Tess talks and a trick show off

 

Tess here.

It's time for the rest of the story.

Apparently Mel has been telling you all sorts of "truths" about functional clothing for doggies, and from the latest pictures she has posted, you might be led to believe that my life is filled with outdoor activities, dog beds, and a reasonable owner. I'm here to tell you that is not the case.

Did she tell you that she spray painted me green?

I thought not.

And then put a bunch of "accessories" on?

This is my unhappy face

And then there was last Friday

The vet school had a holiday party and I knew I was in trouble when she tried this on me:

Really?? Do you see the dog on the tag?! Pug!!! Not Brittany! Brittany's don't need hats.

So we settled on another theme - bells on my toes.

And my neck apparently, but no one has shown my Christmas song where THAT came out of

This is my "There better be a treat in this" face.

Btw - what does this say? Should I be worried? I've been rather naughty but shhhhhhhhh....she doesn't know yet. Unless this is one of those stupid signs that lists my crimes. Then I know I should take up another hobby besides digging out gophers in the front lawn.

Now, did I get treats from enduring this ridiculousness? Of course not! I had to prove I was a good dog by showing off a trick.

Well...a partial trick, apparently this is turning into a full handstand some day but Mel says she wants to make sure I have the right back and shoulder muscle and didn't want to push to hard because up until a couple of months ago she said I was still a puppy. But then I started disciplining puppies, which she says makes me not a puppy anymore (apparently I do a good job with the puppies and do it just right, Mel and everyone says so!)



One more thing - Mel is going to talk about how she thinks I'm unilaterally deaf in a future post and I'm neither confirming nor denying the allegations until I know which will get more more treats and freedom.

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A walk with Tess

 Daily I try to go to an area where I can take a walk or bike ride with Tess off leash.

Tess is a dog that really resents being restrained for anything (less is more to get cooperation from this dog!) She views a leash as just one more way that a choice is imposed without her opinion being heard. 

Since walking her regularly off leash I am struck by the difference between what she gets out the walk versus me, as the human. 

I keep a constant pace.  Tess runs around using her eyes and nose to explore and look.  She alternates between full speed running, holding points at various interesting things off the trail and trotting ahead of me on the trail.

The eyes seem to be her most important sense --> she's constantly LOOKING and seems to use her nose only to reinforce her eyes. 

It's obviously movement that attracts her --> often she seems to have trouble finding me against the background when I call her, unless I move my arm or other part of my body.  When I call she freezes and looks, but doesn't move towards me until she can actually identify where I am by sight.  If she's out of sight, she will bound into where she thinks I should be in "sight range", freeze and look, and if I'm still not in sight, move towards my voice, where again she will freeze and look.  Only once she has identified me by sight for sure (often attracted by me moving) will she bolt all the way back to me nonstop. 

I've never been around a dog that so intensely LOOKS.  

Usually up ahead on the trail, she'll finding something to look/point at, wait until I catch up to her, and then go bounding up ahead to find something else worthy of her attention. 

I'm most surprised that she sticks to the trails ahead of me and doesn't often go darting off trail to look or explore.  And most often, even if she finds something to stare out, she doesn't often go off trail to pursue a closer look.  Looks like she'll be an excellent trail dog for my conditioning horse rides!!!!

 At the beginning of the walk, she quickly finds a squirrel hole that can fit her entire head (unfortunatley the pic of the headless dog didn't turn out)

 Here she waits for it to come out.....

 Looking at....something....

Checking back in with me

 Trotting ahead

 More looking and staring

 A little off trail exploring.

 A beautiful lane

 A bit too far ahead.......

 Is there something interesting there?

 Not to human eyes!

Unimaginable

The situations I never thought I, nay, make that never IMaGINED I would be dealing with when I made the decision to get a dog,

Take this morning for instance.

I let the dogs out, just as usual.

After getting dressed I went to the door to let them in for breakfast, just as usual.

They were not at the door, which was weird because it was raining. Like its rained for the last week (yes, the ark is half built behind the house).

And they weren't coming when called. Also weird.

So I step out onto the front lawn.

To be greeted by the site of three dogs running around the yard with their noses on the ground. Chasing gophers.

Lots of gophers. Who apparently didn't build an ark or have the foresight to evolve gills and were forced to run around above ground.

Bingo (cattle dog mix) is well versed in gophers and was busy dispatching and gulping down these breakfast appetizers.

Reed (golden retriever) was trying to figure out whether they fit into the category of birds (pick them up gently and deliver to the next available human), or whether they were little kitties (be wary and very afraid and go to the nearest humans sans furry object to be comforted and protected).

