Uncategorized « Lessons From and For 4 Legs

Second Annual Pet Blogger Challenge

By katie, on January 10th, 2012%

I joined the Second Annual Pet Blogger Challenge. Can’t believe it’s been almost two years since I started blogging. I still enjoy it and am thankful for our little online dog blogging community.

1. When did you begin your blog?
February 26, 2009

2. What was your original purpose for starting a blog?
Two fold: I wanted a journal of what I did with my dogs. I get a lot of friends asking dog questions I used to think maybe I would send them here for the answers I’d found.

3. Is your current purpose the same?
The part for me is.

If not, what’s different?
I figured out there were much more qualified people out there than me to answer their questions.

If so, how do you feel you’ve met your goals?
More than ever this is a place for me to brainstorm, dream and record where we’ve been and where we might go.

4. Do you blog on a schedule or as the spirit moves you?
As with the wind sometimes it’s fast and furious sometimes it’s a gentle breeze.

If the former, how often — and what techniques do you use to stick to it?
N/A

If the latter, do you worry about… well, whatever you might worry about (e.g. losing traffic, losing momentum)?
Sometimes I worry people I enjoy hearing from will stop reading, and I will miss their input.

5. Are you generating income from your blog?
Not Currently

If so, how (e.g. sponsor ads, affiliate relationships, spokesperson opportunities)?
In the past sponsor adds.

If not currently, do you hope to in the future — and how?
If the opportunity presents itself, I won’t pursue it though.

6. What do you like most about blogging in general and your blog in particular (bragging is good!)?
I like the interchange of thoughts and encouragement. I love getting comments and enjoy the little community of dog people I’ve met around the world.

7. What do you like least?
Sometimes I feel I’ve shared too much, or something too personal and you can’t take it back once it’s out there. It’s an exercise in vulnerability.

8. How do you see your blog changing/growing in 2012?
I want 2012 to be the year I enjoy my dogs without the pressure of “training” goals. Not that I won’t train, it’s ingrained in our life, but I want to enjoy who they are in the moment, not who we are training to be. I think the same is true if my blog. We are letting go of expectations (our own and others) and enjoying what is now.

A Year Treating Anxiety. . . What Now?

By katie, on January 7th, 2012%

Maizey turns three next week which makes it a year since her anxiety became an every day issue. We spent the first 6 months trying natural remedies and training, all to no avail. In July when things really became acute I started considering medication and then on July 21 we started Prozac.

In the last 6 months we’ve worked hard to stabilize her with the meds and training. We’ve successfully used Relaxation Protocol, a Thunder Shirt, and just added Composure Liquid to our bag of tricks. We’ve seen some progress, although living with her on a day to day basis it’s hard to see sometimes. Looking back to July I know we’ve come a long ways. She no longer seeks refuge in the bathroom or closet every day, we’ve been able to get out for walks a bit more, had some trips to the park and some nice hikes. We even spent an hour training up at our training center last night with no apparent ill effects.

She’s recovering from the set back we had in November which was so severe I just couldn’t even bring myself to blog about it. But we continue to struggle with the stress colitis, which is a fancy way of saying too much stress plus too many treats equals horrible diarrhea. There are some triggers I see no progress at all with. The other day on our walk a dog passed us and I found myself saying, “Well that reaction wasn’t that bad, just your garden variety, normal reaction, no out of control shrill screeching barking.” Sigh. It doesn’t say much about our progress that I have classified her reaction level as “normal” and “severe” and am, of course not happy, but resolved and accepting of a normal reaction. Basically she’s not where I’d like her to be after a year.

This week has been another week of ups and downs. On wednesday we did our first BAT session. When asked how it went all I could say was, “Uneventful. Exactly how it’s supposed to be.” When done right, so the dog stays under threshold, BAT can seem incredibly calm. Which is what I love about it. I have hope it can help her eventually, but am not expecting anything miraculously fast.

At Dr. Kanda's. See the lip lick and tension in her jaw. Not a happy puppy.

We have seen two vets over the last year and are now working with a new vet. We’ve looked into adding Chinese herbal medicine back into her plan of treatment and were considering using homeopathic remedies. On Thursday Dr. Kanda called me to tell me the homeopathic vet didn’t feel too hopeful that she could help Maizey. I appreciated how honest both Dr. Kanda and the vet she consulted were. She seemed to feel there’s just not a lot more to add to what we’re already doing, or have tried. We may try to wean off the Prozac and try Paxil or Clomicalm instead. I haven’t made a decision on that, it’s always scary to switch meds. Her basic answer was I need a veterinary behaviorist, but we don’t have one in the state. She’s putting out some feelers to see if she can find someone to do a phone consult with.

I was going to take Maizey through the Feisty Fido class, which is our reactive dog class. But after seeing Maizey while we did BAT our trainer said she doesn’t think Maizey can handle the stress of that class so we pulled out of that. We may go through it later, but it makes sense that she can’t work on the dog reactivity if she’s too stressed out in general every day life.

