Started with the clicker training again. Spent five minutes with Henry and Eo each. Just simple stuff, working with Henry and Eo on not being grabby with food and treats to refresh the click-and-treat. Henry’s getting it for the first time, but is SUCH a fast learner (really, he’s easy to please … Eo couldn’t care less unless there’s food) that I didn’t have to do much with him.
As for the exercise that we’re using to get back into clicker training, I’m briefly using this post from dogforums.com — Doggy Zen — to provide some basic structure to Eo and Henry’s training sessions.
Need to get more pupperoni or some chicken lunchmeat tomorrow.
Now that Henry’s had things going right for him for a few months, his health issues are pretty much taken care of, and his separation anxiety is under control, I’ve decided that it’s time to rehome him.
Why rehome Henry, my happy jogging and napping buddy? There’s a few good reasons. Mainly, Eowyn isn’t happy with him in the house, and he’s not happy when he’s around Eowyn. Having him around forced me to address some of Eo’s issues and we’re doing better in a lot of ways, but she needs some intensive training now and I can’t do that when my time’s split between her and Henry. Of course, he’ll have a home here whenever he needs one, but he and Eowyn would be happier with him elsewhere.
I’m very selective about where I will adopt him to. He’s got to go to a home that has or has had dogs before and uses (or is willing to learn) positive training methods. He will need to be able to stay on his medications, which can get expensive. And I’d prefer if he didn’t have to be crated all the time (~ 8 hours a day like he does here) and if there were some young boys for him to belong to.
I absolutely love Henry, and rescuing him has had a hugely positive impact on my life. With love, it’s not so much about holding on as it is about making sure those you love are happy.
I’ve been doing some experimentation, and Henry seems to be OK with being left alone inside of Eowyn’s crate — even when I’m not in the house. Her crate is the warmest, deepest, darkest, most cave-like part of the house — it’s in my closet, buried inside all of my clothes on hangars and underneath the crates that hold my paperwork files and pictures.
For the past month, we’ve been working to ease Henry out of his rather extreme crate anxiety. (See picture.) If you missed it, he chewed his way through a Bargain Hounds brand crate in less than fifteen minutes while I was working with Eo out front of the house. It was a major d’oh moment and a major setback to his training.
He’s been on Reconcile (aka puppy prozac) for nearly three months, he’s been eating breakfast and dinner in his crate and sleeping in there at night. His crate has a soft floor, has his favorite chew toys and nylabones, and most importantly, Eowyn isn’t allowed in it. 
But … we had some thunderstorms the other day, and he took refuge in Eowyn’s crate. (She, of course, doesn’t care about t-storms.) Interesting!
Experimenting a bit, I left him in there when Eo and I went to the vet the other day. He wasn’t even breathing hard when we got back, and we were gone for over an hour. Even more interesting! Today I pulled the swap — I left her in his crate (which is too small for her, but won’t cramp her style if she isn’t in it too long) and him in hers, and ran to PetCo to get the biggest X-Large wire crate they had so that she can stand to her full height with her head up in it. I’ll have to move my bookshelf out of my room … probably into the living room, but there’s room for her new crate in my room. Barely.
We’ll see if this lasts… I’ve jinxed myself before!
Go watch these videos at SmartDogs! Man, if that happened at the dog park I used to take Eo (who, as a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix, is descended from african dogs — although a different breed) there’d be owners running everywhere, (human) tears, and lots of bruised (human) egos. I don’t do dog parks much anymore.
As I was watching these videos and typing this, Eowyn (the huntress) disemboweled another Bad Cuz. I had to give her something to chew on because she was hunting for more geckos to hunt after she caught one that slipped in under the back door. Henry is cowering in mortal fear underneath the kitchen table as she tosses the Cuz around. After she’s torn the squeaker out and crunched it into tiny plastic pieces, she runs throughout the entire house biting down on it and then plugging the hole with her tongue. Note to self: Dog likes sucking chest wounds. Do not piss dog off.
You never know what you might learn. In this case, It’s a fascinating little bit over at One Bark at a Time about alarm pheremones and dog reactions with the link to the original article at Ars Technica in the first paragraph. Now that, that’s just plain ol’ fascinating and it points out yet again why having control over your dog’s level of arousal is so important in social interactions. Oh, and I found One Bark at a Time via Caveat.
I wonder if there’s an “antidote” to this fear pheremone that can be sprayed in high stress areas like kennels and shelters to subdue anxious dogs? I mean, one that works on a scientific basis, as opposed to the snake oil misters that are currently on the market.
I’m sure there’s going to be a big chunk of that building with my name on it.
Eowyn kept waking me up last night (with a cold nose to the eyesocket and a lick to my chin) to let her out so that *she* in turn could go outside. I went out with her a few times and her poop was completely liquid — total diarrhea, punctuated with a few noxious farts. (I know it wasn’t her the night before because she slept in her kennel with the door closed that night.) When the vet opened in the morning, I called and got a walk-in appointment for this afternoon…
With Eo, our suspicion is that she’s caught Henry’s whipworms. (Once you get whipworms into an environment, it’s almost impossible to keep a dog from getting them. Even if you pick up poop immediately from the yard, it’s not possible to pick up the liquid stuff and eventually a dog will run through that patch of ground, and while cleaning their paws later will ingest some of the eggs.) I was probably irresponsible in letting her stay on Heartguard, which doesn’t worm Whipworms, and not switching her to Interceptor. The problem is that Interceptor, Revolution, Sentinel, etc. — none of those touch the eggs, and still allow them to hatch in the dog’s system… they just clear the worms as they hatch. Ivermectin, the active ingredient in Heartguard, won’t even touch them in nonclinical doses.
