Monday, March 27, 2006
Beth, Jackson�s foster mom, sent an email giving update of Jackson. �Jackson is doing well. I have not left him in the crate in the past week. We are still giving him sedative, he just lays on the dog bed. Not too much coughing. Jackson is due for last (heartworm) treatment. He isn't as needed, but, still very clingy. He has been letting Walt (Jackson�s foster dad) feed him last couple of days.�
Sunday, April 2, 2006
Liana emailed me today of approved applicants living near Birmingham.
Monday, April 3, 2006
Over the weekend I felt a lump on Keely�s left abdomen area, within the shaved area where she had a lump removed, but not at the same spot where she had her lump. So I called the vet first thing Monday morning and took her to see the vet. Keely is now 37 lbs! I know she looks a little rounder, but I still can feel her ribs easily, so I thought it was just her longer fur that makes her look bigger. I�m still feeding her two cups of food per day with one dog biscuit per day, so I don�t know what�s going on. I don�t think she�s overweight though, and the vet didn�t say anything about her weight this time. The vet said the lump may be a hematoma, a bruise, from running and playing too hard. But when I told him that Keely doesn�t do either much, he said another alternative would be lipoma (fatty lumps). He didn�t think it would be useful to fine needle aspirate that lump at this stage. He said just to watch it closely, and if it�s hematoma, it should go away by itself in a month or two. If it gets bigger, then he would recommend we bring her back in to do more tests and possibly removal.
Keely�s now eating � cup Fromm and � cup Wellness (both chicken formulae) at each meal now and doing fine. I pretty much started with one tablespoon of Fromm and added one tablespoon per day until she�s fine with eating � Fromm. We did have to go back feeding Wellness only a couple times because she was getting loose stool (I thought it might be from the new food, but it wasn�t consistent, so I think it must�ve from her eating stuff from the ground). So overall it took us about two weeks just to get her to eat � of the new food.
Tuesday, April 4, 2006
The Birmingham applicant called tonight and we talked for about ten minutes. She said right now she doesn't think she's ready to adopt, but maybe she will in another two or three weeks.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Millie emailed to say that �Dede went to her forever home yesterday. Her mom is such a sweet sweet lady and dedicated to doing whatever Dede needs.�
Right now I�m feeding Keely one cup of Wellness for breakfast, and one cup of Fromm for dinner. This is more of a switch, not mix, similar to the Whole Dog Journal recommended. Keely is doing fine with this routine, and I�m glad we are able to find two brands that she�s okay with, so we�ll never worry about one brand getting backordered from the warehouse. We are running out of the Fromm, so next week we�ll try her on the Drs. Foster and Smith Chicken formula.
Keely and I have been training for no food guarding during meal times for two months now. Now I can go up and hug her, take her bowl away while she�s eating and she would not growl at me for those. About 1/3 of time when I do this, I would give her a treat. When I don�t, I would still praise her verbally. She would still look for treats when I do these and don�t give her treats, but I want her to learn not getting treats every time. However, when Anastasia gets within about 2 feet from her while she�s eating, Keely would still growl about half of the time. This is harder for me to train her because I think now Anastasia has learned not to come near Keely often when the dog�s eating. But when she does, I give Keely a treat to keep her occupied so she wouldn�t growl at the cat to start with.
Janet gave Keely a bag of imitation pig ears and Keely loves those. However, Keely does get possessive when she gets those special chew treats. Initially she would growl when I get close to her when she�s chewing on those treats, but when I went ahead and pry the treat out of her mouth, she just growled and did not try to bite me. I then told her to Sit-Down-Stay and she did, so I gave her the treat back. I also tried the switch game with her, using a regular biscuit treat, in exchange for the pig ear, and Keely did very well and dropped the pig ear for the dog biscuit. I was able to take away the pig ear again and told her to sit down stay and gave her back the pig ear.
I asked my professor Dr. Ravis about five times since I got Keely three months ago, and finally he agreed to let Keely come visit Samson this weekend. Their major concern before was that I told them Keely had redirected aggression with the Basset Hound at her previous home, so they thought if Keely sees their Basset Hound, Samson, that would make Keely relive her nightmare and bite Samson (who's their baby boy). After I assured them that at the most she would just growl and bark at him, they said okay. Also another reason I wanted to take Keely there was to talk to Mrs. Ravis about visiting grandkids and let them see how Keely behaves, and hear their opinions about if they think Keely would be okay around visiting small grandkids and trainings needed to prepare visiting grandbabies (regarding the Birmingham applicants), because their situation right now is exactly the situation of the Ravises five years ago. Dr. and Mrs. Ravis also has two grown daughters, and their previous Basset grew up with their daughters also, and they got Samson two months after their older daughter got married (five years ago). Mrs. Ravis retired from teaching elementary school one year ago, and Dr. Ravis works full time but near retirement. Their granddaughter is one and half years old right now, who visits about one weekend a month. Also another reason I wanted Keely to visit Samson is because they are going on vacation for ten days over Memorial Weekend and they've asked me to watch Samson. So I thought we should let the two dogs meet to see if they would get along.