All of this adds up the fact that I just feel I’ve exhausted our resources and I find myself questioning my expectations. This is my Princessface and I want her to be happy all the time. After spending 45 minutes with us Dr Kanda said, “This is not how a Cavalier is supposed to be. They’re such happy little dogs and she’s just so. . . not.” It broke my heart. Still she’s not always miserable like she was that day at the vet.

Last week while I was ranting on about what to do next my husband broke in and said, “What if she just needs to be an at home dog? Is her life that bad?” It’s not. Her everyday life is not bad now. I need to start appreciating how far we’ve come instead of worrying about how far we have to go.

Carrying her on a walk. You can see the worry around her eyes and the tight jaw.

It’s not like I expect her to be a performance dog. It’s okay if she can’t go to classes, but I’d like for her to be able to take a walk without begging to be carried and comforted or getting diarrhea. That doesn’t seem too much to ask for my girl. I’d like her to be able to be home with a minimum of stress and reactivity. As you can see from that picture of me carrying her we haven’t got there yet. But if she needs to mostly be an at home girl I’m okay with that as long as she’s happy.

Still I find myself asking what is realistic for her? Is this the point where I say, this is who she is and as long as she’s ok on a day to day basis that’s good enough? Today one of the best mom’s I know told me before she would discipline her son she would always ask, “Am I going to do this for his benefit or for mine?” Although a different context I think I have to start asking myself a similar question. Am I pursuing a life Maizey is capable of living? Am I chasing all of this for her benefit or for mine?

At the end of it all I guess I’m asking at what point do I say this is who she is for now? I feel like for a year I’ve been chasing a level of healthiness for her that I’m now not sure she’s capable of achieving. But that feels like defeat, like I’m making excuses and accepting something thats not good for her.

I’m not saying we won’t keep training and treating her anxiety with meds. Improving Maizey’s quality of life will always be a priority to me. I guess all of this is my long drawn out way of saying I think the recovery I’ve been hoping for may not be possible. At least right now. I think my hopes have been too focused on the life I want to live with Maizey and not on the life that’s of most benefit to her. Now my focus needs to change.

I’ve always made Maizey Promises, so for now the Maizey promise is I’ll take you where you want to go, let you go home when you’re ready, I’ll try to alleviate triggers and we’ll keep working together to have the happiest life you can. If at any time you don’t want to do together what I want to do that’s okay. You can be you.

What do you all think? Is there a point where you accept the limitations and live with the level of anxiety that’s there or is that defeat?

Loose Leash Walking 101

By katie, on November 9th, 2011%

One of my favorite followers is having some loose leash walking woes, since I’ve been there done that for months with Pricessface Maizey I decided to turn my reply to her into a post of my favorite LLW tips.

Equipment
It’s important to use the correct tool for the job. Sure, you can use the wrong end of a screw driver to pound in a nail, but it’s going to be hard and take longer. Simple solution-use a hammer!

So what’s the correct tool for LLW? A regular collar and leash. I’m picky about leashes. I only use leather. Leather is soft on the hands, absorbs those shocks of a dog lunging to the end of the leash and last forever. I truly believe once you use a leather leash you’ll never go back.

For those dogs like Maizey that just took forever to learn that a tight leash gets you nowhere I recommend harness as a management tool. I love the Freedom, Sensation or Sensible for front hook no-pull harnesses. However a front hook harness can be tricky for a small dog. With Maizey I’ve used a Puppia. It’s two years old, has seen some serious use and barely wore out this week. Frown and sigh. Oh well, now I get to get a new cuter one!

I know there are people out there thinking, “regular back attachment harnesses encourage pulling” and it may be true, but stick with me for the explanation of why I chose that when we talk about methodology.

Methodology
The most important part to LLW is consistency. A tight leash never gets the dog where he wants to go. If the leash gets tight, stop! Then don’t move until the dog has come back into the golden zone. (The golden zone is anywhere around you where the leash is not tight. Some like to define it as the hook of the leash being in a ‘J’ shape.) This is hard! Trust me, when you want to get from point A to point B and it takes forever because you have to stop 5000 times it can be frustrating.

The times I found it the most challenging were the times Maizey was the most excited and just didn’t have the brain cells to concentrate at all. That’s where management with a harness came in. Dogs are brilliant, and quickly learn contextual clues. Wearing the harness is like recess, it’s free time, the rules are relaxed and the dog learns if they want to pull, pull. It’s okay. Basically it buys some freedom for a handler that wants to be able to go from the house to the car in less than a half hour. The key is to keep the collar sacred. If the leash is on the collar, pulling gets him no where. If you or your dog are too tired, rushed, frustrated, or whatever to be consistent don’t use the collar. Start a walk with the harness and once those initial crazies are worked out switch to the collar. Recess ends, class starts.

