Puppy School

We went to J & K Canines today for our first class of puppy school. We would really like for Luna to be a well-behaved, well rounded companion, so we are trying to train her well from the beginning. They talked with us about properly establishing ourselves as the pack-leaders, the top of the pecking order and about how to reinforce the good stuff and discourage the bad. Part of discouraging the bad was using a noise maker like a "shake can" so we stopped at the store on the way home to get a few of the big cans that make the best ones. Here the girls wait patiently.

Another suggestion we got was to use something other than Big Sister to work off some of Luna's herding instinct and energy, and a soccer ball was one of the suggestions, so we went right away to get just that.

Spay or Neuter, Please

Somewhere around 20, 000 dogs and cats enter animal shelters each and every day. About 10,000 dogs and cats are euthanized in shelters each and every day. As much as I might want to stop that, to bring all those animals home and show them loving care, I cannot. You cannot. No one person can. If each person does his or her part, however, by spaying and neutering their pets and encouraging others to do the same, we can help prevent animals from filling all those shelters.
Luna's spay was completed last Thursday, March 5th, and she has recovered well. They actually also did an umbilical hernia repair while they had her anaesthetized. The jury is still out on whether that repair was successful. Her surgical incision has a pucker in it right over the hernia site, and since I don't want to apply pressure to her belly (that would just be mean), I can't tell if the pucker is just in the closure or if it's actually the hernia's continued presence. Frankly, I'm gonna be a little miffed if it's still there. I really don't want to have to put her under again.

By the way, I do recognize that another way to prevent the overfilling of shelters and help those animals is to adopt from a shelter or to take in a rescue from another source. Big Sister, and her big sister, Chelsea, both came to us that way, and both have loved us immeasurably. We debated long and hard about getting a purebred this time around, and about getting a puppy versus a grown rescue. This time, we came to the conclusion that this was the route we needed to go. Again, we were granted a precious gift, and Luna's circumstances brought all of us together. In the future, though, we wouldn't hesitate to adopt another rescue. Please consider this if you're pondering a pet.

Luna loves to lie next to her big sister, and she's actually learning to do so without completely driving Abbie nuts. Today was a good day, with much less harassment than usual.

We have an appointment with a dog trainer Wednesday to try to help us communicate better with the wee one. Abbie will be going this time around, too, in hopes of our learning a way to keep Luna from biting at her,pulling her hair and otherwise harassing her. I also hope to work on the "come" command and on heeling. I'm sure we'll come away with lots of homework. :)

Terrible Twos

Saturday, February 20, 2010

I'm not sure where in human development Luna falls right now, but at 13 weeks yesterday, she seems to fall awfully close to the terrible twos. Today has been full of mischief and energy and "oopses." While I slept, Dad had to constantly work to keep her out of things and constantly take her outside to potty. Regardless, she had a couple of accidents in the house. Her pooping habits have changed, too, and she no longer has to poop as frequently. She's also sort of decided that pee and poop shouldn't happen in the same trip outside, so no matter how long we stay out on the first trip, she waits until we go in to ask to go back outside at which time she poops. Whew! And big sister has figured that out and waits in the shadows until she is left alone with food in Luna's bowl, at which point she pounces on it. We've worked really hard to get Abbie to an acceptable weight, so we have to figure out a way around this problem.

Over the last few days, though, Dad has solidified "sit" and "down" with Luna. She learned it quickly Thursday, the first day he worked with her, and is quite proficient now. She does the cutest thing with "down," taking her front paws into the air and lauching herself forward. The little stinker seems to do very well with instructions like this, but is still incredibly hardheaded when it comes to not biting her sister and being potty trained. I think we're about ready to start advancing to the long line work for "come."

Ears & Eyes

The last couple of days have been fairly momentous ones in Luna's world. Yesterday her right ear decided to stay up indefinitely (no doubt until the indecisiveness of teething ears kick in), staying up all day long. Since she was on such a roll, she decided to put a couple new skills in her hat, too, and she and Dad mastered "sit" and "down" over the course of the day. We've now added that to her requirements to get a treat when she goes outside to potty.

My getting a picture of the lopsided ears while I could turned out to be a good thing when we woke up today to BOTH ears standing straight up. So she wore her new eardo to the opthalmologist today to have her dermoid removed.


T.L. met me at work when I got off this morning, and we headed to Orange Park to get her surgery done by Dr. Daniel Brown at the Animal Eye Clinic. Having started out her trip with T.L., who is still a little new to her, she was nervous starting out, and about 3/4 of the way there, she barfed EVERYWHERE, mostly down my right leg.

