Life on the Leash

Sum’s eye wasn’t doing too well when we went back to the veterinary ophthalmologist two weeks ago. It was looking like he might need surgery to deal with his indolent ulcer … the darn thing just wasn’t healing. (For those of you keeping score, he manged to knock two protective contacts out of his eye in the past month.)

Dr. Beale gave Sumner one more chance to heal the eye on his own before we seriously considered the surgery step, and I think he took her faith in him to heart. Not two days after we left the last appointment, his eye started looking better.

We went back for a follow-up today, and I had feeling that Dr. Beale was going to be pleased with what she saw. First, the eye dye:

Then the microscope-thingy:

As always, Sum was a total pro during the exam:

The verdict? He did it - Sum managed to heal his eye. No surgery required!

Sum’s said, “Yeah, I totally read “The Secret.”

Many thanks to Dr. Beale and her team - as much as we like you, we hope that we won’t see you again next summer for round 3!

Would you care to …?

Could you throw that now? Right now?

Thanks.

Why yes, I do know how to drop. However …

This just feels so right.

May I have a turn? I know I’m not as fetch-crazy as he is, but that ball looks quite lovely.

Yes, just like that, thanks.

It’s delectable.

And mine.

In early ‘07, I introduced the world to the glory of the Frankenpuppies … an accidental mating of my sister-in-law’s English Springer Spaniel Benson and her English bulldog Tootsie (spay or neuter your dogs, folks) produced a litter of nine amazing looking little pups. They were the stars of my first blog … you can read the whole saga about how I desperately wanted to bring one home and see tons of pics and video of the most sickening adorableness ever here, and here and here and here … spoiler alert: neither Baxter or Bess made it home with me.

I worried that I’d never be able to see what they’d look as adults, but to my delight, one of my former clients adopted the very last Frankenpuppy of the litter, and christened her “Frankie.” This is Frankie as a wee bebe, when she was still with her sibs:

Sick, right?

This is Frankie on the day I dropped her off with her new Mom:

I fell out of contact with Frankie’s person, so I was thrilled to received a surprise e-mail from her a few weeks ago … with pictures! Check out how that little freckle-nose cupcake turned into a cool looking adult dog:

Frankie’s person said that she’s regularly stopped and asked what kind of designer dog Frankie is. She certainly doesn’t look like either of her parents … what do you think? What type of breed mix does Frankie look like to you?

I was invited back to work with my old friend Lily this morning:

No, Lily hasn’t taken up biting the mailman, or peeing on the couch … it turns out that Lily’s young person, Julia, just wants to teach her dog how to do a few new tricks. Fun stuff! Julia was a fabulous trainer when I worked with her family last year, and it seemed like she caught “training fever” during our six weeks of lessons. A year later, she’s still afflicted with it. Julia greeted me with her clicker around her neck like a necklace, and regaled me with stories of the training games she plays with Lily, the dog books she’s reading, and her theories as to why Lily doesn’t like to play fetch. (It’s all about the breed mix, she says.)

We started off doing some foundation work to get Lily used to being “creative,” since she tends to either sit or go into a down and then wait patiently. Patience is a lovely behavior in her everyday life, but we want her to be bold and outgoing when we’re working on tricks. One of Julia’s goals is to get Lily to do things with her paws, like “shake,” “high five” and “touch,” so we spent a lot of time click-treating Lily for subtle paw movements. It was slow going at first. We took a break, went for a walk, worked on “roll over” (at my request) and then talked about her dog training homework. I tried to steal a few cute shots of Lily but she didn’t like my camera at all, hence the deer-in-headlights look in every shot.

I work with a lot of kids, but Julia really made an impression on me. Her sweet nature, her love of training and her devotion to her dog are inspiring, and I’m really happy to be working with this pair again.

Julia, du bist ein Stern! (She went to German camp, so I broke out my rusty German and we did some Deutsch sprechen during our walk.)

It’s Astro!

Doesn’t he look serious?

That was just an act for the camera … he couldn’t have been sillier.

We had a hiccup at the beginning of our lesson, though. Astro thought that the sound of the clicker meant that something had dropped on the floor, so each time I clicked to mark a behavior, he’d check the floor to see what had dropped, then take the treat from my hand and then check the ground again. It’s a typical initial response to the clicker, and many dogs check the ground for a few repetitions, but but Astro kept it up for quite a while.

He sorted it all out by the end of the session. The guy is clever!

I give my guys raw marrow bones. They always send Zeke into a 30-minute rapturous, meditative state. It takes him a few moments to hit his stride …

He needs to find just the right munch-point …

Then he settles in …

And thanks Dog for the bounty before him …

Sum adores them as well, but he doesn’t lapse into a trance-state like Zeke. He just gets down to bidness:

Raw beef marrow bones are a great treat. There’s a slight assumed risk (bacteria, bone splintering, tooth cracking), but in nearly 10 years of giving them we’ve never had an issue. Zeke and Sum get them outside (they’re too gross for indoor chewing), and after about an hour I take them away and toss them. Keep in mind I said “raw” … cooking marrow bones dries them out and all but guarantees splintering.

A few of my clients feed their dog 100% raw diets … how about you? Any “BARF” fans out there?