Tess was tracking, and poking them inquisitively with her nose while the angry gopher made angry gopher sounds. She hadn't yet tried the bite and shake technique perfected on countless squeaky toys, with the bite and crunch that she uses on raw chicken necks, but it was definitely headed in that direction.

I was definitely "squeeded" (some apparent expression of disgust I heard from a teenybopper the other day) and there may have been some screeching and shrieking and dancing around on my part.

Puppies were removed. I was too gutless to dispatch the rodents so they got to disperse into the hedges.

All the dogs remained in the house (except Tess who went with me of course) and did NOT go outside.

Being the morning gopher savior? Not on my list of top ten reasons to own dogs.

 

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In which I want to talk about Brimstone, but do clothing instead

These aren't the best images, (cellphone camera, overcast day, inside) but waxing not-so-eloquently about my dog's clothes is a better past-time right now than asking God to rain hellfire and brimstone on the thief that stole my brand new, expensive bike helmet when I turned my back for a second this morning.  Yes, the helmet I finally bought a few months ago for my ride and tie, and the one that finally had me wearing a helmet regularly while riding a bike.  Yep.  That one.  So instead of protecting this brain that I'm pouring your tax dollars into, I'll risk turning into a vegetable everytime I get on my bike from now until some unspecified time when I have more than $250 in my checking account to last me until mid-January.  So yeah.  I guess you probably thought that a helmet sitting on top of an ugly purple 1997 Corolla with 200K miles, next to a barely serviceable bike with a plastic bag over the seat made you think that I would easily replace that helmet......you ASSHAT.

*composing myself*

Tess's clothes.

Perhaps the fact that none of Tess's "clothes" fit her very well should tip me off to the fact that Brittanies are not made to wear clothes!!!!!  Take the pictures above.  Cheap $10 Walmart dog jacket.  Why would I even bother? 

In addition to this jacket, she also has several other items that don't seem to serve a purpose:  a ruff wear reflective jacket, and, if it was on a horse, what I would call a "slinky".  


These items do very little for the dog and a lot for anyone that might see her. 

Tess is now reliable off leash!!!!!!  I live in a semi-rural area where we now bike, ride, run etc. and she can be around me off leash.  For people that might be meeting us on the "trail" (it's not a trail, it's not a road....it's something undefinable that is still OK to bike on) or her might see her running around before they see me, clothing signals that she belongs to someone, that she's likely not out there by herself, and makes her seem more friendly and approachable for someone that might be nervous.  Yes, I call her to my side when ever we see anyone else or animals, but the clothes seem to be a nice social signal --> A dog is perceived as less as a threat and more in the "cuteness" range and more well attached to a well meaning human than one with out. 

Another reason for clothes is visibility during town activities.  Tess is already very visible because of her color, but adding another bright color or something with reflective striping is an additional safety when she's biking with me on the road, or we are going for a nice on leash walk.  I feel like I'm more visible crossing a sidewalk in a busy intersection with her in a bright jacket, than by myself. 

The third reason for clothing and the slinky is for mud control......There's something about the way Tess moves that soaks her belly with water and whatever else is on the road when we bike into school.  On particularly wet days, I'll ask her to wear the slinky so that she can walk into the vet school semi clean and dry, since it IS a public place and it wouldn't be nice for the other students and faculty to have to steer clear of mud patches put there by my dog.  Another use for the slinky is when she DOES get to be filthy and muddy......after a bath I put in on the limit the amount of wet shaking.

If I'm being totally honest, Tess is not a huge fan of clothing (or any other kind of restraint for that matter).  So when I do ask her to put something on, I try to make sure it has a functional purpose (backpack) or a safety purpose.  The slinky is boderline --> that's for the comfort of humans strictly --> but the upside is it allows her to come to school with me on icky days, so she will make the exception for me!

Do you dress up your dog?  Does your dog like it?  Do you have certain criteria that need to be met before they get to be non-naked? 

Tess waits

Tess waits for me outside of the school cafe

 

Who knew that at a year and a half, a puppy born so naughty could be so good

Me asking her whether she was born this naughty is my running joke with her as she practices her extensive problem solving skills at the expense of my sanity, along with me getting on the ground and having her maul me while I yell that I've been slayed by cuteness....


 

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Who are you?

Who are you and what have you done with my dog?

 My dog is white.  You are not. 

 And my dog would NEVER spend the entire rainy night digging in my garden.

 Well.  You are cute anyways and maybe I'll keep you.

