The honeymoon period with Shiva has begun to end! LOL Last night(and as many know, I was waiting for this to happen as she is a natural female leader) she exchanged some words with our Kona, 9.5 year old Newfx who has been our leader female for her whole life with us. Today, Shiva then attempted to see if she could move up the chain and had some words with our almost 8 year old GD, Maggi. There are many trainers that will say do not interfere yet as a trainer and someone that works deep in the trenches of behavour; I do intercede where and when needed. Shiva is to be very hopefully adopted at some point; Maggi and Kona are ours. In the whole time we have operated BHRR; no one has ever tried to step up and be the natural leader female in our home, especially since Kona has been with us since 1999 and took on that role. We have had this happen with male rescues and our own males and even now, we have a very fluid male leadership going on in our home since Jasper was failing in health over the past couple of years and then crossed over this past June. Animal dynamics is very interesting and fascinating! Abbi and Mudslide are so content to let Shiva lead and to date, Shiva has not attempted anything with Mazda or Cherokee; two other females here. For people that do not understand this natural progression of animal behavour in a pack; it is neither unusual, scary, unheard of, unnatural or even wrong to have these things occur. We do not in our home set any dogs up for failure and live in harmony and the fact that two dogs exchanged a few words about things; is completely normal. What is the underlying cause is what is so interesting and I look forward to watching things develop. We have determined that Shiva can be adopted out with our BHRR’s Abbi(they are very very very close) or she needs to go to a home with at least one other dog as previously mentioned; or if there are two+ other dogs; at least one male would be great and the female must be open to having a natural and most wonderful(so very rare to see such a natural leader female in such a calm, confident without being dominant or overbearing manner like Shiva is) leader female in the home. Dogs like Abbi and Mudslide are really benefiting in having a Dane like Shiva here in helping them even more with social confidence etc. I am so loving this Dane and Sean and I have said many times over that if we did not have Kona(our own spectacular natural female leader) that Shiva would be here to stay. She is just PERFECT!!!! As long as she is continued to be molded and guilded in the right direction, this gal can do anything! Obedience, Therapy, Agility and the best family companion and asset to home/community that anyone could ever wish for. The one thing that we are going to be taking a closer look at is something on her skin. Before I left for Niagara last Friday, I noticed a ‘bump’ on her side(close to her hip) and upon touching it, it was very tender. The next morning just before I got on the road; the lump had ulcerated and was oozing and I put Shiva on antibiotics. When I got home on Sunday night; the bump was gone, the area was very dry and flat, with a small scab and it looked like some kind of skin condition. I know from reading her past vet records that she did suffer from Demodex AND it is possible that this is what this is. The area is now quite a healthy pink, no hair and has healed well. I think we might do a skin scraping on her too if need be.