Waiting to see Dr. Brown.

On our way home.

There for a minute, I thought T.L. was going to follow suit. We made it to the vet, though, without further incident. We got there early enough that she, T.L. and I were able to sit there for a while and calm down before we met with the Dr. Brown for a minute. I was very impressed with his kindness and how observant and astute he seemed to be, so when I left her in his care, I was not nearly as nervous as I was before we got there. I went to shower and nap while she was put fully under and her dermoid removed. The procedure didn't take long, and they called me about 1pm to let me know Luna would be ready about 2:30. Dr. Brown saw us when we got there to let me know that everything went well but they had to remove more tissue than anticipated, and as a result, Luna had an external stitch that they did not anticipate. Now she is saddled with this lovely cone for not 1 or 2 but for the next 9 days. She'll also be getting ointment to the eye every 6 hours and anti-inflammatories and antibiotics twice a day. Dr. Brown gave Luna a little Valium just before we left to help her not get as nauseated on the trip home. The trade off was a stoned Luna on the way home. When she wasn't sleeping, she was whining and unhappy, then seriously drunk when we got home. Having recovered from the sedative, she is now doing well except for being quite irritated with the cone, banging it against the wall and pulling at it with her front paws in an effort to remove it. It's going to be a long 9 days.

Gremlin Ears

Monday, February 15, 2010

The days are flying by, and Luna is growing by leaps and bounds. I suspect we have little more than a couple of weeks left in our current "den" before we will need to buy the next size up. She is showing the changes in her structure as well. The "puppy" is leaving her cute little face little-by-little, and today for the first time, Marc saw both of her ears standing straight up. He said he noticed it when she was in her den, so his initial reaction was, "What the heck is that in her den with her?!" Then he realized it was her ears! LOL. They didn't stay that way long, though, and by the time I got up, she was back to having gremlin ears.

She is becoming more bold, too. She ran from Marc for the first time today. BAD PUPPY! This particular bad behavior is a particularly frustrating one, and I think we'll have to do some long line work and really start a concerted effort at getting her trained at "sit" and "down." I think we have been so focused on the potty training we have been slightly remiss on further issues. Not to mention we are both fairly worn out from lack of sleep and constant vigilance, trying to prevent accidents. She is so unbelievably hard-headed with the issues we have tried correcting thus-far that I am a little worried about getting all of this under control.

We have a new, temporary addition too. T.L. has come down to stay a couple of months with us and brought his little guy Tank, an English bulldog/American bulldog mix. He is very sweet and mild mannered. Luna, however, was none too impressed and did not want him near her house or her dad. She did her best to herd him away from the door, raised hackles and all. Having failed, she decided she needed to bite him on the back to show him who was boss. After it was established that she was in charge--of him anyway--all was good, and he was allowed to come in the house and even to play a little bit. Wow, what an adventure this will be!

Going For A Ride

Since Chelsea died, Marc and I have missed having a dog who likes to ride. There's just something about driving down the road with a dog by your side. Abbie is not that dog. She hates to ride--HATES it. We try to limit how frequently we torture her with it, so we're hoping that Luna will not dread it the same way her big sister does. To help her not hate it so much, I wanted to take Luna on fun rides as frequently as possible, and doing so was one of our projects for the day. She and I rode to town to get the mail and pick up Big Sister's prescription. Luna even had to stay in the truck by herself for a little while while I went into places, and did great while she did! She waited calmly in the passenger's seat, and didn't even seem freaked out about it. I guess that will have to make up for the couple of accidents she had...

Mom & Dad Have A Date

Luna and Abbie are fortunate to have a stay-at-home dad who gets to set his schedule around their needs. Since we have brought Luna home, we have only had to leave her alone in her kennel for more than a couple of hours twice, and those two times were chosen specifically to get her accustomed to our having to be away on occasion. We decided to make tonight a longer trial run and have our Valentine's Day date a little early. We left the girls for about six hours while we headed to Gainesville to catch dinner and see Avatar (thus the 3-D glasses :) ). They did well, and Luna managed not to soil her "den." Potty training is certainly progressing better for all parties involved.
Tomorrow we just might head out on a little adventure to build socialization skills.

On a side note, we have scheduled Luna's appointment to have her dermoid removed from her left eye. We had initially thought we had to wait until she was 14 weeks old, but the vet said we could do it next week, just shy of 13 weeks. So we'll be heading over to Jacksonville for that on Wednesday.