Rosebud is from the 2008 Zakai and Nita Mahaley (“Molly”) litter. She was one of 8 puppies and now lives with her family in Canada.
December 8, 2008
Hi Carla,
I would like to take this opportunity to provide you with some feedback on Rosebud and my overall buying experience with your kennel. I have been a dog owner for my entire life and have personally trained and dealt with several dogs, including working with service dogs for the Mira Foundation, which is a non-profit organization that provides guide dogs and service dogs to Eastern Canada and can be found at www.mira.ca. I have personally owned several German Shepherds as I am a great admirer of their loyalty and trainability and they have always been my favorite dog, so I was a bit apprehensive about straying away from this breed. However, with my wife’s allergies to dogs, we could no longer keep a regular coated animal and needed to look in to hypoallergenic breeds, which is how we found out about Indian Dogs and came to find your website.
Dealing with you was immediately a pleasure, as you patiently answered all my questions to the best of your ability in a timely manner and you were the first person from the various NAID breeders to send me fur swatch samples from your breeding stock to test my wife for any allergic reactions. Once my wife spent a week sleeping with the swatches and did not have a reaction, we had already spoken to several other breeders but my mind was made up and decided to go ahead and make my purchase from you, a decision that I am so grateful I made. I paid my deposit and the wait began… and even during the pregnancy period, you still communicated with me and answered all my questions via email as we nervously waited for the litter to be born. Once the litter was born, I really feel you understood and tolerated my excitement as I badgered you constantly for new photos of the litter, updates on their metal stimulus, and additional questions on preparation and food selection. I remember spending an hour on the phone together looking at holistic and grain free food options and you explained what each product was, where to get it and how to save money effectively on these products.
When we finally decided on the Pink collared puppy, we started looking at delivery options and finalized our last minute details, and I really felt secure that there would be no hang-ups as you were obviously very thorough in planning every aspect of the delivery and ensuring we would have no problems with customs paperwork etc. In the end we decided to meet in person and I was floored when you offered to drive 2 days to New York State to meet us in person as we were going to be visiting Albany for the weekend, which was about 4 hours drive from our house in Canada. We were so excited as my wife and I had to keep this puppy as a surprise to our 5 year old daughter all this time!
It was an absolute pleasure to meet you and your son and we’re so happy to have met your sire Zakai, who was absolutely GORGEOUS! I was very impressed with the package of paperwork that accompanied the puppy, which included all the customs paperwork and health certification, certificate of the breed, vaccination and health record, pedigree history and a wonderful collage of the puppy growing from week to week. In fact, the first time I brought Rosebud to the vet after bringing her back home, she was very impressed when I handed her the folder with all the documentation and the handy vaccination booklet ready to go! So in terms of the pre-sale and pickup, I could not have been more pleased and it could not have been more smooth and stress-free. And my daughter was left speechless, so mission accomplished!
Once ‘Rosebud’ (My daughter’s choice for a name) was home, she immediately settled in and despite being timid, was very friendly and took to us and her new environment almost immediately. Our only concern was that she was not eating and once again you were there to offer suggestions and help over the phone and it turned out she was just a bit of a fussy eater! In the end, she settled on a diet of Orijen puppy food with a bit of EVO canned on the top for flavor and we haven’t gone back since!
After a few weeks, Rosebud began to be extremely submissive, especially with my wife. She began to urinate as soon as my wife would touch her, and we started to panic… I called you and together we did some research and put in a plan of action to break her of the habit, which worked so well. I began teach Rosebud to stand upright, and stopped her from squatting by reaching under her and standing her up while telling her to stand and stay. After a month, the submissive urination was gone and problem solved! Rosebud is still a very timid dog, however with consistent exposure to other dogs at the dog park and walks in busy areas, she has become confident and comfortable in the presence of other dogs and people. She will still shy away if someone she does not know tries to approach her too aggressively, but this is simply her nature and isn’t a behavioral issue whatsoever… she’s just like her human sister! When I had my last Mira dog, he would bite and mouth EVERYTHING and you simply could NOT pet him without him trying to mouth you, and would usually apply pressure so you had to stop him. Rosebud only eats her food and her toys, end of list! She is absolutely AMAZING with kids, and has been since we first got her… she will lay down and let toddlers and young children pet her without blinking an eye. She will not try to mouth them or get in their face at all, she’s just awesome. I’ve had many parents see their young children that are “scared of dogs” come and pet Rosebud simply because she is so quiet and calm and they comment on how fantastic she is with children. Rosebud is also VERY attached to my daughter and follows her everywhere. When we go to the dog park, my daughter will often walk around the dog park looking for toys or to play with other dogs and Rosebud will often cross the park to go check on her and then go back to what she was doing. I don’t think you can ask for much more when it comes to a dog for young children!