So — worm her with something that will definitely flush all the worms out, 24 hour fast to settle her stomach and let anything that’s gotten bloody in her intestines heal, and then a soft/wet diet for two days followed by getting her gently back on her regular food.
You know that sixth sense that parents have? The one that leads them to sit up in bed fifteen years after their son or daughter’s moved out of the house? I’m starting to develop that with the dogs.
Woke up this morning at 5:30. Henry had been sleeping up in the bed with me because he hadn’t been feeling good and he’s not insistent enough if he’s in the kennel. He wasn’t next to me, but his spot was still warm. I heard his nails pacing back and forth on the wood laminate in the kitchen, so I let him out.
But something still wasn’t right. I couldn’t put a finger on it. I didn’t smell anything, I didn’t hear anything, and with a glance back over my shoulder out the door I saw that he picked the first spot he could find to poop in… par for the course when he’s not feeling good.
I walked into the living room, and in the corner of the house the farthest from the bedroom, he had pooped on the floor. No problem, got a rag and some bleach/lysol cleanup spray. Wait, what’s that? Oh, that’s blood. That’s not good! Using a paper towel and a spare medication container from the recycling bin (Hey, there’s times when it’s GOOD to be a packrat!) I scooped up a sample including some blood and immediately refrigerated it.
The diagnosis is post-surgical stress-induced colitis, and the prescription is a day’s fast followed by a couple days of sensitive tummy science diet, and a week’s run of Metronidazole just to be sure. I’m so lucky to have a vet (Boonville Animal Hospital in Bryan TX) that’s understanding when you page them at 6am and whose doctors can remember enough of your pet’s case history to be able to help you without forcing you to go to the 24 hour emergency clinic. It turned out that Dr. Glade was about to head into the clinic anyway to check on some cases when his pager went off, so I met him there. He ended up not needing the fecal since the diagnosis was pretty clear but appreciated that I’d taken it.
Poor Henry. He’s probably been in a lot of pain from the neuter, but he hasn’t let one ounce of it show.
I found this post about a person having guilt about wanting to return a rescue really struck a chord with me. You can easily figure out which post in that thread is mine by the dog descriptions, but what I loved most were all the testimonials about how many people had become better humans for all the trials that their rescue put them through.
I’ve actually tried to give Henry to another rescue. Between his separation anxiety, his dependence, the bad habits he’s picked up from Eowyn, his complete lack of socialization, and the number of times I’ve had to repair some part of the house that he’s chewed on, I thought for a long time that I wasn’t going to be able to rehabilitate him enough to rehome him. Three months later, most of his issues are at very least under control. Believe it or not, Eo’s the problem child in my household now.
I don’t think anyone who has rescued a dog should be shamed into keeping it or should be forced to deal with a burden that they’re unwilling to bear. I would urge, though, that anyone who’s considering it look within themselves to find enough patience to ask for assistance from the rescue before they simply give up.
Of course, there may be some disappointment from the rescue in seeing a match not work out, but there won’t be anyone yelling at you or blaming you. There’s no shame in finding that you can’t take someone into your home to live with you. People who work closely with animals in a rescue environment are usually happier that you admitted to your limits and did the responsible thing (by calling them) than anything else.
This is the dumbest excuse for a blog posting in the world. I was really happy to see Eo scratching her neck today using the leg that we did the FHO for her Hip Dysplasia on. Makes me feel like all of the walking and other stuff that we’ve been doing for months on end may not be a waste after all, even though that leg still looks atrophied and she still favors the other!
You know, I don’t know if I’ve seen this in any of the books I’ve read recently, but I’ve been experimenting with lots of LITTLE training sessions. Eowyn needs work on her food aggression, reactivity, and resource guarding. Henry needs work on his anxiety and is, unfortunately, picking up Eowyn’s reactivity. Every book I’ve managed to beg, borrow, or steal on the subject stresses over and over not to make training sessions longer than 10 minutes and not to allow the dog to get bored… but they dont mention how much time should be between sessions.
I’m mowing the lawn right now. Eo’s in the backyard, and every time she doesn’t react to a dog or bicycle going by she gets a treat. Henry’s inside while I mow in his crate, and every 5-10 minutes I’ll come in and give him a treat. Before I went outside, Eo and I did a ‘attentiveness’ clicker training session in front of the big front picture window.
It’s kind of like my day to day need to get back into shape. Instead of joining a gym, I started walking miles and miles with the dogs every night. Every now and then at work when I get bored or frustrated I’ll stop and go up and down a few flights of stairs, or I’ll drop and give myself 20 pushups. Much better to integrate the physical and emotional training into life than it is to make a special time with other artificial constraints.