 Tess after a shower, completely bonked after a rainy night outside (her choice, I will point out).

Tess update

Tess is out of surgery and is in post-anesthesia recovery. 

Everything went well --> I got to be there for the entire thing! 

I technically had class at the same time, but figured this was an important learning opportunity :)

Her anesthesia record looked picture perfect, the nerve block they did before the extraction was really well done, and after promising not to faint I got to watch the actual extraction. 

The nice thing about the dental nerve blocks (which I have practiced on cadavars only at this point) is that pain shouldn't be an issue when she wakes up - that nerve is completely blocked to pain for a while. 

I have copies of the radiographs that were done (the rest of her arcades look fine) which were very extensive, and the pieces of the tooth. 

It's nice to know that I can hop over to the next building and visit her at any point and see how she's doing.  I've been very careful not to interfere or hinder the students/residents and have made sure to let them know how much I appreciate them letting me observe, ask questions etc. 

I think that some people have no business being in the room as their pet undergoing a procedure, however if you can remain clinically detatched than you can learn a lot.  I think my line was, if something had started to go wrong, I would have left the room.  However, as long as everything was progressing normally, than it was fine. 

Being able to see the entire procedure really reassured me.  The anesthesia and the pain management was what caused me the most anxiety, and being able to see how well the nerve block was done, and seeing the anesthesia monitoring chart in person puts my mind completely at ease. 

Procedure summary:
M1 is completely missing with no evidence that there is any pieces of root left, and they confirmed that P3 sustained some root damage so it was extracted.

I will update again soon.

Tess will be OK

That's the mantra that I've been repeating to myself since dropping Tess off at the VMTH at 1pm for her surgery tomorrow morning.

As usual, Tess is doing fine and Melinda is a mess and slightly teary eyed.

I made it all the way until 4pm before going into the VMTH, tracking down what ward she was in, and sitting cross legged in her kennel while allowing her to lick my face (gross). By the way, she was sound asleep when I arrived, curled into a little ball on the quilt they gave her and I had to call her name several times before she looked blurry eyed around. In fact, I thought she was already sedated! But nope, that's my dog --> totally relaxed in a kennel, even if it's in a strange place, absolutely certain that I'll come back at some point. Such is the reward of consistent kennel training combined with making sure she has plenty of opportunity to get all that Brittany energy out during the day.

The anesthesia student came around to do her day-before surgery check while I was there so I got to do a bit more cuddling and coddling while "helping" with the check.

Everything looked good of course, with the Azo and BUN that was a bit high yesterday (at the pre procedure exam) at normal levels today, with a urine specific gravity check just to be on the safe side (that was totally normal).

For those of you who don't know, Tess is in for dental surgery to repair the tooth and/or extract it that was embryologically damaged when Harley (the German Shepherd) initially attacked her at 4 months of age. The molar behind the damaged premolar is also milling - either knocked out from the attack, or missing entirely, or retained because of the damage sustained. We aren't sure. Radiographs will tell us where it is (or isn't), along with the status of the damaged tooth (whether it's roots are still alive or whether it's dead).

Depending on what my schedule looks like tomorrow I may try to go see at least some of the procedure and she'll go home tomorrow afternoon.

This is going to be highly expensive. If an extraction is needed, it has the possibility to be one of the most expensive vet bills I've ever had, and that includes my horse. However, on an 18 month dog expected to live 15 years or so, with a totally fixable issue that will impact quality and length of life if not corrected, who has no other issues physical or behavioral and is a wonderful companion, I feel obligated (in a good way) to at least give her this one shot at keeping her as healthy as possible before compromising on a lower standard of "management" care. In some ways every one of my animals has gotten their one "big shot medical procedure" and thankfully I've never been faced with the decision of whether I will pay for a second one :). Is denial and the ostrich strategy (sticking my head in the sand....) a good one? Not sure. Thank goodness all my animal big ticket procedures have been spaced out enough that my emergency vet fund was able to get replenished AND the cost of the procedures haven't exceeded the cost of the fund (leading credence to the theory that life emergencies tend be equal to your emergency fund......a concept my parents taught me at an early age when I was bemoaning some disaster in my life that was equal to my emergency savings (which seems to stick around just long enough that you start thinking you might be able to use it for something fun......).

Please keep your fingers crossed for Tessie that it will be an uneventful procedure and this will be our one big (and only...) medical adventure!

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The tree

The other day Tess and I took a walk through the UCD arboretum.

 

This place has lots of childhood memories, and when I saw this tree, I had Tess hop up for her picture.

