Kenzie, on the first day in our home, started coughing, and showing signs of getting Kennel Caugh. I straight away put her on echinacea (1cc, 2 times a day). She kept coughing/wheezing for a couple more days, but now she has been caugh free for three days! Kenzie has also started itching quite a bit on her back/rump, and I have found quite a few scabs under her collar. I am going to try bathing her in the oatmeal, tea tree oil, papaya oil and aloe vera. A good webpage about natural itch relef is  http://www.stopdogitching.com/natural-remedies-stop-dog-itching.html. I will she how she is in a few days, and then try an Apple Cider Vinegar rinse.

Our new foster dog is such a sweetie, but we figured out very quickly that there was a little problem that needed immediate attention: he was peeing on EVERYTHING. He literally did not want to play with Riley, he just wanted to walk around and find more things to mark. I was nervous to bring him in the house, but I knew I had to do it sometime. I waited until I thought that surely he had gotten everything out, and then took him inside on leash. I followed him around like a hawk, waiting for him to lift his leg...and sure enough, he did. Thankfully it was not on the carpet or rug, so no biggie to clean up. We had one other accident when we were going out first thing the next morning, I was running to the door, expecting him to follow, but did he? NO! He went straight away to something he must have been watching all night and wanting to lift his leg on, and of course peed on it. So now not only is he not trust worthy to walk around the house not on leash, he cannot even walk from one side of the house to the oher on leash and not mark.

So I thought to myself; "is is really surprising that he marks in the house, when when he is outside, all he does is mark? It was probably one of his only moments of satisfaction when he was in the shelter, to mark on top of some other dog's scent. So how are we going to overcome this issue? By doing some radical dog training that is not going to be easy, but have a really big payoff in the end, I hope. We decided that he was never again going to be allowed to pee on anything other than grass. This meant that he could only be in his crate, or being highly supervised on leash, at all times. When he is outside, he must be kept on a long lead and walked/ played with in the grass only areas (no trees, bushes, or anything else he could mark).  

Day one of  AMP (anti-marking protocol)
am: would not urinate
noon: would not urinate
afternoon: one 1/2 second stream
evening: one 1 second stream
late: one 2 second stream

Day two of AMP
am: one 2 second stream
noon: one 3 second stream
afternoon: one 4 second stream
early evening: one 5 second stream!
Once he had a good urination, I was able to take him inside for some "bed training", rather than having to just put him back in his crate.

Bed Training
Bed training is when you train the dog to stay in the bed beside you, even if you are moving around. Use bed training when you cannot trust a dog without supervision, but you have other things to do than just sit there and watch the dog. 
I spent about 20min cleaning the kitchen, with max in the bed at my feet when I was at the sink, and about 2ft away when I was putting the dishes in the dish washer. I kept ahold of the leash at first, to pull him back in the bed should he start to get back, and also had treats to reward him for staying in the bed. By the end of that 20 minutes, max was staying in his bed no matter where I walked around in the kitchen, even when I bent down to put something in the bottom shelf. I then moved into the living room to watch a movie with the rest of the family, and Max was able to join us in his bed beside me.

Day 3 of AMP
Max is now urinating in good 5 sec streams, and then wanting to run back to the house when he is finished.

More updates on the AMP coming soon!

Ok, so her real name is McKenzie, but we call her Kenzie, Kenz, and Miss Kenzington already, and we have only had her for three days! She has quickly stolen both Steve and My hearts, and we cannot imagine a more perfect dog for our family. She is gorgeous red merle Border Collie, and I am trying to figure out if she has Aussie in her as well, which would explain the unusual color. She moves as a border collie, and has the right shape and coat texture to be a full border collie, the coloring is just not very common.

Miss Kenzie we think is 3yrs old, and she LOVES to play fetch with tennis balls. She also loves to cuddle. When she came to us she did not know anything more than sit, as far as we could tell, but she has already learned down, and how to walk nicely on a leash. She is friendly to everyone she meets, and is likely to howel a hello if they are not paying attention to her.

Kenzie I think is coming down with Kennel Caugh. I am pumping her full of coloidal silver and echinacea, hoping that she will be able to fight it before it becomes full force KC. The fact that she does not like anyone messing with her mouth does make this difficult, especially when we are trying to win her trust. This also makes brushing her teeth a not so near possibility. We have started petting and stroking and massaging her face/muzzle, to desensitize her to that, we will see if that helps. I was able to lift her lip while petting her this morning, so that is a marked improvement already. Kenzie does have a little plaque on her teeth, so we need to get her over this as quickly as possible, so that we can brush them!

From Scared and Alone                                                                  


To Happy and Loved!

 

It has been a very long time since I have had an "only dog". Basically Riley is back to how he was when he was a puppy: play with me, play with me, play with me, play with me, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored. Needless to say that it is driving me crazy! I exercise him and play with him multiple times a day, but he just is not getting what he needs, even if he goes to the dog park. He would need to go multiple times a day, every day to be fully happy. So we have been on the lookout for a foster dog. We have not had much success in foster work here in Southern Oregon, because the shelters are not very full. Now do not get me wrong, it is a WONDERFUL thing that the shelters are not full, I would not change that for the world, but it does make it more difficult to help dogs in need, when they are all over 200 miles away. So we have been thinking about getting a second dog. This of course led to the very fun activity of researching breeds and strategising, theorizing, and all kinds of fun stuff about all of the different breeds. SO.....we decided to get an Australian Shepherd!!!! An aussie was my first agility dog: I put suitcases up in the hallway and she jumped them =). I love aussies so much, and now that I am back into agility with Riley, I can train another dog as well, without making Riley feel bad. During my search for an aussie in a shelter, I ended up meeting a wonderful lady named Sue Trapp. She is with a rescue called Animal Friends Rescue Project, in Pacific Grove CA. They have drivers drive dogs up to this area once a month, and even have dogs with behavioral issues that need specialized trainer attention! So I am now very excited about not only hopefully finding the aussie for us, but also getting back into foster work with dogs who truly need help.