Once you have your mind made up to never follow a tight leash again, how do you get the dog into the golden zone? Make the golden zone exciting. Make yourself exciting. You’re competing with the whole wide world of sniffs and smells, blowing leaves, other animals and who knows what else, so encourage your dog to be with you. If you want him to walk on the left side carry the leash in your right hand and pat your leg to encourage him to come back to where you are. Talk to him, tell him when he’s doing good. I like to carry a little squeaker in my pocket to get the dogs attention, when he comes back to find out why you’re squeaking, the leash naturally loosens and shazam! You can reward by moving forward.

Remember if the leash tightens, you stop. Dog choses to return to the golden zone, mark with a “yes!” Forward motion is the functional reward.

Another method is to back up from the direction of the pulling. It’s basically penalty yards for pulling. I used this method with Maizey, but with Magnus combined the two. So if I stopped and he didn’t come back into the golden zone I would back up until he caught on. I liked that better.

One more tip and it seems strange, but don’t teach LLW in a straight line. Swerve around, walk in circles and large S shapes. It keeps your pup more focused on figuring out where in the world you’re going and less focused on what’s down the street.

Now to further refine the LLW position get out your clicker and treats. (For those of you training for CGC, put the treats in your pocket not a treat bag, eventually you’ll be weaning off these treats completely.) Start LLW with the red light green light method, but when your dog comes into position C/T. Remember you’re holding the leash in your right hand, so put your clicker in that hand too. That leaves your left hand free to be the treat dispenser. Don’t treat by reaching across your body to the dogs mouth or you’ll encourage him to forge forward and get out of position.

By this time he should be getting the idea to look up and pay attention. Reward those check ins! Any glance at you is a great thing to C/T. Remember you want him to focus on you for LLW, so pay him generously for doing so. Gradually LLW will become second nature.

A note about distraction, especially if you have a champion puller who’s has had lots of practice, start from scratch in the least distracting environment possible. Start in the house, once he’s reliably staying in the golden zone, work towards the closed door, once he can walk nicely to the door, open it and start over. Remember, if he can’t LLW to the door he’s bound to fail once you’re in the real world, and we never want our pups to fail!

One final note, bad habits take time to form and time to break. If he’s had lots of time to practice pulling, it may take time to teach him to choose not to pull anymore. Eventually he will understand all good things happen in the golden zone. For Maizey that means she rarely pulls, even on her harness. Be patient! It’s worth it in the end.

For my friend with the LLW woes, hang in there. I thought Maizey would never get this and she’s mostly good now. For anyone out there who may have a trainer encouraging them to try more forceful methods, please consider this is a force free way of teaching your 4legged friend to choose the best behavior. When he does choose on his own, you’ll be thrilled with his choice!

It’s All About the Cavaliers

By katie, on October 15th, 2011%

Those of you following us on Facebook will remember when I started puppy dreaming over this black and tan boy. I know if I get another Cavalier it will be a black and tan and it was almost unbelievable that this boy would show up in my state. We rarely get Cav puppies in rescue here and black and tans are extremely rare in rescue anywhere. So when he showed up I naturally started dreaming.

Many people thought I was crazy for passing him up. I know that it seems crazy to pass up the chance to rescue my dream dog without having to fly across the country like I did for Magnus. The thing is I have very strict rules for myself about when I can get another puppy. Also it’s just not the time for me to bring a new puppy into the house. It wouldn’t be fair to the puppy or to Maizey and Magnus. The other reason is going to shock all of my Cavalier loving readers. . .

I am fascinated my other breeds. I was considering. . . a different breed. GASP! I know! You can hardly believe your eyes!

I love my Cav’s but I have concerns. As they get older I know I’m in for heart murmurs among other expensive and emotional illnesses. Grooming two Cav’s is really a lot of work. And I never have got over missing having a big dog.

Then I met my first French Bulldog a few weeks ago. I really started thinking maybe this was my big dog feel in the convenience of a small body. They are really cool dogs and have less health problems than Cav’s. So I started doing my research and contemplating a new breed.

So back to the little black and tan boy. . . He got adopted and it took the dream off the table. The coolest thing is that the people that adopted him are bringing him to puppy class at work. Plus in his class is an 18 week old Frenchie. So today I went on a mission of exploration. I figured if I went to their class I could see side by side where my heart really was. Am I a total Cav girl? Or do I want to start over with a new breed?

Any guesses as to the answer? Well, the little Frenchie boy was super sweet! He was a lover and very smart. But. . . that black and tan boy stole my heart!

I can’t even tell you why. All I know is every time that sweet, soft boy scampered into my lap I just melted. I pretty much turned into a gooshing, gooey, cooing girl. It was embarrassing! But it was a good thing to do, it settled in my heart where my true love lies. For now, it’s all about the Cavaliers!