A great Sunday !

Hello my furiends !

A big thank you to all of you who left nice comments on my last post. Hopefully we won't meet this stupid owner again - but as Lucille said, he must be known around here so we might hear about him again. Next time - and thanks to Homer - we will know what to answer :-)

Today I thought I might share some pictures of my playtime and walk with you ! We had so much fun - and I have to say, we are very lucky to have moved here in the South of France. Everything is so beautiful around here! Plus, we live just right next to a giant and beautiful park and it only takes us to cross the road to be there !

But before we go to the park, I always got to play with my ball and my humans and wanted to show you some action shot of myself my human took :

I believe I can flyyyyyyy ..!

Some portraits :

Funny faces :

OOOpps... I look silly.

Anyway, let's go for a walk now...

.......are you coming ?

let's go !

(see, there are pigeons everywhere but I'm walking nicely not even looking at them)

Don't you love the beautiful colors ?

....and the big trees ? See how tall they are - I look so small standing next to them !

My favorite thing in the park is this BIG stick ! Don't you remenber I LOVE sticks ? hehe :

and those painted walls ! There is a message on it;

it reminds people to be nice and gentle with nature :-)

(I love the bird - I think it looks like the ones in the phone game "Angry Birds" - don't you ?)

Anyway - After this big walk, I started to be a little tired ...

Oh dear ...

I do this all the time... I litteraly let myself fall on the floor. It warns my humans I won't go

much further so we'd better start to head home :-) They say it is very funny.

Hope you liked my pictures and had a good time sharing my day with me !

Talk soon,

Love,

Lincoln

Some News

Hello everybudy !

How are you ? I'm so so sorry once again I did not leave many comments on your blogs, though I still read your blogposts quite often !

For me, life is quite good ! I'm well settled in our new place now, and I'm doing great with learning detachment with my human. No more bad suprises for my humans when they come back home since my last post ! No more destroying things - I'm pretty proud of myself !

My humans have put my bed in my room, and a baby gate at the door, so this is were I sleep now and I think I love it very much ! Good thing is that I even go in my room when my humans are here and I want some peace and quiet (they can be noisy sometimes!!).

About the others dogs and the pulling on the leash stuff - well ... it has improved a little. It depends on my mood.

My humans got really scared though because two weeks ago I had to go through a not-so-good experience and they thought I would start hating other dogs or being very scared of them. I explain ;

We were playing in the park just next to our place like we do every days, we were playing football (that's my favorite game!!!) and I had a long leash (because it was 1 pm and it's very busy at this time of the day - and also because dogs are meant to be on leash in this park).

Suddenly, a dog came (it was a husky), all alone, no leash, running towards me. My humans did not know what to do; either leave me free without the leash so I'd be able to meet the dog in a normal doggie way, or either keep me on leash and wait for someone to show up.

As we started to hear his human calling him and as the dog just didn't care for what his humans was yelling, and also because my humans did not know the dog and what reaction it could have because I'm so big, they decided to keep me on leash. They told me to sit, which I did, and the dog came and started sniffing me ( his human was still yelling and nowhere to be seen).

Laura was going to let me go off my leash, when the husky started to touch my nose and so I stood up, and did that thing with my paws trying to touch him - and I can tell you the dog did not like it at all that I stood up and raised my paws - I think he got scared, and by the second he was on me, trying to bite my neck and growling really HARD.

Laura said NO! and SIT ! so I sat but the dog came again and grabbed my neck - again. The dog's human arrived, picked his dog by the collar, looked at us and said to my humans (talking about me) : "Isn't your dog a bit TOO big ? Oh god... ". And he went away. No sorry. Nothing.

My humans say they should have said something to him but they were so shocked they did not even think about openning their mouth.

There was no blood - phewww. But it had made a lot of noise and it was really scary. I did not growl even once, actually, I looked quite like I thought it was a kind of game and reached my ball and started to ask my humans to play again.

Oh dear. My humans looked quite puzzled.

They don't really blame the dog that did that - but they do blame his owner. What's this thing with people - to leave their dog off leash when they're not even able to call their dog back ? Serioulsy ?

I am fine but what if I had answered to this dog ? What if I had growled too and bited him ? Because I am so big they would have said it was my fault, though I was the one sitting and on leash.

It happens all the time here. Out of control - off leash dogs. And I'm not even talking about all those dogs that always bark at me whenever I'm walking on the street - I think others unknown dogs just don't really like me :(

But there is a good news !!

I met a friend here, and guess what... ?!!! She's a great dane! Her name is Fabiola .. and she's very pretty. We are almost neighbours !!

Here is Fabiola. Isn't she pretty ?

That's it for today. Will try to come more often, promise ! My humans will have a week off Uni, so I'm gonna get some time to write to you all.

With lots of love,

Lincoln

Chronics of a Trouble Boy

After reading from Lincoln himself that he had been a little trouble this past weeks you've been asking what he had been up to...!

Well, first of all Lincoln ate the brand new floor we just bought for the new flat (he managed to make a big whole in the middle of the living room and a big one in the hallway -so all of it has to be changed - which is going to cost quite a lot of money especially for us as we're still students) and also started acting crazy on walks.

From time to time, when he sees another doggie (or a pigeon - and only in this cases because otherwise he is very good), he suddently pulls on the leash VERY hard and starts doing his jumping thing he did when he was younger and excited to go for a walk.