I asked Mrs. Ravis about visiting grandkids and dogs, she said the biggest thing is to make sure the dog, who's the baby of the house when the grandkids aren't around, still gets enough attention when the grandkids are around. She said sometimes she would have Olivia (granddaughter) in one arm, and her other hand would be petting Samson. She said another thing, especially with small grandkids, is to supervise to make sure the toddler doesn't pull on the dog's ears or tail or torment the dog otherwise. But she said when Olivia comes over, there are usually enough adults around to supervise the toddler. Also she said ever since Samson was a puppy, she has picked up his food bowl regularly while he's eating to train him not to guard his food. I forgot to ask her about the rawhides and dog toys, but I'm pretty sure they put away the rawhides when Olivia's around (wouldn't want her to put that in her mouth). Mrs. Ravis also said to introduce the grandbaby's things to the dog just like the parents would. She said overall just use some common sense and supervise. Mrs. Ravis used to teach third grade and she took Samson to her class sometimes when he was a puppy, however they never really did a lot of socialization with him with younger kids (neither Dr. nor Mrs. Ravis went to obedience class before; Samson only knows Sit and Shake, and he pretty much only does it if he sees treats first), but he just loves people and animals of all kinds. She said their previous Basset, Holly, even though they got Holly when their daughters were seven and ten years old, she never really cared for other kids. When unfamiliar kids came over to visit, Holly would just hide in the bedroom. So she thinks it has a lot to do with personality of the dog too. But she said she thinks Keely will do fine with visiting grandkids.
Liana sent me an application from Michigan for Keely. Since they don�t have a lot of volunteers in Michigan, they are not able to do a home visit. But Liana wanted to check with me first to see if I would think they would be a match just from looking at the application, because if not, then there�s no need to ask another rescue group to do a home visit for us. They sounded fine, so Liana went ahead with the phone interview.
Friday, Apri 28, 2006
Keely and I went to the dog park today and near the end of the walk we met a pack of four dogs and their five owners. A friendly yellow Lab was the first one to come greet us. His owner kept yelling, "Tucker, Come Here!, Come Here!" Tucker didn't even look at her. So she kept pressing this car alarm thing on her keychain, it wasn't until I got close to her enough that I saw it was a shock collar trigger. Tucker's owner was able to grab him as Keely and I were walking by her and her friends and their dogs, but he escaped and followed Keely and I as we continued down the trail. So his owner continued to repeat "Tucker Come Here!" and press the shock collar trigger. And I could see each time she did this, Tucker's face would twitch. I feel so bad for Tucker and think his owner is so stupid. I had the urge to take the collar off him and put it on his owner. Keely was very good throughout though because I kept feeding her treats.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Keely and I went to see Becky's Bogey and Bailey yesterday. Becky fostered Buffy last summer as hospice case, and at the time she had a 15-year-old female Springer, Amber, whose mom she used to dog-sit before Amber was born. Then on Labor Day last year Becky adopted Bailey (the liver and white one). Both Amber and Buffy died a few months afterwards. Then three weeks ago, she tried to foster-to-adopt Bogey, because she always wanted a black and white Springer. However, she emailed Heather, who forwarded Becky�s email to me, saying that Bailey was acting jealous and kept �going after� Bogey. Becky and I emailed back and forth trying to solve this problem online (both boys know some basic obedience). It seemed that it was getting better, but Becky was still worried. Since I was going to Atlanta this weekend anyways, I asked Becky if I could come and observe the boys in person, and she said yes. Keely and I arrived at Becky�s house half an hour early, so I walked Keely in the neighborhood. First I didn�t want to intrude on Becky too early since it was around lunch time, second I thought it would be a good idea to wear Keely out a little bit before she sees the boys. Heather said she would try to come too, but later she called and said she had to bath a newly rescued Springer. After a 20 minute walk, Keely and I saw Becky in the front yard with Bogey and Bailey, who were not leashed. When Keely and I walked up, Bogey came up first, he was a little rambunctious, and when Keely growled (I left the treats in the car when we went for a walk), Bogey didn�t take any notice, so Keely barked and lunged at him. Bogey kept away from Keely after that. Bailey also came up to sniff Keely, but after one growl, Bailey kept away from Keely. Both boys seem very dog-savy, but I suggested a short walk around the neighborhood to let the dogs get to know each other better. Bogey was a little hyper and pulled on leash a little bit, but overall they are both very well behaved boys. When Becky asked me to hold the leashes while she picked up Bogey�s poop, Bogey was a little concerned that his mom went away and pulled on leash a little bit, but not terribly. After a short walk together in the neighborhood, we let the dogs off leash one by one in Becky's backyard (Bailey first, the Bogey, then Keely), and they left each other alone and they were okay off leash in the backyard for a good 30 minutes. Becky had mentioned that Bogey seemed to be afraid of Bailey and that�s why he wouldn�t fight back. However, from my observation, I think Bogey does not seem afraid and is happy and confident enough that I think he would fight back when the time comes. My diagnosis is that there is no major issue here. But I did recommend Becky continues to do basic obedience with the boys to make sure they know she�s the boss (and thus they should not fight in front of the boss, because whatever boss says, goes). And also I recommended spending individual time with each boy to make sure Bailey doesn�t get jealous. Another thing I recommend is to maybe keep the dogs indoors when she�s not at home (Becky keeps them in the yard, thinking that they would be happier outside), especially that Bogey�s not neutered yet.
