816 Pictures

Maw is like a carazy pupparazzi. In the last 14 months since she got me, she took over 3,000 photos! Guess I don't blame her. I am awfully cute. She finally got her lazy behind up and cleaned off the memory and cut her pictures down to 816 which you can see here.

Is your maw and paw carazy like ours?

Holiday Cards

Maw didn't have to work today, so she helped me make Christmas cards for my FBRN friends. I made an extra special one for my foster mawmy because I lub her.

I made 6 extra for me bloggy pals. If you would like one, have your maw email my maw and I'm sure she'll get to it eventually (the lazy maw she is). Deal is; you have to snail mail one back to us too so we can put your card under me and Guinness' Christmas tree this year!

First 6 is a lucky dog.

alee127 at gmail dot com

In the words of Nelson

Basil can be a bully. I feel bad that Guinness gets pushed around. But Guinness isn't stupid that's for sure. Basil was chomping away on the T-bone which tastes like meat. Guinness picked up his squeeky soft toy (the red bone) and paraded it pass Basil. Basil stopped and went to go steal it. After he stole it and dropped the T-bone, Guinness made his move and slipped in there and took the T-bone. In the words of Nelson:

Guinness' First Snow Fall

They don't have this stuff in Florida!

My poor boy was shivering a little, but we went for a walk and he didn't pay any mind to the snow. He would stop and shake it off every once in a while.

Pawz Boots

We want some of these mom!

http://pawzdogboots.com/

Training: Guarding

Renee, our dog trainer visited again yesterday. This meeting was to work on Guinness' guarding issue (guarding of me and my husband when another dog is around) and his lack of manners when greeting another dog. We borrowed our friend Domino the boxer to come over to demonstrate to Renee how Guinness behaves.

We worked with Guinness alone and kept Basil in the kitchen. With harness and leash on, we walked Guinness outside and tried to keep him focused on ME by feeding him treats from my hand one after the other. Just TONS of treats. If he was facing the Domino, turn Guinness' body using the leash and walking in a circle while feeding him treats. Allow Domino to get closer and continue to do the same. Now, walk him in a circle and have Domino follow and tightening the circle a little at a time. Then we did parallel walking where I walked Guinness down the block with Domino walking about 5-6 behind. At the end of the block, we turned and now Guinness is behind Domino. We walked pretty close to Domino so Guinness could get a whiff of him. Then, we went into the backyard and let them run around while dragging their leashes. After a few laps, we introduced Basil into the mix. Guinness did do his chasing off the other dog and giving him a pull on the neck as a warning. Domino has a lot of energy and Basil and Guinness just don't appreciate that. They tried calming him and themselves by ignoring him and eating grass which is a good thing.

In conclusion, my husband and I "just" have to keep play dates short and sweet. Find dogs that are the right match. ie. A lower energy dog and/or a smaller dog. Alternate play time: Bring one dog out for the play date, then put him back inside and bring the other out for play time. Start by doing the greeting outside and do the parallel walking. Keep play dates outdoors. especially when a high energy dog is involved. Never indoors and not in small spaces either. One side of our yard gets very narrow along side of the house. Fence that off so they can't run down that way. This was something I wanted to do anyway so I'm glad someone agreed with me. Pay attention AT ALL TIMES. When you're not watching, fights happen.

The thing I have to get over is that things just aren't the way they "used to be". If it means they need to stay home or that company can't bring their dogs, then that's just how it has to be and I can't put pressure on them.

Other things mentioned that we need to work on:

1. Sit/Stay or Down/Stay - I need to firm up the stay part of it. I also have to practice doing it from the outside of the baby gate. The boys do it on carpet, but when it's different they don't respond as well or at all. Put a carpet tile inside the kitchen so it's not cold or slippery.
2. Desensitize them from the hat. Hubs put on a new hat yesterday and Basil just freaked out. I'm not sure who started it but they got into a fight over the excitement. Basil was on top of Guinness' back and was pulling on his ear until he yelped. Basil was punished for a minute by putting him the bathroom. Desensitize them individually: Put treats around it. Bend it, fold it, move it around and more TREATS. Put the hat on and remove it immediately: quick off on off on and more treats.
3. Again with the crazy barking when guests arrive - keep one dog behind the kitchen, keep the better listening dog outside. Keep feeding treat after treat when the company arrive. Tell him to sit/stay! He must have a job to do. Ask company to go along with the training by ignoring them as well. If he breaks the stay, make him come back and do it again.
4. Ideally of course I want to be able to answer the door and have the boyz sitting in their position and not moving an inch without my say so and NOT have to stand there feeding treats to them hoping he won't go crazy. One thing I was doing wrong was I was going from step 0 to step 5. I expected them to stay when I went outside and back in. Instead, I have start small with one step at a time. Work with one of them at a time since one seems to distract the other into breaking the stay.

It's a good thing I have a 4 day weekend to start working on all this.

Basil's ER visit

Let's rewind. Here's a story I never got a chance to tell. Back in February, during the biggest winter storm of 2010 in our area (we're talking collectively 6 feet of snow and ice) we had to rush Basil to ER at midnight.

Our little boy. Look at that snow! Take note of his trim waist.

We spent all morning shoveling the snow. The neighborhood dogs were really happy because they were allowed to run free. However, we didn't shovel out the car because we didn't think we would need to.

While dad shoveled, the neighbor girls invited Basil in. 15 minutes later, dad went to go get him. When he came home, I fed him dinner. Then he drank maybe 20 cups of water (a medium mixing bowl size).

At night, Basil looked really lethargic. He was waddling up the steps. I checked him out and his tummy seemed unusually swollen, but I wasn't sure. Is it normally this way? Did he just need to poop?

I emailed our friend Joan C. (FBRN foster mom and volunteer) and thank god for people like her who check their email at 11pm at night. She told me if we can, we should get him checked out because bloat can be fatal. This was the first time I ever heard about bloat.

Basil's tummy right before we took him to ER. Look how big and low it is.

Dad threw on some clothes and then had to shovel the car out. The snow was now ice and it's midnight! He drove Basil alone to the animal hospital and I stayed behind in case I had to get help if the car got stuck on the road somewhere.

Immediately, they admitted Basil and took him away from dad :( Of course, the second thing they did was give us the price list for his care. $1600 to keep him over 2 nights. $800 for overnight and $450 for the visit anyway (which includes fluid/meds to make him poo and the late night ER hours). My husband called me and asked what we should do? I asked, Well what's wrong with him? If they tell us what's wrong before we can consider if he needs to be overnight or not. They said they don't know but need to keep him overnight to "monitor him"....

"Monitor him" in vet language is "Charge you $1600 so we can watch him poop."

My husband was all torn and teary eyed. They took Basil away already and he couldn't even see him or say good bye or see if he was scared. Since they couldn't tell us what they thought was wrong with him, I made an executive decision. "Bring him home." I said, it's snowing, cold and he's alone with strangers. There's no way he's going to poo in front of them anyway. So they did what I would have expected in the first place. They gave him the "fluids" (meds) which they injected into the hip area of him and he came home. We were told not to give him any water or food for a day. My poor boy. He came home with not only a big swollen belly but now this fluid pocket on the side of his hip. He looked all Quasimodo-ish.

The next day, we found out that while Basil was over at the neighbor's he ate all of Carmel's dinner. 3 cups of IAMS dog food and 1 cup of dinner at home. That explains it!!! We didn't give him any food or water and yet he pooped 8 times that day. Now, we have to keep an eye out on him when he goes to other people's homes because he goes right for the food bowl!

Whew! Has this ever happened to you? Ever go to ER?