Sunday, June 28, 2009

Even Better

The vet gave us Metacam, which is a NSAID like aspirin, and it's working wonders with Dune. He's walking much better - almost like his joints have been oiled. I took him for a walk today and he was romping in the field and was fine all the way home. When we got home, he tromped up the stairs with no troubles. Earlier today after soaking up some sun he ran up the stairs.

We may choose to keep him on this arthritis drug for some time; our vet says some dogs show remarkable improvement and stay on it for years, so a few months should be ok.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Feeling Better

By 3pm today, Dune was remarkably better. The vet says he probably had a fever (and his temp was at the low end of a fever) and we have no idea what caused it. He's back to what he was like a few days ago.

We had a long talk with the vet, and we all agreed that he won't be able to last another winter for sure, but we'll have to see how he is from day to day, week to week. We have some medication for his arthritis (basically aspirin). Hopefully that'll help his mobility.

Regardless, it was a pretty tough day; I spent most of it ready for the necessity to put Dune down. Dune has lost 8 pounds in the last year, and much of that, probably, in the last couple months since he just can't run any more. The vet says his muscles have started to atrophy and will continue to do so. We realize, with sadness, that it's only a matter of time, but we're hoping that time will be the rest of the summer.

Dune



Dune seems to have become very sick; we'll be taking him to the vet today, but he's barely able to move now. He was fine two days ago, but now he's acting just like Jet before we had to euthanize her. I'll never be ready to lose him, but I was hoping, so much, that he'd be healthy through the summer. Hopefully the vet has good news.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Best Buddies Photo shoot!

There's no doubt that Dune and G'Kar have become good buddies, but it's amazing how fierce dogs can look when they play.

Here they are snarling at each other:


And here is the 13 pound G'Kar pinning the 80 pound Dune:

It's all about the moves!

And here they are looking good for the camera:

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

G'Kar goes to school

From G'Kar June 2009


Last week I took G'Kar to a school to meet some students. He was an unbelievable angel. I think he likes to perform for others. Really!

He sat, waiting for pets, patiently, looking irresistibly cute. When I had to take him outside to pee, I said, hurry up and he went within a minute or less, then we could go back into the school. At the end of the day, he was in the staff room and sat in front of me and barked, one short attention bark. I took him outside and he pooped within a minute or two.

In the classroom, I was showing the students clicker training and he was a freaking ham. He sat perfectly, went down perfectly, and then just lied on the table quietly and calmly, watching the students, while I talked about dog training. I'm not kidding about performing - I think he likes it.

Training Progress

Despite the late nights and worry about allergies, G'Kar has been progressing in his training very well. I plan to shoot some video of some of the things he's learned so far and post it later, but so far, in two weeks he's learned the following:
  1. Sit - he sits for everything, now, which is our first basic training goal.

  2. Down - he knows down, but needs to be lead with a treat or a hand still.

  3. Pee - This is the most important thing to teach a dog, in my opinion, and I'm glad to say that G'Kar will now pee within 30 seconds (most of the time) of the command, "Hurry Up." This has made house training so much easier. If you've never taught your dog this "trick" I strongly recommend you do!

  4. Don't pee! - He's getting better. I'd guess he's about 70% housebroken now. He's barking more often when he needs to go out, and as soon as we can get that communication down, we're set. The good news is he hasn't even tried to go in the house in 3 days now. Yes, we keep him on a schedule, but, he's learning very well. From what I've read, it takes most dogs between 2 weeks and 2 months to be house trained, so I think he's right on track.

  5. Stay - I'm blown away by this. Because I've taught him that he gets no treat until he sits, he learned this amazingly quickly. From the very first day we had him, I held a handful of treats in a tight fist and let him lick, sniff, and paw at them, but never let him have them. After trying all his options, he finally sat down and then I clicked and gave him what was in my hand. Within two days he was starting to move, then catching himself and sitting back down, showing remarkable patience for a puppy. I was so pleased! Now I'll be ramping up the stays, increasing distraction, and finally taking him outside to practice when I think he's ready.

    When I started training Stay he was (unknown to me) already programmed to wait in a sit. The very first time I could back up and wait, then click and treat. I'd been increasing the time he had to sit before a treat and I didn't realize I was also training him to stay. Now I'm able to move around the room, jumping and twisting, and he stays!

  6. Come - G'Kar will now come when called about 90% of the time indoors and about 50% of the time outside in a field. We've done a few calling sessions with 2 or 4 people calling him one after another and that seemed to help. Now we have to move it to the out doors. Because I take him off leash every day, this is a critical bit of training.

