Social Time

Recently visited a friend and her K9 crew....Vida did well! She is in love with Bosco! He was tall, dark and handsome!  And tolerated her puppy antics like a champ.  

She was comatose after her play and almost even slept in the next morning!  

Another couple videos

I compressed a couple of the files...seemed to work well!

Perhaps if I can get someone to do the taping, I will try to post some photos/video of the pup soon!

Back At It

After some un-needed time off because of surgery, we have been rather quickly getting back into the training routine again.  I started tracking with Dieter initially to help burn off the lack of mental stimulation but keep his body as quiet as possible.  We quite soon after started a bit of obedience exercises again.  Not ideal, however knowing my dog well and knowing his anatomy I carefully observed for any signs of exercise intolerance or that perhaps we were pushing things too quickly.  There were a couple times that he went away early to rest, much to his chagrin.

Yesterday we worked him for the first time at club in protection.  We tried to keep things fairly simple and see if we can just ease him back into the game.  He got to work on a helper he hasn't worked on for quite sometime as well, so that was a change for him. Prior to time off we had just started working on sending him into the blind.  He has a bad habit of being a bit pushy/dirty/whatever you want to call it during the hold and bark.

I am obviously biased, but I was happy with how he did!  Here are a few video clips of our training Sunday!

Heeling for a Bite -

So the blogger is not allowing further video uploads and I need to return to work...stay tuned...hopefully I will be able to post a few later.

As per the puppy - some may be wanting an update on her progress! She has an unbelievable amount of prey and toy drive combined with an excellent grip.  And she LOVES to jump! I swear she has springs in her hindlegs!  However her food drive is moderate and the only way to describe her personality is a that she is only always thinking of what is in something for her.  This is a huge contrast to what I am used to with my quite biddable and compliant young male with food drive that is almost slightly pathological.  I am taking things a bit more slowly with her compared to him.  I refuse to train a dog when they do not come out wanting to interact/play/work.  I will not be a cheerleader for her - if she comes out of the crate ready to bring it, we play.  If she prefers to sniff the ground or watch the squirrels she goes back in the crate. This has already made a big difference to her attitude, but we have a way to go.  She also does not interact all the time with my male, she is limited to a few minutes per day once we have had our "play" time.   I am finding her to be very different from Dieter, and she is constantly living up to the term bitch.  She has a short temper and a diva attitude.  I think she will make an excellent sport dog as she matures.  However she will force me to be constantly on my toes and improve my abilities as a handler.  I also feel that she will mature to be a fairly small female perhaps only 50-60lbs.  She is quite small framed but agile and fast.

Tracking Photos

Thanks to a friend for taking some photos of the dogs doing a bit of tracking today. The sun was warm and the grass dry, but they both did fairly well.

Vida did a couple scent boxes. Her effort was decent - she is definitely more relaxed in her work ethic then the male. Her food drive is mediocre and the grass had been heavily used likely in the past few days. She is definitely making conscious choices to stay within the scent box, but only picks up the "easy" pieces. The food that is slightly more difficult to acquire is left behind. Hopefully as she gets older, her food drive increases. If it fails to improve as she grows older, there are ways to ensure it is her priority to acquire every piece of food possible from her track.

Diet's drive for work in general is through the roof. Looking at his photos - he looks like he has been through the war. He has shaved patches growing in from his holter monitor, his abdomen is shaved from the surgery and incision line a bit swollen because he has been impossible to keep quiet unless heavily sedated. However superficial aesthetics do not affect his brain and the dog loves to work. His track was nice for it being his 3rd one this year. He was quite excited initially and settles into the track as he progresses. I would love to see him slightly more relaxed off the start, however given his current state and post op recovery, my guess is that he will relax again once he starts being able to blow off some steam in other areas of life (ie. exercise, training, etc).

Tracking Video

I finally had a chance this morning to put a title on it and decrease its image quality so that it doesn't take forever and a day to upload....

The actual track length was super short. This was for several reasons - one (and the primary reason) he is still recovering from his exploratory surgery, also did not want a super long one for his first track this year & finally just did not have the amount of time needed for one.

Sorry for the lousy camera work - my focus is on trying to watch my dog and sometimes the image goes a little wild.

Vida @ 4 months!

Since Dieter is taking some R&R.....Vida is the only K9 representative on our dog walk :-)

Riva and Kelsa were generous enough to show us their favourite walking locations today.

Zoomies through the hay!

Because friends toy's are the best toys!

A bit blurry but I love this one

You give my ball to Riva?! I bite your clothes!

Running through the grass!

My ball now ;-)

It Finally Happened...

Dieter finally ate something that would not pass - either up from whence it came, or out through the other direction. It all occurred quite quickly on Tuesday morning March 27 around 7:45AM as I was gathering my things to leave for work.

He grabbed a puppy toy (round fuzzy ball) and jumped on the couch. I grabbed a handful of treats to trade him and walk towards him, calling him to me. He jumped off the couch and trotted towards me - in the 5 secs between coming off the couch and arriving at me the toy was gone. And he was still saying - give me those treats!

In usual fashion, he came with me to work and I induced vomiting using a drug called apomorphine. This medication is notorious for causing strong stomch contractions and evacuation of all gastric contents. Well after vomiting over 10x, no toy came up. (Under normal circumstances, stuff will be brought up within the first 1-2 vomits).

I called my husband inquiring if he could just double check the floor and under cushions to ensure it had not been dropped. Sure enough - nothing there.

Becoming slightly more anxious - I called the local referral hospital that sees many of my patients that require specialized testing and care. They were gracious enough to see Dieter immediately. The plan was to use an endoscope, pass it into his stomach, grab onto the toy and pull it back up his esophagus. Thus removing the need for an exploratory surgery.

After about 40 minutes of trying to force this now soggy and swollen toy back through his esophageal sphincter, we admitted defeat and woke him up from the anesthetic.

As I made the 20 minute drive back to my clinic, my mind began to accustom itself to doing surgery on him.

I love doing surgery, however there were a couple things. First, this is my dog and I wasn't sure what I thought about surgery on my own dog. Second, what about his training?! He was doing so well and it killed me to do something that would lay him up for at least a month from regular work.

Nonetheless by the time I arrived at work, I had decided that IF my one boss (he is kinda like my mentor) would stay after work to be a support for me, I would go to surgery that night once the clinic closed for the day. My mentor was gracious enough to do that - so Dieter got back to the clinic and begin prep for surgery that night.

To be honest, everything went perfectly and we even got a little liver sample (biospy) while I was in there so send away for analysis. The most difficult thing for me was to see him being put under the anesthetic. Once he was all covered in drapes and ready to go - he was just another abdominal surgery for me. I viewed it as an opportunity to see the inner workings of my favourite doberboy!

The infamous toy!

And the best thing about being a vet - I get to look after my own animals at home!

Dieter got to shuttle back and forth from living room to work for several days while he was on IV fluids and medications. I got to sleep on the couch. Here he is for one of his weigh ins at work with the saddest eyes.

He has recovered phenomenally well from the whole ordeal. The most difficult thing has been keeping him quiet. He wore a basket muzzle on his face to prevent him from licking at his incision. I also sedated him the first few days to just help him rest.

He had been feeling quite sorry for himself and has a lot to say about life right now. It is just a glimpse into how "talkative" this dog is. You can almost have a conversation with him sometimes!

Stay tuned for tracking video from today.....it will be posted soon!