Why? Because when I was a kid, I did the same thing.

 

 

 

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Puzzle puppies

I think Brittany's take 2 classes before leaving home at 8 weeks.

1. How to be absolutely adorable --> use your soft eyes and floppy ears to your advantage!

2. How to manage your ridiculously long legs

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Tess is helping me study

She looks asleep, but she's telling me to relax and not stress and vet school isn't all about the test scores.  And in approximately 30 minutes she'll wake up and remind me that it's healthy to get up every 30 minutes and engage in some puppy play.  Repeat as many times as necessary in order to learn the material for the test tomorrow. 

Cutie pie

Tess is back to normal from her incident with the German shepherd, and went running with me for the first time since the incident this morning.

Which makes for a much happier Tessie. She was pretty sure she was going to melt into a tragic puddle of goo every time that I put on my running shoes and picked up my keys without her.

Still on antibiotics just to make sure that anything going on with the joint and the superficial bit wound over it doesn't develop into anything, but is off of the NSAIDs and is showing no further clinical signs.

Things between harley and Tess are actually calming down now that they are allowed to interact (Harley is muzzled, which doesnt seem to mind at all.) Closely supervised of course, but regular, short sessions throughout the day.

Here's Tess this morning on the way to school.

 

 

 

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Tess pictures

 Where Tess spends the school day.  Sometimes Tess brings a friend and has to be in the smaller kennel.  But those are the shorter days and she doesn't mind.

Tess is not a fan of being in pain.  Neither am I.

Tess at the dog park!  I love this local (to school) park.  It's clean and safe.  She spends a lot of time running and playing, but to my delight she chooses to hang out with me as I catch up on studying when she wants some down time.

Tess is pretty sure that if she's cute, she gets to sleep here instead of her own bed (and she's right!)

Naughtiness

This is the face the naughtiness

 

 

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Nicknames

I learned a very interesting thing last night at dinner.

Apparently these days of double spacing after periods and such are OVER. I had no idea. It is grammatically/ stylistically incorrect to double-space now and the researcher I work for was recounting how she has had to go through whole manuscripts and remove the extra space and to get out of the habit of double spacing NOW. Ugh. This is going to be hard hard hard.

Although now that I look at this paragraph, the first in my life that I've not double spaced
after a paragraph is DOES look cleaner, more readable, and more like the stuff that
actually get published, I just have one question. AARENEX - WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL
MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

OK, that was more of a whiny wail.

I'm sure AareneX has plenty of other things to do than to tell me I'm 20 years behind the
times.

Do your animals have nicknames? I used to scoff at them - you give an animal a name
for a reason, because that's their NAME, why wouldn't you use it? And then I got Tess,
and the animal's name took on a greater significance.

"Tess" means "turn your head and look at me, and acknowledge my existence because
something else is coming". It doesn't happen to mean any of the following:
- You are so in trouble
- You better stop it right now!
- You are so cute!
- A greeting

All of these circumstances are better served by real commands such as "leave it", a
recall etc.

By using her name in these circumstances, I'm diluting the positive association with the
name, and/or teaching her that sometimes "Tess" means look at me and sometimes
"Tess" means I'm just happy/sad/angry/playful or just talking about her in casual
conversation. (Reason #umpteenth thousand why dogs are better than kids: you can
talk smack about them in front of them and they are still blissfully happy).

My boyfriend is a big fan of affectionate nicknames with his dogs. He plays the "name"
game with them and they absolutely know their names, but then he has a whole
assortment of things he calls the dogs when he's playing with them.

Harley is:
-Ms. Pointy Ears
-Guard-a-puppy

Reed is:
-Foot
-Mr. Foot
-Happy foot
-Senior happy foot
-golden puppy/boy
-golden foot
-prancey foot
-Box of rocks
-cuddle foot
-THE foot

Tess is:
-Snarfer (named for the snuffling noise that she constantly does with her nose)
-White Devil (Matt is not always pleased with the plotting, expression she has when she
is made into a cuddly puppy against her will)
-Terrorist
-Drama queen

I have chosen "Snarfer" for my working nickname of Tess. I use Snarfer when I'm
playing with her and rolling on the floor, when I'm asking how she's doing, when I say hi,
in frustration when I'm trying to sleep and Reed and Tess have decided to do a
reenactment of sheep jumping across the bed while the insomniac counts them.

