Sunday, May 21, 2006
This morning I was taking Samson and Keely out for potty break, and we met Kia (Alaskan Husky) and her mom. When Samson saw them, he immediately started barking and pulled toward them (he does that with every person and dog he sees, he thinks everybody's his friend, and he's stubborn enough and his center of gravity's low enough, that he usually at least gets to stand in the middle of the road and wait until the other party passes by, it's very hard to pull him away). Keely joined in with the barking and pulling too. Keely was very good and immediately went up to Kia's mom for petting, and she didn't growl when Kia sniffed her briefly. Samson kept barking and barking, happy and wanting some attention too. Kia's mom thinks Samson's so funny. When I let Samson to go up to Kia's mom, he jumped up on her and knocked her over and licked her face (he does that with just about anybody too). I think Kia's mom didn't like being knocked over, but she said she didn't mind the licking. Kia's a calm dog and she walked away a few feet. She and Samson sniffed each other briefly but left each other alone. Kia's mom said when they went to the dog park earlier this week, they saw a big snake coiled on the middle of the trail. I never go into the wooded trail like Kia and her mom do, but I will definitely watch out for snakes next time.
Then I took the dogs for a walk on campus. Even though we got there around 8:30, it was getting really hot already. We were only half way through, when Samson seemed to be very hot and tired (he has mostly black fur). He's smart and knows it's cooler in the shade, but also once he's in the shade, he decided to sit down and lie on the cool concrete. He's 60-65 pounds, I can't drag him for too long, not to mention carrying him back to my car. So we slowly walked back toward my car, but it was still a long way back, so we stopped several times in the shade (well, the speed and locations were pretty much all dictated by Samson) and just sat in the shade for three to five minutes each time. Finally we made it back to my car, then we went to Samson's house (closer to campus), for a cool drink and to get canned food for Samson.
When I used to dog-sit Samson, he was so picky with food, even when I moistened his kibbles or even gave him canned food, he would refuse to eat sometimes. Not anymore! When I gave him the canned food this morning, he immediately ate the whole thing. Keely got jealous while Samson was eating canned food though (Keely almost never get canned food either) and started growling. I told her to Sit Down Stay, because I wanted to teach her to wait. Then after Samson's finished, I gave both of them a treat. Keely seemed to be happy about it. Hopefully she has learned from this and will wait quietly next time. We stayed at Samson's house for two hours, Keely stayed near me but she did walked around Samons' house a little bit while I read the newspaper. Samson pretty much just lied on his bed in the tiled spa room the whole time.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Keely is eating 1/2 cup Avoderm Senior formula and 1/2 cup of Wellness at each meal now. It took us almost one month to get her to eat fully Fromm, 2 weeks to eat fully Drs. Foster and Smith, and only three days to eat fully Avoderm. Each time between the new brands, I would switch her back to eat fully Wellness. But I think Heather's right that Wellness somehow changed their formulation, because Keely would get loose stool too when she's switched to Wellness. I didn't really notice it before because she would get loose stool when eating new brand anyways. But this time is more obvious, because three days after we started giving her small portions of Avoderm, I just suddenly switched her fully to Avoderm and no Wellness, well, she's got firmer stool when eating Avoderm only. Anyways, we still got half bag of Wellness left, so I'm feeding her half Avoderm and half Wellness to get her to finish the Wellness.
Behavior wise, Keely's getting better with Samson too, only growled once, during meal time yesterday. And Keely's not at all possessive of her toys. She lets Samson play with her toys with no problem. Just possessive with food. But she has learned to wait while Samson's eating his wet food mix. And then I give her a treat after Samson's finished. I'm continuing to train Keely to be less possessive of her food with humans (as far as her food possession with other dogs, personally I think it's easier to just manage it and feed them separately). I sit right next to Keely when she eats. Sometimes I have treats, sometimes I don't. When I go up to hug her, I almost always still use treats, and she never growls when I have treats. Now I can hug her first, then wait two seconds and give her a treat and hug her while she's eating the treat. I think she knows to expect a treat now when I hug her. It's interesting though, she doesn't mind it when I just sit and stare at her, but as soon as I say "good girl", that actually makes her growl. But since now I can predict when she tends to growl, I would take her food away immediately. Then make her sit-down-stay, until she doesn't stare at me back, wait five more seconds, then give her back her food (of course make her sit down stay wait before she's allowed to eat the food again). Hopefully soon she would make the link between the growl and the food being taken away. But I don't want to simply make her not growl, because growling is indication that something's making her uncomfortable, we don't want her to not growl but still remains frustrated inside and then bite without warning. I want to train her to not be possessive of her food around humans. What I probably should do is to give her a treat when I say good girl (before she growls but at the same time I say good girl). Anyways, now I hide the treats first. I think she's at a stage of training that I don't need to "bribe" her anymore, but use it more as a reward.
As for interaction with Anastasia, Keely respects the cat more when I'm holding the cat. However, Samson's the opposite. He would keep about 1 foot distance when watching the cat. But as soon as I pick up the cat, he would jump up on me to get to her, even licking or nipping her, which he would not dare to do when the cat's sitting on the floor by herself. I think somehow he thinks the cat can't scratch or bite him anymore when I'm holding the cat. Strange.