Nothing aggressive of course - he just really wants to play - and no matter the size of the dog in front of him - big german shepherds or chihuahuas. Before doing it he starts to raise his ears but keeps walking slowly on our side. Sometimes he will do fine but sometimes (especially during the evening) he will starts to behave badly when we walk past the dog so we both get stressy and of course Lincoln must feel it too ...

He never ever did this with other doggies when we were walking before, he has started it around the beginning of August. One day he was great - the next day we had a completely different dog when walking past other dogs.

Thing is he gets to see other doggies quite often and gets to play with them off leash (not so often since we're here but Anika his labrador friend we already talked about has moved to Bordeaux too), so I don't think (but I could be wrong) that he behaves like this because he is in real need to play with other dogs...

What works best is when we've been playing with the ball outside with him before going to the proper walk and when we've been running a lot so he's tired and does not pay much attention to other doggies (or birds) but it's not a real solution as we won't always be able to make him tired before every walk in doggie-crowded areas like the big forest we have just in front of the building where we now live.

Also, what works well is to tell him to "seat" or to "lie down" or to "shake paws" when he sees a doggie and starts to do his raising ears thing. Everytime we walk past another dog and if Lincoln had been behaving OK then he gets a treat. He also has a DAP (dog appeasing pheromone) collar, and a DAP diffuser in the room he sleeps and is left alone in when we have to leave.

But all this does not always work so we don't really know what else we can do when it doesn't- we meet a lot of other excited doggie in the forest that pull on their leash too when they see other dogs but Lincoln is a huge dog and we just can't let him get away with this kind of behavior as some people or dog might get scared of him and that's obviously not what we want. But he is doing better every day and we are hoping it will stop as quickly as it started. Did it ever happen with any of you?

About his destruction problem we found a behaviorist where we now live and it appears that Lincoln has developed a very special relationship with one of us and clearly he is too emotionally attached to me and didn't properly learn "detachment" and so he finds it very difficult to see me go and leave the house and don't understand why he should have to stay without me.

So we both have a lot of work to do on this point - and we're doing great for now.

He sleeps alone in his room now (he used to sleep in our bedroom...), and I have stopped cuddling him all the time and started ignoring him in some situations like when he comes and asks to play - behaviorist said it is fundamental in our case - and I now make him "earn" everything even playtime or cuddles.

It's been quite hard at the beginning but necessary and I can tell you it's been working AWESOME as Lincoln hasn't done ANYTHING wrong in the house for almost 2 weeks !! We started everything all over again - starting by leaving the house only 2 minutes then 5, 20 mins ! We are now doing 3 hours in a row and everything seems fine. The change in his behavior in the house has been radical ! And I'm very proud of him :) But I can't help feeling guilty and sorry for all the mistakes we (I) made with him - I was so excited to get my very own Great Dane as I had been waiting for it for ages since I was a little girl and I guess I just did not have the "strength" to tell him "no" when I should have..

Let's see how it goes with our going back to uni on Monday and see if all our efforts have really paid off ! We'll keep you posted !

ps : did you notice Lincoln has a grain of rice stuck on his nose on every picture of this post ? haha

I am the Birthday Boy

Today is my Birthday ! I'm 1 !

I have decided that everyone should wear a special Birthday Hat in the house - including myself - so what do you think ? Am I not a very handsome Birthday Boy ?

side view

Even the cats had to wear one, and my brother Nounet did not really seem to enjoy it that much :

Poupette did enjoy it though :

That's the reason why I love Poupette so much, she's always up for some fun !

And guess what ??!! My humans had a surprise for me !!

a home baked cake !!!

Oh dear, smells good !

can I eat it now ?

only one slice ? but I'm a great dane and I'm hungry!!

Great thing with birthday is that you also get presents ! I got a cool blue frisbee, and lots of yummies !!

Here is a video of the pawty :

Hope you liked it !

Love,

Lincoln

Note from my humans : Can't believe Lincoln is already one. Time goes by so quickly... Since we got him when he was 2 months old, our lives have been totally changed. He made our days a little bit stressful sometimes, but mostly, he made our days even more exciting, surprising, funny, happy !

He was the cutest pup when we first got him and we immediately fell in love with each others. We spend huge amount of time with him (some people would say too much time), playing, teaching him new things. He has clearly become a very big part of our lives ! Though everything is not always perfect (teenage stage, uh!!), he really is a great dog, a great Great Dane !!

We also wanted to thanks everyone of you for everything, helping us when we are a little bit confused, visiting our blog regularly and commenting our posts and pictures ! Lincoln sure really loves you... and so do we !

New place, new home, new adventures

Bonjour my furiends,

Sorry I did not come to post more often on my blog as I promised on my last post. Summer has been very busy also and we had so much things to do that when we had some peace and quiet we spent it together doing others things than being on the computer. But I did think about you my furiends all the time and I missed you.

I hope you are all well, it will take me some time but I will come and visit your blogs maybe today or tomorrow.

So you must be wondering what kept us so busy away from blog world ? Well, my humans who are still students were given the opportunity to go to another University and move to .... Bordeaux ! I'm not sure you've heard about Bordeaux but maybe your humans have... ask them about wine and you'll see!

So we had to get all organized as it was a big move from North to South. But I'm so glad we're here now, Bordeaux is beautiful ! But arghhh please... it's SO hot over here !

Also, I'm not very proud to tell you this but I have been a bit of a VERY VERY trouble boy again and caused lots and lots of worries to my humans. But they say they will come to tell you about it later.

Last pictures of me taken at my old flat :

Talk to you soon,

Lots of love,

Lincoln