel loved, which is always a great feeling. I've heard of plenty of dogs who don’t greet their owners (and don’t even move from where they are) when they get home. Dang. Of all the things that Markus picked up, I'm glad it's this.
Here’s a quick video of me coming home after being away for a week.
Markus' Orderliness
They say that Shibas are clean dogs and certainly we’ve seen glimpses of that with Markus. He can be very cat-like with the way he avoids water and licks himself clean. We've also started to notice that Markus is very orderly in a way that I'm not sure other dogs are like.
When Markus eats his kibble, he doesn't just bury his head into his food and eat away, but he'll eat very systematically from one side of the bowl to the other. So much so that if he were to stop eating midway, you will actually see a straight line going across the bowl where one side has been eaten and the other side completely untouched. Do any of your dogs do this too?
Another instance of his orderliness is the way he works through his BeneBone. There's a system to it. There are three nubs to his BeneBone and as it is right now, one nub has been completely chewed off, another nub is partially (and currently being) worked on and the last nub is completely untouched. He will make it a point to start on a new nun only after he’s done with the current one. I didn't realize that dogs have this type of orderliness, but is this something that you've noticed with your dogs too?
On a side note with his BeneBone, it's been a good chewing item for him so far. Part of the reason why we gave him this is so that he can work his teeth especially when he’s worked up. When he gets excited, Markus will start to fling his blanket around. Previously, he'll eventually stop flinging and start to chew on his blanket until he starts to create holes. These days, the unexpected benefit of having the bone on his blanket is that when he flings his blanket around, his bone will fly out the blanket and crash onto the floor. The loud noise will catch his attention so he becomes distracted with the BeneBone instead of chewing on his blanket.
Choosing his types of toys
Markus on his working stance working on his Plubber toy on his bed
When we first adopted Markus, he would play with his blanket the most and we noticed he was drawn towards clothy-type toys. Looking at his rescue shelter photos, we figured it was probably because blankets were the only “toy” he had when he was there. It was just his blanket that doubled as the item to play with. In the beginning, we need to introduce him to dog plays and had to train him out of playing with just his blanket since he gets destructive with it. Even with dog toys now, he’s pretty destructive in general and he's getting through the toys really quickly, which is rough since they're not the cheapest!
We’ve started to get different types of toys to see which ones he likes to play with between which ones take longer for him to destroy. He doesn't normally like to play with the rubber toys and harder chews like Nylabones, but those do typically last longer. We've found that toys with frayed edges, rope or limbs tend to go really quickly. If he can get his teeth on something and be able to use his paws to pull back, it’s not going to last.
We once picked up a Kong Bear and it lasted all of 20 minutes. For a toy that was $17 and supposed to last longer, it didn't last nearly long enough at all. There are too many limbs for him to attack and it was gone as quickly as we gave it to him. I kept the bear around just because I felt ripped off that I had spent that much money to be destroyed within 20 minutes. I honestly thought it was a good idea and that it would last, but dang.
We did find a line of toys called Plubber that are soft, but they're also dense. This line of toys are surprisingly effectively. Markus can chew on it, but he'll play with it because it's still soft with cloth along the outside, but it's nice and dense. It's not the prettiest looking toy since it's made to look like real food, but it does the job. We also found that items where he can’t his paw on to help him pull are also pretty good. An example of this is a slightly larger cloth ball (like a giant apple or something). Since there are no limbs, Markus needs to get creative with destroying this cloth item that rolls away. So far, these have worked quite nicely.
Food update
On the last update, we switched the Markus to the Acana Ranchlands for a bit more protein after feeding with Acana's Pacific Pilchard (both only available in Canada) for a while. We've had the least amount of success so far with Ranchlands. Markus didn't like this food at all and went too long without eating, so we switched back to Pacific Pilchard for the time being until we can find something else for us. He's okay with Pacific Pilchard, but there's no "clamourability". He's not finishing the full meal that we're providing for him, which leads us to think that we just haven't found the thing that he really loves.
We’re starting to look for other types of food to try and find something that Markus might completely finish. Kibble isn’t the best solution and we’d like to switch him out of it to something that has a little bit more natural ingredients and less of the preservatives. For now, we’re not really sure yet, so we’ll keep testing Markus on foods!
We’re so grateful for your support of The Markus Project. We mostly choose our locations through searching and word of mouth. If you know of a park, trail or location you think we should check out, please share it with us. We’d love to know!