I found a dog party planning website, and there are two dog cake recipes on there, one is for a peanut butter carrot cake, and the other is a carob cake. Brenna has intolerance to peanut butter, so I didn�t make that cake. Also, Jake�s dad told me when we were visiting them last time, that Jake�s mom loves carob (one of the dog cookies I brought to the visit had carob in it). So I thought, I�m not sure if the cake I make would taste good, but at least it will smell good of the carob. Here�s the cake batter in the pan. Virginia took a series of cake decorating class about ten years ago, so she has all these fancy cake making and decorating gadgets, and I asked her to send them to me.
We had a marvelous time at the party at Jake�s house yesterday. To see pictures and stories of the party, please go to Brenna�s pages 54-60. Here�s Keely with the toy from Brenna�s parents. They gave each of the dogs a new ball toy. I picked out the baseball one for Samson, and he loves it.
Today I decide to test Keely's carpet scratching theory. So I put Anastasia in the livingroom with Samson, and left Keely alone in the bedroom. Also, I didn't get home until after 5:30 PM (usually around 5 PM). Well, I'm glad that we did the test and the theory was correct so we know now, but I ended up with another piece of shredded carpet. So I've decided to let Keely to have the run of the apartment from now on. She's doing fine with Samson when I'm not at home, and also it does not seem like she barks too much when home alone. She has won this battle, I'm going to make sure I'll win the war. Anyways, I brought the shredded carpet to the apartment manager and finally they decided to come look at my carpet this time. They will replace my carpet next Thursday; I just need to pay sort of monthly installment on them, instead of one big payment.
Friday, June 2, 2006
Keely's been having diarrhea for the past two days, so I didn't give her any food this morning, she didn't seem to want to eat anyways. But I did give her some slippery elm mixture. I'm not totally sure what caused her to have diarrhea. I started giving her NOW brand glucosamine powder and Nutro Large Breed Senior kibbles (sample bag), so I'm not sure which of the two caused her diarrhea, and of course it could've been grass or anything on the ground she ate while on walks (it's harder to keep her from eating from the ground when I'm walking two dogs together). The diarrhea was bad enough that she actually pooped on the carpet late Thursday night/early Friday morning.
Today I put frosting over the whole cake, and decorated it with a different color of icing. The dog party planning website also has recipes of dog cake icings. I just followed the directions and made one kind to put all over the cake, and then the other one to put into the icing piping bag to decorate the cake. Both icing are cream cheese based.
I'm reading Stanley Coren's How to Speak Dog book. In the book, it says that when dogs trust each other, they would sleep with their backs to each other. Well, Keely has never done that with me. Every previous Springers had done that with me, so I could cuddle with them. Even Samson who's only here occasionally, has done that with me, but not Keely. When I tell Keely to come over for petting, when I'm lying down on the floor, she would lie down facing me. Sometimes I would flip Keely to her other side and make her lie with her back to me, but she had never done it voluntarily.
Keely's not afraid of Samson at all anymore. He sniffes her sometimes, and his long strong tail hits her face when they are standing near each other, but she doesn't mind it at all. However, she still growls at him when there's food involved (her food and my food), and also she had growled at him a couple times when I was petting her and Samson jumped in between us. But these were expected. Instead of saying Keely's overly submissive in public, I think the better description of Keely is like what Mrs. Ravis and Jake's dad described her, that she's more shy, whereas Samson and Jake are more outgoing. Samson's definitely more upfront about wanting affection.
Thursday night Samson was licking his behind a lot, so on Friday, I took the dogs to the groomer's to have Samson's anal glands emptied. Rebekah, the store's co-owner/obedience class instructor/pet-sitter, was the one who first saw us and has met all my dogs, and she said about Samson, "You've got a weird-looking Springer there!" Anyways, I told her I'm just dog-sitting, not fostering Samson. They said his glands were really full.
I think Keely's a little more confident in public when Samson's with her. At the store, she still wanted to leave, but not as frantic as when I took her in by herself. Also, last night when we were taking a walk around Samson's neighborhood, there were two Labs (yellow Lab was adolescent intact male, couldn't tell what gender was the black Lab) running loose around the elementary school's construction yard. They had tags on, but no owners in sight (a group of little league baseball players and parents and coaches in the soccer field though). The dogs followed us for a good quarter of a mile. At first when they met, Samson was very excited and wanted to meet them, but when the yellow Lab came up to sniff Keely, she growled, and both Labs backed off. But as they continued to walk with us and socializing with Samson, Keely didn't mind.
Also, I think Keely has less separation anxiety when Anastasia's in the room with her when I'm at school. I haven't tested it yet, but Lexi was similar when she was living with us. Lexi would chase Anastasia once or twice a week, but she would be less destructive when the cat was in the room with her.
I know Samson's not exactly aggressive toward Anastasia, I think it's more like he wants to play with her, but I don't think he understands that she's not only not a dog, but she's the size of a toy-sized dog. When Anastasia's sitting still, Samson would just stare at her, occasionally he would sniff her, and when the cat's got enough, she would swipe her paw at him. But when she walks around, Samson would chase her, and nipping her heels, like he does with the dogs. I don't think Samson has played with small dogs before, as all his play buddies have been medium to large sized dogs. Anyways, today I found a bite scratch mark on Anastasia's ear, I'm pretty it was Samson who did it, however I don't think he intended to harm her, and she doesn't show any discomfort toward it, so right now I'll just let the behavior go (but I did clean the wound with hydrogen peroxide).