Apologies for the short notice, but I thought it was pretty much full. If you’re in the area, this is well worth the drive and day spent.
Lee Mannix, a professional canine behaviorist from Austin, TX, is presenting a behavior seminar for people who are involved with canine rescue in College Station, TX entitled “Fostering Success: Overcoming the Challenges of Rescue Dogs” in the Research Park area.
More details are available from the Impact Animal Foundation website.
Eowyn had her hips operated on two months ago (just in time for Christmas, lucky her…) and then spent five weeks on crate rest before I allowed her to move around again.
Right now, she still has some pain when she moves, but she’s been up and around and walking for three weeks. I’ve noticed a marked decrease in reactive behavior. She’s still very food/resource aggressive, but she doesn’t snap all the way to aggression like she used to… she now very noticeably warns before she bites. She doesn’t display much (if any) aggression towards cars anymore on our walks … this is a very recent development, but I’ve been doing everything I can to encourage it!
Also, the “interrupts” that I tried to train into her last year now suddenly work. Telling her to “come” or “down” will now result in her coming or laying down, instead of continuing whatever reaction she was in the middle of. Turns out it wasn’t so much that the behavior specialist I saw (Dr. Kay Stephens of Puppy Love in College Station) was wrong in how to train her, it’s that she was wrong in her evaluation of why Eowyn was reacting the way she was.
And here I’m just happy to have my puppy back!
… So here’s a picture of a sleeping puppy.
… And here’s a picture of a puppy that WAS asleep before his owner took a picture about three inches from his face with a very large flash.
Yeah, I’m a mean one. Mr. Grinch.
I’m temporarily fostering a dog this weekend for Impact and Second Chance Animal Rescue. His usual caretakers are traveling and someone needed to get him to adoptions (and feed him!) this weekend.
Everyone, say hello to Roan.
Hi, Roan!
More pictures are on my Flickr Site. If you’re interested in adopting Roan, here’s his Petfinder Profile… and if you’re in the Bryan/College Station area, he’ll be at adoptions with Impact Animal Foundation at PetCo on Saturday.
Since Eo was a puppy, I’ve bathed her in my shower. And let me tell you, you’ve never SEEN as miserable drowned rat as Eowyn when she’s wet. If it’s possible, she flat-out grimaces as I replace her carefully assembled perfume of dead toad, bird poop, and grass clippings with a nice hypoallergenic oatmeal shampoo…
Oh, baleful glare...
When I was in kindergarten, we would sing a song any time we were doing something that we didn’t want to do. It made the work go faster, and it kept twenty or thirty rugrats focused on the task at hand. My favorite one was the cleanup song. I still remember it — Clean up time, clean up time, let’s clean up this mess. Clean up time, clean up time, do our very best!
To keep Eo’s attention on me, and not how much she wants to be running through the rest of the house shaking, I sang Eowyn a little song and call her funny shower names. I made up the lyrics randomly during one shower — She’s a puppy and she’s soapy and she’s good, She’s a puppy and she’s soapy and she’s good, She’s a puppy and she’s soapy, and she’s looking kinda dopey… She’s a puppy and she’s soapy and she’s good! I can’t remember what the original tune is from, but it’s not hard to figure out. And she’s magically transformed from the usual “EoMonster!” or “My Big Girl!” into a magical treat known as a “Soapapuppy.” (Look for it on the menu next time you’re at a mexican restaurant.)
I realize that those of you out in blogland can’t quite get the full treatment from just the lyrics, but I sing like a pack of dogs howls — loudly, and VERY far off tune. But somehow, the song keeps Eo (and now Henry) thinking that bathtime is a fun experience where they get lots of attention and a really, really thorough rubdown. When I sing our shower song, neither of them try to escape from the tub. That’s no small task with fifty or seventy pounds of wet, soapy mutt!
Update/Edit: I just realized that the tune is to “If you’re happy and you know it”.
It’s been a month and change now since Eo’s last hip surgery. With the wonderfully warm weather that we’ve had this weekend, I decided to take her off the Tramadol (painkiller, opiate) that she’s been on since the surgery. She seems to still get around fine, and the pretty consistent movement as I’ve worked in the garden has helped her greatly. She’s not back to 100% yet, of course, but for seven weeks post-op she sure isn’t doing bad.
Eo was so helpful this weekend when I was potting plants.
By the way, I should point out again for people who don’t know me — I’m not a vet, but I’m very involved with my dogs’ medical care and I know as much as possible about the different drugs, treatments, needs, and the background to the behavioral modifications we’re trying to make. Don’t take anything I say about medicine or veterinary stuff as gospel.
One thing that’s apparent is that a month of inactivity leading up to the surgery and a month of inactivity recovering from the surgery has left her with some remarkable atrophy in her rear legs. Her favorite position is sitting down with most of her weight on her front legs; she’s built like a bodybuilder on the front half but has nothing but loose bone and sinew on the rear. We’ve been walking nightly in an effort to rebuild this, but haven’t been putting any serious distance on. This weekend, I started working in the yard on my garden, and I’ve been letting her pick how much she moves and putting her away when she gets crabby or frantic.
The other thing that’s been rather obvious since the surgery is that she’s MUCH less crabby. She hasn’t gone after Henry with the intent to cause serious harm in a while. (Yes, this used to be a big problem. And it’s the reason she was inactive for a month before the surgery and the reason we did it so soon after the first one.) To Henry’s credit, he’s learned how not to provoke her, and he’s even been initiating play recently by bowing and pawing at her — she’s seemed to enjoy playing with him when she’s in the mood, but I’ve been stopping it before it’s really gotten “started” in puppy terms because I know that she’ll hurt herself if I don’t.
I haven’t been posting much about her because “Yeah, she’s on crate rest… still on crate rest… in her crate” makes for boring blog entries. It’s nice to have some progress to report. Indications are good that she’ll make a full recovery and will go on to boss everyone around the house for many more years.
I clicked into this link about human grade dog food from Dolittler and it immediately struck a chord with me: My vets displayed the same confusion when I mentioned that I was feeding Wellness Simple to Henry, and the diet change had cleared up his major digestive tract problem. They’d never heard of it, and didn’t know it existed. They couldn’t tell me if baked or pressed kibble was better for a dog, they couldn’t recommend similar products or even understand why I was paying more than $30 for a 50 lbs bag. In fact, my vets didn’t know any details about any food besides the Science Diet that they carry in the store.
I completely understand why that is. Veterinary students are bombarded with Hill’s advertisements and get free food from Hill’s, Purina, and several other manufacturers through their entire time in veterinary school. When they’re out of veterinary school, Hill’s keeps their clinic stocked with anything they could need and don’t put a lot of demands on the vet. They also are sometimes the only supplier of the specialized prescription diets that some pets need… and those foods, in many cases, are the only thing that will work in a particular case. Why would they bother learning anything else
Luckily, my vet is awesome and has invited me to share some of my food research with him. He also examined Henry’s stool before and after … on many occasions, as we were troubleshooting things! … and agreed with me that it really was the good food that helped him come as far as he has. If you’re feeding good food and you haven’t talked to your vet about the benefits, I encourage you to do so.