More tough nights

Was it a wasp? We're not sure. G'Kar was terrified of the run for a couple days (he's better now), but if it was a wasp sting, the swelling and troubles should have been gone within 12 hours. Instead, the next day (Thursday, June 11) he started to swell up and become agitated by supper time. We decided we didn't want another middle-of-the-night race to Swift Current for shots, so we drove in and bought some Benadryl. A spoonful seemed to help with the itchiness and he slept reasonably well for the night (it causes drowsiness).

Here's a short clip of him Thursday night, rubbing himself on the carpet. This is just a taste of what he was like the night before, when the reaction was more severe, and without medication.



So, we're thinking it was a sudden burst of a specific pollen that caused a strong allergic reaction. Hopefully it won't be a problem in the future, but we're going to keep some Benadryl in the house all the time now!

Here's a close-up of his eye on Thursday - you can see the beginning of swelling. I wish I would have shot some video or taken a photo of him when he was really swollen up.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

A tough night



Poor G'Kar was (we think) stung by a wasp last night just before 7pm. He was terrifed to go out into the dog run - absolutely stiff-bodied and whining, desperate to get back inside. We couldn't figure out what had happened at first because he looked totally normal other than being scared. We thought maybe the shovel had fallen on him.

As the night went on, one of his eyes swelled a bit. Then his nose rumpled up and he looked a bit like a shar pei! By bed time he had grown very uncomfortable and was scratching everywhere, rolling on the ground, and frantic. We had checked him for ticks, fleas, mosquito bites (at first we thought that was what had happened), but it got worse. We settled him down and he fells asleep, but when we put him in his kennel for the night, he was not a happy puppy.

Finally, at 1:30am, he had become almost frantic and we took him to the vet for an antihistamine (Benadryl). By the time we got home (almost 4am) he was sleepy and went into his kennel without a struggle, fell asleep, and didn't wake up until 7am.

The picture above is him this morning, still a bit swollen, but doing much better.

The poor guy has had to contend with cacti and wasps in less than two weeks!

Sunday, June 07, 2009

A long week!



G'Kar has been with us a whole week now. He's a pound and a half heavier, better friends with Dune, and, maybe, a bit less ornery.

One thing for sure, this fellow is tenacious. He doesn't give up. At all. But, if you tell him "no" 5 or 6 times, he starts to get the idea. We were visiting a friend's place last night and after watching him play with their (much larger) puppy, they said, "Wow. He really is wilful!" We just nodded and said, "Welcome to our life."

He wouldn't stop chewing on my hand earlier this week, no matter what I did. "Ouch" didn't work. "No" didn't work. A tap under the chin only worked for a few minutes. Finally, holding his mouth closed worked and his chewing has reduced dramatically. After a week, though, "No" and a clap of the hands seems to be working.

The good news (the very good news) is that he's learning. He's a smart little bugger, for sure. He has a way of looking at you and thinking... you can see he working things out. He was chewing on my watch one day and wouldn't stop. I gave him a strong, growly "NO," and he stopped suddenly, then looked at me. He thought, looked at me again, and thought some more. Then he opened his mouth wide, pressed his tongue against my watch and pressed his teeth to the bottom of his tongue and mouthed my watch. You could almost hear him saying, "But... I'm not using my teeth!"

The primary training I've done with him are sit, down, come, and wait, along with the utterly necessary house training. He's progressing well with sit, for sure (the first real training we did with him). I started by doing clicker training and charging the clicker with treats. Then I held treats in my hand and let him paw and lick and mouth my hand, without giving him a thing. After a while, he finally sat, and then I clicked and treated. After repeating 5-10 minute sessions of this twice a day for a week, he now sits every time he wants anything, and I have to admit, it's pretty cute! We're now telling everyone who comes to visit to ignore him until he sits, and that's starting to work on him as well.

We did a circle-recall exercise this weekend with four people and he really, really got the idea of coming when called. We'll work on that as much as possible, of course, but that one 20-minute exercise was gold.

The poor guy had a tough day on Monday, the third day he was with us. We were going for a run in the field and, after our loop, we came back through another section of the field. Poor G'Kar ran into a cactus and broke a full arm off on his paw. He fell and yelped like he had been gutted. We've had this happen once before with Jet and she immediately bit off the cactus and got it stuck in her mouth (ouch!). This time, I grabbed G'Kar quickly and just barely managed to keep his mouth off the cactus. I got it off him and he was ok after a few minutes, but the problem now is, he will NOT go past the place where he ran over the cactus. He will fight the leash, whine, and even just lay on his back until I manage to get him past the area. The fields around here are filled with cacti, and even though in 16 years I've only had one dog step on one (two now) I'm worried that he might find another and be completely afraid of the field! Hopefully he can get over this fear.

He's coming when called about 90% of the time indoors and about 40% of the time outside, but that should continue to improve with time.