In terms of trainability, I think it’s safe to say that the trainer I worked with was blown away when Rosebud completed her Obedience Level I, II and III by 7 months of age! Rosebud will walk and stay in heel on OR OFF lead, obeys hand and voice commands for sit, stand, lay down, stay, hike and much to our surprise, will also retrieve! I have made numerous videos of her training progress that you are welcome to post on your website… as someone who has trained German Shepherds, I have to admit I have never had a GSD trained this fast! So a huge WOW on the training aspect, and I still get comments all the time from folks that see her executing her commands so well. She’s very attentive when in heel and her focus is great, especially considering her young age. I look forward to Skijor training this winter and then we’re thinking of starting agility in the summer to keep her in shape and then maybe do some amateur Skijor racing in winter of 2009-2010 and see where that goes. I’ve also blended her obedience training with tricks I learned from working with guide dogs, so Rosebud has learned to “do her business” on pavement or cement instead of needing a patch of grass and she will do it on command. Naturally grass will work fine as well, but this is a great trick to learn in the city where a patch of grass might not be on hand, or if I don’t want her peeing on the grass of our neighbors… I can simply take to the side of the curb, give the bathroom command and if she needs to do something, she does it.
Rosebud is now nearing 9 months and she requires no crating or restraints in the house… she is free in the house at night and when we are not home and aside from licking a couple of sofa cushions when we starting leaving her alone, she doesn’t touch anything except her own toys. She is very much a toy driven dog rather than food, she absolutely adores all her toys. Rosebud is also very non-aggressive and passive, so any child can take a toy from her, a bone or stick a hand in her food dish while she is eating and she is totally un-phased. Her temperament is honestly perfect for a house with children! She is also very quiet and calm in the house but has tons of energy for outside. She can run in the dog park for hours and will run and play fetch with me until my shoulder is about to fall off. She will start to get restless though if she’s not exercised enough after a few days, so I make sure to take her out daily and try to hit the dog park 3 times a week.
She really only has 2 minor issues, one of which I believe can be trained out of her no problem, the other is moot at this point:
1. She LOVED to dig, which is typical of a Northern breed type… so my yard is starting to look a tad disheveled. I don’t really care as I am not a lawn fanatic, but I think potential buyers should have a plan in place to work on this issue as I am sure this is a common past time for the breed. I will work on this habit with her next spring by using a large plastic jug with a couple of rolls of pennies in there. Dogs HATE the sound it makes and if you rattle that thing off a few times when they start digging, they will stop immediately and eventually all you have to do is set the jug in the yard where she can see it and she won’t dig.
2. Rosebud seems to have separation anxiety and because I work from home, she is used to having someone around her pretty much all the time. So this combined effect lead to a complete failure of crating her, she simply refused to settle in to the crate. I tried every trick in the book but she refused to settle down and would howl and yell in there until I let her out and I tried for months. It wasn’t a huge deal in our case because at night she would sleep in the kitchen and not destroy anything but I had to crate her as she would become destructive due to the anxiety when left alone. She would howl and I would come home to her being soaked from her own spit from all the howling and yelping, but I had no choice. Eventually her destructive reaction to being left alone subsided and she no longer requires crating or being tied up when alone.
I should also note that I do not use crating for housebreaking because I work from home, it’s not necessary at all… Rosebud was housebroken in 2 weeks. Any accidents in the house after that were purely my fault for not noticing she had to go and she couldn’t hold it long enough. It’s important for people to realize that just because your dog is housebroken doesn’t mean they can hold it for a long time. By 4 months old we had maybe 1 pee accident every week or two, by 5 months old no problems. She’s NEVER defecated in the house.
Rosebud is also much easier on my wife’s allergies as we had hoped. Her eyes do still bother her a tiny bit once Rosebud blew out her puppy coat and she does shed a little bit, it’s nothing compared to the other dogs I’ve had and is easily managed. She also has NO DOG SMELL! Unlike my GSD or Labs from Mira that would get pretty ripe after a month of not bathing, Rosebud will only smell if she’s been playing with other dogs and she’s been drooled on and such, or if she’s been outside in the dirt and digging or something and her paws will smell like grass and mud. But she definitely does not have a dog odor and my wife loves that! Even when she’s wet, no stinky wet dog smell! I brush her about once a week and I’ve bathed her once with shampoo since getting her (I’ve had to rinse her off with the hose a few times after playing in a muddy rain-soaked dog park). I’ll probably shampoo her before we go to see the family for Christmas, so that works out to 2 or 3 baths a year. We’re also going to try one of the products you suggested for coat retention to see if that eliminates the little amount of shedding she does.
I would like to point out that as we near 9 months of age for Rosebud, you are STILL answering all my questions and have become more of a dear friend that has added a beautiful addition to our family rather than a business owner that I bought a dog from. Your dedication to answering my questions and providing me support and suggestions has been consistent both pre and post sale of Rosebud and I can’t thank you enough for all the help you’ve given us over the last year or so, from that first day I emailed you asking about the breed up to now. You have been a wonderful friend and breeder and I continue to refer anyone I can to your website and this breed of dog. She is an amazing companion and valued member of our family and we just can’t go ANYWHERE without hearing how gorgeous she is or how calm she is. Even my mother who dislikes large dogs likes to have her in the house when we visit! She even takes her out for walks!
Well, Rosebud has decided that I’ve spent enough time typing and has dropped a subtle hint that she would like to have some fresh air (I now have a leash that has been deposited next to my keyboard). So I will finish off by saying you have been absolutely wonderful in all aspects of your breeding and kennel program and we can’t thank you enough for proving the perfect dog to us, we couldn’t have asked for more! Well… maybe another puppy!
Take care and happy holidays!
Dan