If I was some big shot trainer, or had better self control, I probably wouldn't need to rely
so much on a nickname to cover up for my training deficiencies. However, for my needs
(which apparently include being able to yell "SNARFER" in exasperation across the
house when she's sneaking into my closet for the umpteenth time to steal a stuffed
animal) I really love having that nickname.

So when do I use her real name?

-when I'm sitting in the living room and I'm not sure where she is and all I want her to do
is peek her head around the corner of whatever room she's in.
-when I'm going to follow it with another command and I want to get her attention first
-when we are out for a run and I know that she's about to get distracted by something
and I either want to release her to go play with it, or give her a treat instead for playing
the name game
-When something really good is about to happen - getting fed, I came home early and
snuck into the backyard the back way and she's no where in sight, I have a special treat
in the kitchen etc.

I've even given a nickname to my cat Mickie in the last couple of weeks - "Ninja Cat".
(named so because she has gotten adept at sneaking into the bedroom to sleep on the
bed, where she is strictly forbidden based on Matt's low opinion of cats. She scorns this
opinion and chooses to appear only after a time when she knows the odds of Matt
actually getting out of bed to toss her out is very low. She increases her odds of staying
by silently sneaking on the bed to cuddle at his feet, and only gradually moves her way
up to sleep on his pillow, on top of his face around 4 am.

So who doesn't have a nickname? Farley. It's probably because Matt isn't around Farley
enough to help me out. I'm boring and unimaginative and he's responsible for the
creation of most of the nicknames.

I'm not sure that it's necessary with a horse, since she's usually attached to me when
we are working. But I can't whistle and it would be nice to have something that she
consistently comes to that also isn't something I use as a cuss word when she's about
to buck me off at the start of a ride. When I bring her a bucket after a ride I call out
"Farley Girl!" in a sing-song higher voice, and with that call I can get her to look and
whinny at me several acres away, so maybe that's her nickname - "Girl", to remind her
that even though I unthoughtfully saddled her with a boy's name, she's still a pretty little
mare pony. Farley is registered as "TKR Triforta", so perhaps "Farley" is a nickname,
but I'm not so sure.

It is my personal belief that horses rely more on body language, and a dog can be
trained to understand verbal cues regardless of overt body language. For example, Tess
will sit on verbal command whether I'm standing on my head, doing the jig, or
performing a cartwheel at the time of the request. How many horses have we seen
continue to trot on through a beginners frustrated "Whoa!"s as they clutch with their
heels and lean forward? Perhaps with a horse it's more important to choose a
nickname that within your frustration, it's impossible to say without making you smile just
a little bit inside, thus defusing the situation.

Do your animals have nicknames? Do you double space after periods (and will you
change just because of convention?)? For those of you with dogs or other animals that
you regularly require "off leash" control and don't rely as heavily on body language for,
do you differentiate between when you use their name and nickname? Or do you have
a special "show name" that you only use in the ring so that the dog knows they are
"on"? (If I had to have a ring name for Tess, it would be "Derby" since her full registered
name is "Tess of Derbyfield"). What do you think about my "horse versus dog" theory?

Zeke's update and new paper posted

In the interest of not being sued (the email has one of those confidentiality thingy's at the end) I won't post a reprint of the email I got back from Zeke's, but here's the summary.

They attributed the softer product to the new packaging (sealed better probably), and while they didn't outright admit that the formula had been changed, they did say that the Z-bones are designed to be softer --> I'm assuming that the unsaid statement is "....than the Z-ridges".  The reason given was that the softer product prevents it from breaking into potentially hazardous choking pieces.

Zeke's did say I could leave the bones out of the package to dry them out (tried that and it still isn't close to how the old product was), or baking them in a 120 degree oven for about 30 minutes.   Haven't tried that......

As far as the variety goes, they suggested the apple flavor as the closest to the original flavor Z-ridge that I liked. 


So, I'm dissapointed.  I don't like the new, softer product and don't particularly want to pay top dollar for something that I'm going to turn around and bake in my oven (If my boyfriend doesn't like my biothane endurance tack in the dishwasher, horse blankets and pads in the washer, I'm not sure how he's going to feel about dog cookies in the oven.....).  I'm still interested in a dental treat that makes a difference, but for now, I'll probably give her plenty of other stuff for her to chew on like nylabones and ropes and hope that makes a difference.

I'm in the process of composing a Tess update post --> We tried agility lessons, found a book that changed both of our lives, and went on a 4 day backpacking trip together.  In the meantime, go over and check out this very cool paper that just published online: "Empathic-like responding by domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) to distress in humans: an exploratory study".  It's posted in the Mendeley journal club link found in the sidebar of the blog.