Sunday, February 28, 2010

Puppy Torture 101

What's the point of getting a puppy if you can't torture them a bit?! I'm pretty sure he's having a good time...





Ryan doesn't understand why he has to be involved.




















































This is a look of defeat...

















Every little boy loves his red rain coat.

And the two cutest boys are...

Loic and Beezer. These two guys sure have changed a lot over the past few months!


What's your name?














This isn't so bad...



















Actually, you're a little close...

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The self healing dog

Amigo never ceases to amaze me. Last month I took her in to do routine blood work and a urine analysis. At 12, I try to do this at least once a year. The blood work came back perfect, but her urine had quite a bit of blood in it. Yay! We did cultures, but there was no infection, so we took some xrays. Supposedly my dog doesn't poop, because every time we did xrays she was literally so full of s**t you couldn't see her bladder ( we were trying to rule out bladder stones). Since she didn't seem to be in any discomfort, or straining to pee, we thought decided to just bring in urine samples weekly to test in clinic for blood. For at least 3 weeks she tested positive. Then on week 4, MAGIC. Amigo the wonder dog healed herself! No more blood in her urine. If you ask a vet what could explain this phenomenon, you'd get this response, "Nothing." But I know the reason....Amigo is perfect, and a perfect dog never ceases to surprise you!

Good job self healing Amigo peego puddin' and pie.

The Little Man

Beezer Skeezer is almost 6 months old (on the 25th), and he is turning into quite the little man. Throughout his first 5 months he would occasionally lift his leg. But now....he lifts it all the time! It started about a month ago when he would lift his leg in the backyard, but now he lifts it on our hikes. Frequently. He's also the type of dog you see who lifts it so high, he almost topples over!

In other news, B threw up the other day, and to my mom and I great delight there was a surprise. Worms! Maybe that's why he wasn't growing...the worms were taking all his food! Poor baby. He's on meds and doesn't seem any worse for wear.

He weighs approx 33lbs, and it just a smidge shorter than Amigo. Pictures coming soon!

Monday, February 1, 2010

Agility foundation class


Where are we going?!


Last Sunday, Beezer and I entered our first puppy agility foundation class. Surprise surprise, we were in a class full of Border collies and other breeds of dogs with high drives. Including Bee's good friend, Seven (a Viszla). No surprise that Beezer barked his head off with all the new dogs. He did really well in class though. Tackling the large wobble board, the puppy cavaletti's, and the stairs ( to practice 2 on 2 off method). However, as much as I would like to say he was the star of the class, we did have a few things to work on. Sit stays for one. One task was to have your puppy sit, throw a toy over a low bump and release him over the bump. Well, that certainly didn't happen for 2 reasons. Beezer doesn't have a sit stay ( we're still working on it), and he wasn't as toy motivated as the other mutant puppies. One station had us working with just tugging with our dogs. B didn't have any interest in tugging. Barking is wayyyy more fun! (Note to self: reward next puppy with more play instead of food).

Unfortunately a lot of the exercises have your dog focus on driving towards a toy. He'll tug well enough at home, or where he is comfortable, but not in high excitement areas. Ppfft. His behaviour with the other puppies was atrocious. Screaming and hollering on his back feet trying soooo hard to chase, catch and kill his fellow classmates. Playtime for Beezer didn't last long.

This past Sunday, Beezer was more well behaved. Not as much barking,and he even greeted the other pups appropriately. Not until they start running in front of him does his brain melt.
We did have issues with the table though. Supposedly we don't like to lay down in dirt, or on turf, or when we're told. Awesome. Thankfully, he did really well with the other obstacles.


No lie down! Running more fun.










But the great news is that I did get him to tug for quite some time. But the excitement over my super drivey mutant tugging machine was short lived. Once we tugged viciously all over the barn for a bit, we moved to the next station...and he never tugged again. Small steps, right?!

Next Sunday is our last class. We have lots of stuff to work with, and the class even gave me ideas to help train the older dogs that I work with. Win win!