So Riley has been doing so well, after a 2yr break due to cancer, hip dysplasia and spondylosis, WE ARE BACK IN THE GAME!!!! I pulled out the jumps a couple weeks ago just for fun, to see how much Riley remembered of all of the drills and handling we used to practice. I set the jumps at 12 inches, and was astonished at how much he remembered! Front cross, rear cross, deceleration cues, acceleration cues, send ahead, reverse flow pivot, sperpentine, ALL OF IT! So then I pulled out the weaves, and he was so excited to see them again he just ran through them without a word from me and then looked back at me like "where's my treat?" haha. So we decided to run in the trial coming up in this area, just for fun. We have been working on some basic jump drills and weaves mostly just trying to increase stamina and strength, but the best part is that we really are just doing it for fun. I am naturally a very competitive person, so unfortunately, before Riley had gone over his first jump, I had decided that we were going to be the best dog handler team in all of the state. Which of course put a tremendous amount of pressure on both of us, and in the end lead to so much nerves on my part, that my dog decided that agility was no longer fun. That every time we went to a trial, I was so stressed out and nervous, that he felt like he needed to calm me down...and how do dogs calm one another down? By sniffing the ground, ignoring the stressed one, looking everywhere BUT at the stressed one. So needless to say that when my dog started doing this in the ring, I got even more stressed! "Everyone is looking at us! Why are you ignoring me?! You never do this in practice! (I'm not stressed at practice, this should have clued me in)". So because I was feeling these things, my dog could feel it, and agility became a place to be stressed to the limit, and make the person he loves more than anything, frustrated at him. So he shut down. I was so humiliated that agility was no longer fun. Shortly after this was when Riley injured his leg, then got spondylosis and hip displacia and shortly there after cancer.
So, all of this to say that I am excited to get back to agility JUST FOR FUN! That was why I got into it in the first place, right?

When Riley started throwing up his "green mix", I had to figure out a way to make it so that he was still able to ingest all of those great live enzymes, nutrients, etc. without upsetting his stomach. I tried using pancreatin, aloe vera juice, lowering the fat content, mixing it with pumpkin and while each would help for a couple of days, none of it seemed to make a big enough difference for him to actually be able to keep it down long term. So what did I do? I got online of course! I decided to figure out a way to make his green mix with only the most important ingredients (since at that point he was not even getting his glucosamine/chondroitin), in a format that I knew he would be able to eat: cooked firm, like a treat.
I found some really great basic grain-free recipes at http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/. I decided to go with the liver leather, since I wanted something that was more like a treat, rather than biscuit. I knew that I did not want to use flour, because dogs battling cancer, should ingest as few carbs as possible. I decided to substitute key ingredients in Riley's green mix for the flour in the recipe, and then cook it at a lower temperature to kill as few enzymes as possible. So, with all of this said, here is my first attempt recipe.

Warning: this is adapted to my dog's particular needs, and has not been approved by any vetrinary as safe. Use at your own risk.

Turkey power treats
1 lb ground turkey, not frozen
1/4 cup glucosamine/chondroitin
1/4 cup ground bone meal
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 t probiotics
1 t kelp powder
1 t olive leaf powder
1 T bee pollen granules

Mix ingredients turkey through olive leaf powder in large mixing bowl. Spread out on cookie sheet lined with tin foil. Then cook at 200 degrees for 1hr. Pull out and sprinkle with bee pollen. Put back in the oven for 30 minutes. Turn off oven and let cool. When cool, pull out and roll into 3/4 in balls. Should make about 30, how many I need to last my 70lb boxer one a day for a month. I froze all but what I needed for that week, and kept the rest in the refrigerator.

So, since making those, I found this article on www.housepetmagazine.com about enzymes and how important it is not to cook them over 118 degrees. So, next time I am going to wait to add the probiotics until the mix is cool after cooking, then sprinkle the probiotics on the underside, before rolling into balls. You can find this article at www.housepetmagazine.com/05/enzymes.htm

Riley LOVES these treats, and it is so easy to give! Just pull one out of the fridge and give it to him! I have already seen a  big difference in him and this is only his fourth day on these treats!

I noticed that while I used to discribe how Riley was doing by saying "wonderfully! he is playing with Sarah more than ever! I realized that I could no longer say that. He had gotten grumpy with her, he could no longer climb up on the couch, and moved slowly all around. So I immediately put him back on his "green mix", and four days later? He was practically jumping out of his skin when it came to training time. He was hopping and jumping around me like he was a pup! Steve also noticed it when he came home a couple hours later, he could not believe the difference. While there are a lot of different supplements in his mix, the most important if feel sure is the glucosemine/chondroitin. He stuggles with hip dysplasia as well as spondelosis. Riley just turned 5yrs old.
.

Oh, I was so relieved and thankful that Tristan was returned to me about a week after I had to turn him back over to the shelter. I bleached the entire yard and everything else I could, and canceled all of my classes for 6 weeks. Tristan gained weight steadily and found a wonderful home with a family who adores him. I love happy endings!

We got Tristan on Saturday, and had to take him to get tested for the Parvo Virus 3 days later, and he tested positive. Dont you know that that little fella really wormed his way into my heart in those three days, as well ran all over my house/yard. So now I am learning all I can about the virus- treatment, prevention, disinfecting etc.