Henry was happy for his bed last night and today — especially because it snowed last night! This is a rare event in College Station. My coworkers can only remember two times it’s snowed enough overnight to last…
Henry went out, peed, and came straight back in… no photo opportunities. Eo ate some of the snow and gave herself a brainfreeze, I think — the look on her face was priceless.
It’s official. For her Christmas present, Eowyn will be getting her other hip done. I started talking to our vet about two weeks ago about doing it. This morning, we ran down the list of reasons for Eo’s lack of progress with the behavior modification plan, and ended up with hip pain as the last possible cause short of her being untrainable … which we know is not true.
A month ago, we switched Henry’s food and ran him through the parasite wringer again … the result, just one month later, is a dog that shows anxiety but few signs of panic. He will heel off lead, will come on command, will go to the bathroom on command, is my jogging and napping partner, and believe it or not, he no longer snores. The change came and his confidence started building as soon as we fixed his last medical (digestive) issue. After his confidence built up a little bit and he was sure he wasn’t going to rot in a crate all day with no water and no company, he became a new dog.
I have mixed feelings about doing Eo’s other hip so soon after the first. On one hand, I feel like it’s too early. We hadn’t planned on it until May. On the other hand, X-rays show that the head of her right femur continues to degrade and calcify. The pain has to be excruciating. I’m hoping that performing the second FHO (and the ensuing month of bed rest and the reduction in pain) will finally help us get a handle on her reactive behavior.
Apologies for no posts over the holiday; Managing four dogs instead of two can be just a touch tiring.
Basil and Henry:
(Basil is a Lowchen, and it’s traditional to shave their hindquarters and legs for show/conformation purposes.)
That’s Mouse, a ~150 lbs Greater Swiss Mountain Dog.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
Winter in Texas brings some gentle showers and cooler temperatures. 55 degrees made for a pleasant and very un-sweaty walk with the dogs this morning.
However, the rain showers in the backyard loosened up some of the dirt, and loosening up some of the dirt meant that Eowyn and Henry running and playing turned some of the yard into mud… or really, red clay. Which meant they tracked mud into the house. Mud isn’t allowed in the house since we have white berber carpeting… which meant that I had to pick Eo up and give her a bath.
When she was a baby, we called her “Munch Rat” because she was always chewing on something and had a tiny little skinny tail. She came out of the bath looking like a drowned rat and wouldn’t let me dry her head off. I provide for you, in full color, the Drowned Munchrat!
Go watch these videos at SmartDogs! Man, if that happened at the dog park I used to take Eo (who, as a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix, is descended from african dogs — although a different breed) there’d be owners running everywhere, (human) tears, and lots of bruised (human) egos. I don’t do dog parks much anymore.
As I was watching these videos and typing this, Eowyn (the huntress) disemboweled another Bad Cuz. I had to give her something to chew on because she was hunting for more geckos to hunt after she caught one that slipped in under the back door. Henry is cowering in mortal fear underneath the kitchen table as she tosses the Cuz around. After she’s torn the squeaker out and crunched it into tiny plastic pieces, she runs throughout the entire house biting down on it and then plugging the hole with her tongue. Note to self: Dog likes sucking chest wounds. Do not piss dog off.
I’m sure there’s going to be a big chunk of that building with my name on it.
Eowyn kept waking me up last night (with a cold nose to the eyesocket and a lick to my chin) to let her out so that *she* in turn could go outside. I went out with her a few times and her poop was completely liquid — total diarrhea, punctuated with a few noxious farts. (I know it wasn’t her the night before because she slept in her kennel with the door closed that night.) When the vet opened in the morning, I called and got a walk-in appointment for this afternoon…
With Eo, our suspicion is that she’s caught Henry’s whipworms. (Once you get whipworms into an environment, it’s almost impossible to keep a dog from getting them. Even if you pick up poop immediately from the yard, it’s not possible to pick up the liquid stuff and eventually a dog will run through that patch of ground, and while cleaning their paws later will ingest some of the eggs.) I was probably irresponsible in letting her stay on Heartguard, which doesn’t worm Whipworms, and not switching her to Interceptor. The problem is that Interceptor, Revolution, Sentinel, etc. — none of those touch the eggs, and still allow them to hatch in the dog’s system… they just clear the worms as they hatch. Ivermectin, the active ingredient in Heartguard, won’t even touch them in nonclinical doses.
So — worm her with something that will definitely flush all the worms out, 24 hour fast to settle her stomach and let anything that’s gotten bloody in her intestines heal, and then a soft/wet diet for two days followed by getting her gently back on her regular food.