I'm about to take a week's vacation and wallow in puppy breath, flowers, and friends. Jim's surgery next week isn't quite what we planned, but at least we didn't have anything else scheduled besides enjoying spring and being together. I'm going to take a blog/email break and concentrate on my Jim, Will and Pup for the entire week, but I wanted to close out the chapter on the puppy tests, at least for now. As you may know, I do the puppy tests, but am never sure how much to make of them. So far, I am impressed with their predictive value (but it is VERY early in the game, so this question needs to be revisited in 12, 24 and 36 months). The standard tests that I did ask how a pup relates to an unfamiliar person and the environment. Mick was only 1 of 2 pups who followed me, unafraid of loud Read More
Lassie
I haven't written much about Lassie lately, because I didn't want the blog to turn into a soap opera, but things have changed so much that it feels only right give you an update. She hasn't been doing well. After her ALT values were slightly elevated about a month ago, we did an ultrasound and her liver looked clear. We did a bile acid assay, which was slightly elevated, but not enough to make a biopsy seem worth the intrusion for a 16 year old dog. She's gone up and down since then (some vomiting, urinating in the house, but only erratically), and was scheduled for more tests today. But on Thursday she went into free fall. Vomiting, no appetite, looked truly miserable. Tests showed her ALT (a sign of cell death in the liver) to be off the charts. Subsequent tests with an internal Read More
The Right Dog
We've been in a conversation about helping others (and ourselves) if and when we get frustrated by our dogs. It's been a great one, thanks for all your comments. I thought of something important that I haven't mentioned yet, and I thought it deserved it's own forum. It seems to me that an important part of whether a dog frustrates someone is based on whether their personalities match. Look at all the comments on earlier posts that said ".... and then I got THIS dog...". Lassie and Willie are wonderful dogs for me. I'm a bit of a Border Collie myself: I like the cold, I hate hot, humid weather, love working sheep, love working, and am so sound sensitive that I'd rather starve than eat in a noisy restaurant. Granted, I wish that every once in a while I could yell "naughty words" without Read More
Helping Owners with the Inevitable
Our discussion about how people handle being frustrated by their dogs brought out so many interesting points, and it got me to thinking: First off, the more we know about dogs, the less frustrated we get. Frustration comes from an inability to affect the world around us, and once we understand who dogs are and how they learn, our ability to influence them increases significantly. As I think about it, the comparison of my frustration levels now and 25 years ago is like night and day. Right now, there are really only two things that Will or Lassie do that have pushed my buttons in the last six months--Will's relentless stalking of Sushi, and Lassie's tendency to get under foot when I'm moving around the kitchen. My frustration with Will was a classic case of an inability to influence the Read More
Isn’t It Great That Dogs Don’t Get Sarcasm?
Willie woke me up at 3 am this morning, as he did yesterday morning. I have no idea why-speculation is that he needed to potty, or he is waking up earlier and earlier to get the food in his morning Kong. I told him to "settle" and managed a restless doze until 5 am, when he pretty much threw himself at the bed, woke Lassie up from a log-like slumber, and careened me out of bed, still asleep and not at all pleased. I held my tongue, let the dogs out to potty, and then gave them their stuffed Kongs and went back upstairs. When I came back downstairs, about an hour later, one of the dogs had defecated all over the house, and I mean all over. In the dining room, on the rug in the living room, on the floor in the living room, in the study, in the kitchen . . . Isn't it amazing how much area Read More