I have a LOT to cover in this update.
First, thank you for your support via Swaggerdile/Patreon! Sadly, support through Swaggerdile ends after this month due to Paypal and Stripe, the two primary processing companies basically being jerks about things. On Paypal’s end, they happily allow money taken from Patreon that contains quite a bit of outright porn, you know, that thing that Paypal doesn’t allow, yet looks the other way for when enough money is going their way. (I’m angry with them all. I consider Swaggerdile a superior service.) However, Swaggerdile is likely going to remain around as a backup to Patreon!
If you want to support my work, go to Patreon or see my Amazon wishlist! There are two items I really need on the wishlist: The HD Webcam (You will remember that Faith chewed all the way through the cord on my last webcam and I have traditional inking I want to stream) and the Black and Decker Rotary Tool (for products and to trim the nasty points off of Bear’s nails).
HURRAY! SCHOOL IS OUT! NO MORE WORK INTERRUPTIONS!
Now, for part 2 of this update. The No-one LIKES a Bitey Bear portion. — Current Funds: $100 of $600 —
Most of you are aware that we lost our corgi, Vash, in January, and then after an extensive and aggravating search, adopted our puppy Bear in March. It was an awful process I never want to go through again and it keeps on giving, because we should NOT have ended up with this dog. When we look for a dog, we have strict criteria. I wanted a smart, trainable, gentle, laid back dog between 30 and 50 pounds as an adult. I specifically asked about his personality and temperament and was assured that he was a very happy puppy who wagged his tail at everything, laid back, loves relaxing and a very chill puppy. Because Kim has autism, it was VERY important that this dog would be gentle and not aggressive at ALL.
Later, I realized there were warning signs with these people who were fostering the puppies, one being, the puppies were kept outside in a barn and even though they assured us they were very people friendly by being bottle fed pretty much from the start, they were OUTSIDE away from a household. They came and went as they pleased. They had been abandoned with their deceased mother at around 2 weeks old in January. I should have noted the brief bit of info: There are so many puppies, we can’t always watch them all or keep track of them. They let TEENAGERS handle them and I’m beginning to think that those teens were not supervised and did things, probably not things to be mean, but teasing. Yes, it could be genetic, but Bear has aggressive tendencies toward PEOPLE only. He really hates the vets and we’re working on that with weekly visits where he gets treats and pretend office visits.
He plays perfectly with other dogs, any dog, doesn’t matter the size or age, he modifies his play to their level and a little under it and you will NEVER hear the other dog he’s playing with whine or yelp. He stands up to bigger dogs who try to bully him. He is a super confident puppy.
However, he has bitten all of us over food and bit Kim over a new toy. He bites just hard enough to hurt, but doesn’t leave a mark. Recently, he’s been biting me while I’ve been doing training. I’ve trained three dogs prior to him, a daschund, a german shepherd/herding dog mix, and a pembroke welsh corgi. NONE of them ever did this. This isn’t normal puppy behavior and I don’t know how to deal with it.
It’s clear this problem isn’t one that we can deal with in the normal training I had planned for him. Normal training, would run $100 to $150 for 6 – 9 group lessons. Normal training is not for puppies that attack their owners because they believe they should get all the treats that are in hand. I spent all of my book earnings to get him assessed by a trainer, who concluded that he was insecure and needed a thundershirt and every calming pheremone that exists. While I believe this trainer was a good trainer, I don’t believe her assessment and was put off by the fact it was a SERIOUS problem that needed to be addressed ASAP and she was going to send us information immediately after the session. A WEEK later she sent us the information and I didn’t bother replying back.
Now, I’m going to take him to a professional behaviorist, who comes well recommended and is actually less than the trainer. The cost is going to be $600 for 6 lessons and I have to drive a bit to get him there. I was going to try to stretch it out every other week, but she would like to see him once a week, and I want this problem fixed asap, because right now, I just look at him and wish I had my corgi back. He’s making me really sad and we considered just taking him back to the shelter.
We can’t keep him if he’s going to be aggressive over anything. That makes him a danger to us and our other pets and any future pets. We have him up to date on his shots and he was neutered, along with all the other things that must be done with puppies, but I don’t think he would do well if returned to the shelter, because I doubt they will do anything to correct his problems and he doesn’t like strangers.
So I’m working on raising the money for the concentrated training by doing online commission work and streaming fund raising on this scale:
$20 buys an hour of my time. You may designate this hour to be spent doing whatever you want me to do with it.
-Work on a commission for you of whatever you like, within my PG-13 realm of course
-Work on any comic that’s mine – Your choice
-Play with Bear – I will take a 30 minute video of him running around a dog park playing with other dogs and post it on Youtube (It takes 12-13 minutes to get to the nice dog park with the trees and friendlier dogs. There are MULTIPLE dog parks in my area. :D)
-Black and white Hand inked piece – must be done offline at the moment, until I get a new webcam, single character with simple background on 9 x 12 smooth bristol.
-You can make me play video games and stream it. That may involve you buying me a steam game. 😀 Note: I am lousy at playing games. The only games I have installed are Sims 3, Tropico 4, and WoW – which I can only play the free version on.
-Other
-Tigerdile Streaming-I will post on Twitter when I’m streaming.
This was done in one hour’s worth of work time, from pencils to color. It’s not done, but almost. I’ll finish it today. Now, these are my own characters so I work faster on them, but a black and white piece is FAST.
