I don't understand my dog

Off to another trial this weekend with absolutely no clue how it would go. Well, Legend was insane in her standard run. Seriously, she was running laps around the ring at top speed, occasionally returning to take some obstacles. When she finally stopped the timer on one of her zoomie circles we were politely whistled off the course. So she had fun but was totally out of control. It was, however, very entertaining. Her jumpers run was much better with just an off course tunnel and popping out at pole ten or eleven. She seemed to be working at a good speed and with nice lateral distance and overall seemed pretty confident. She even made a challenging off side weave entry. So either the training I have been doing with her is working or she has multiple personalities. I'm leaning toward multiple personalities. We'll see which dog runs tomorrow-with any luck it might even be the one that can Q. I won't hold my breath too much though, not until I start getting some kind of consistency from her.

Boring

So I'm just watching it rain and waiting for obedience class to start. Probably some people will skip since there is a storm coming. Hopefully enough will come to make having class worthwhile. Then it's home to a good dinner and packing for an agility trial. I'm crossing my fingers that Legend does not stress out but I have not had that many days to work with her so I am not expecting too much too soon. At least she has been working well at home.


Zodiac is bored with waiting for class to start as well.

Meet Sport

Sport is an approximately 1 1/2 year old Border Collie picked up as a stray by Springfield Animal Control. Having went unclaimed for the allotted time he was pulled by MOKAN BC rescue and will be available for adoption through them. Sport is neutered (yesterday), microchipped, current on all vaccines, heartworm negative, and started on Interceptor and Frontline. Of course, he also has kennel cough and is being treated with antibiotics. He's very sweet and seems mild mannered with a medium energy level-so far. He also seems like he will be ok with cats and other dogs and so far has had no accidents in his crate. We were surprised no one was looking for him. He looked recently groomed, had no matts in his fur and was not underweight. But he was also not tagged, chipped or neutered so whoever had him was probably not too responsible I guess. Anyway, looks like he will be a good dog for someone if anyone knows somebody interested.

I'm in the wrong business

I'm always amazed at the price of having something custom framed. Even though I know it's not going to be cheap I'm always floored when they give me the actual price. At BC nationals I won a cute print in the raffle at the rescue benefit. It had a black and white BC and a red and white BC in a barn near a paint horse. Perfect for our bedroom. Today I dropped it off at Micheal's to be framed. I chose a plain green mat, simple wooden frame, and the lower end glass option. After my 55% off coupon the total was still almost $90. Amazing. So much for "winning" the artwork.

With Wiggles gone we opened the whole rabbit area up for Spring. I was afraid this added space would disrupt her litter box use but so far she is using her new freedom responsibly.
And here is Icy just looking adorable-she must have the sweetest face ever!

A First

Today at work I was asked something for the first time. A dog, previously diagnosed with cancer was brought in for evaluation of quality of life. After discussing with the owner (a paramedic) what he was noticing at home and what I was seeing on the exam it was determined that the dog was very much ready for euthanasia. After putting the dog down and checking for a heartbeat (there was none) the owner, in the midst of his tears and grief, requested to borrow my stethoscope and asked where to listen. It didn't seem like he didn't believe me, I think he just felt better having heard for himself and he also seemed surprised how fast the euthanasia solution worked.

It was a sad situation but reminded of a time in vet school when an equine intern and I were sent out to the university farm to euthanize one of the older donation horses that had developed an acute case of laminitis. After we put him down and I found no heartbeat the intern insisted on listening too. She apologized and explained that she was sure I could make the diagnosis of "dead" but was paranoid and wanted to listen for herself. I didn't blame her. "Dead" is not a diagnosis you want to make a mistake on-and if it takes two of you to be sure then that's ok. No one wants to have an animal wake up in a bag, or freezer, or at home with an owner. Or in the case of the horse-a shed which apparently doubled as someones research lab. We didn't know about that when we decided to leave him there until the trailer could come for him. It seemed better than outside where wild animals could get to him.

Anyway, that is the first time anyone has asked to listen to their deceased pet's stopped heart. I sometimes let kids listen to their pet's heart if they (kids and pet) are relatively well behaved. It's usually a big hit and certainly a happier memory for the owner than the situation today.

One more thing

Here's another thing that people do that annoys me-they snap their fingers and point at the dog when they tell it to do something. I have very little confidence that the snapping and pointing makes


the dog more compliant. Better yet they seem to think this technique will work even when the dog has no understanding of what they are being asked. Oh well-some people are slow learners.

Thanks to everyone for their sympathy with our loss of Wiggles. It is much appreciated.


--Nicki

For Wiggles

I've never had to make the decision to euthanize one of my own pets. I routinely counsel other people on when the time is "right". But today I finally had to make that decision for Wiggles. He wasn't eating at all, was dull and lifeless in his pen and generally looked painful and miserable. His weight had dropped to less than 4 pounds (he was six pounds in his prime) and I refused to let him suffer any longer than he already had. Early this morning I let him go. I'm sure he has rejoined Holly at the Rainbow Bridge.

DWI

That's a "Dog With Issues" for those of you not involved in the dog training world. And now, I have one (well, one in addition to Oreo-who's always been a challenge). It seems Legend's agility ghost has returned. I suspected it was always lurking since she tends to get off to a slow start and then speed up through the end of the course, but we just spent a miserable weekend at the AKC trial in Lawrence. She's fine until you approach the ring gate and then she gets worried, quits tugging and won't play or anything. She had to be called more than once to get off the start line, she was dragging around the course avoiding some of the obstacles, stopping to look around and just generally not acting like the fun, happy dog I usually know. Then she blasts through the last few obstacles like a champ and picks up her leash and starts tugging like nothing was ever wrong. Clearly my training has been lacking at some point and we will be continuing to work on transferring her drive and enthusiasm for toys to agility and developing her confidence working at a distance. And of course, maintaining that drive through the whole course and not just end. Easier said than done I'm sure but I'm trying to remain optimistic that we can work through this.

I did do a hip x-ray just to make sure she's not having any physical issues and her hips are actually quite good-better than the boys if I remember their films correctly. Here's a picture of the film...


In other news, Wiggles has only been eating veggies for quite some time now but currently he is not even eating much of that. If he doesn't perk up any soon I will probably have to put him to sleep.

Stay

There are two things that poeple do when they are using the command "stay" that just drive me crazy. The first group are the people that tell their dog "stay" when they leave the house or put the dog in a run or kennel. They often also point their finger at the dog for good measure. Ok-if your dog actually stays where you left it for the next eight hours then you are amazing, but for most people this just teaches the dog that this is an optional command since no one is around to enforce it. These same people then don't understand why the dog won't "stay" in other situations?

The other group of people fail to realize that the dog needs some consistent signal to let them know the "stay" is over. Apparently they think the dogs are mind readers and get upset when the dogs start guessing about when to get up. Sometimes people fall into both traps-I can't imagine how confused their dogs are.

I will be teaching stay in obedience class tonight and even though I will explain all of this some people will still do it wrong. People are hard to train.

Mine

I made several blankets for Christmas gifts this holiday season and made a few more as special requests and then put some for sale in the clinic-they were fun to make and cute but we didn't really need them and thought someone else might. Anyway, this one is mine. I bought this fabric awhile ago because I just loved the rainbow pattern. The back is lavender and compliments the pastels on the front nicely.