The Fluffy White Thing

Uh Oh, it's another one.

"Ruffy" is a lethal white mini aussie, deaf as grandpa. ("Lethal White" is a term for a homozygous merle, the product of a merle to merle breeding. They can be okay, but sometimes you get the almost all white dogs that may be deaf or blind. He is deaf.) He is very cuddly, very bright, and very trainable. He also has the attention span of a gnat.

We're working on the last part. Mostly, it's the aussie attitude of "ho hum, got it already!" He has actually learned quite a bit since he came to stay with me. He'll down, sit, and roll over from hand signals. His "watch me" is getting better. He doesn't recall worth anything, yet. Ruffy grasped the basics of a flyball box turn in two lessons, and fetches nicely. He's learned to tug. Fortunately, he came housetrained. There is an unrequited fascination with the cat, but it's not unmanageable. I am working on using a laser light in place of a clicker, and he seems to be picking up on it.

This dog is athletic, loves to run, loves to learn, loves to play and is very food motivated. I think he would be a lot of fun to train for agility, flyball, or Frisbee. He is absolutely deaf. I come home from work or find him in the morning still curled up like a fluffy white donut, oblivious to the car noises, the dogs barking and bounding around next to him, or even the vibrations of footsteps and the garage door. He loves other dogs, although he does push the limits of their tolerance with his constant jumping on them and nipping at them. Warning growls go unnoticed. He was injured by another dog in his previous foster home, and bitten by one of the dogs on the flyball team, so he should always be supervised with other dogs.

He is intelligent enough to need a job. Frisbee, agility, something. If not sufficiently stimulated, he will run back and forth in a pattern, barking at the same imaginary spot over and over. Also, he will find every loose thing in your house and chew it to bits.

I believe his ideal home would be with an older child interested in getting into dog sports.