The Rainbow Dogess

Watching - 33/52

2011-11-16T14:51:00.002-05:00

One of the things that I love about Iris is just how expressive her ears are. Here she was so serious.

Watching - 33/52

She surprised me by deciding to wade in the water. Usually she does a pretty good impression of the wicked witch of the west when it comes to water. Actually her wicked witch impression in general is pretty good.

Missing Summer

2011-11-12T23:49:00.001-05:00

Turning the clocks back last weekend really made me start wishing for summer. Sunset at 4:30pm is just too early! Since I just realized that I never shared these photos here, I thought we could all use a taste of summer.

One of my favorite summer walks with Iris is the Cranberry Bogs. It really is a gorgeous spot! Plus it's right down the street, which made it so easy to head over there after I'd finished working for the day.

The Bogs - 28/52

I don't know what it is about this next photo, but I just love Iris' expression here. I'm not really sure where she's going with this "one ear up, one ear back" look. She is such a goof!

One Up One Down - 29/52

Because it's such a beautiful spot, we always see other people walking their dogs. The bogs are so open, you can see folks coming from a ways off so it isn't really too much of an issue. The funny thing is, I know Iris well enough that I can tell how close someone is just by watching her expression change. In the above photo, there was no one around at all. She was nice and relaxed. If you look at her expression in the next photo, you can tell that she's watching someone else and their dog walking on the path. She's just about hitting the point where I have to stop taking photos of her and get her walking again. And all that without me ever turning around to look!

Guarding the Path - 31/52

In this next one, Iris isn't actually looking at anything in particular. She's just sick of looking at me! Eventually, she gets really annoyed with the camera and won't pose anymore. Such a diva!

Look Away - 32/52

She just doesn't understand the point of sitting around when we could be walking. Or running. Or sniffing things. Or staring at other dogs. If the possibilities are endless, why bother sitting around?

Learned Something New

2011-11-05T23:38:00.000-04:00

I learned something new about Iris this past week. I guess after 4 years of living with the red dog, I thought I knew her pretty well. But I suppose there's always something new to learn!

Last Saturday, New England got hit with a very early snow storm. We lost power on Saturday night and didn't get it back until Wednesday. The combination of a wet snow and most of the trees still having leaves meant A LOT of downed trees and branches. Most of this area was without power. For me, four days without power meant the house got down to about 50 degrees (I actually started opening the windows in the afternoons to heat the house up a few degrees).

October Snow - 37/52

So what does this have to do with Iris? Apparently, Iris hates being cold. I just assumed that with her coat, she wouldn't be bothered by it. Not my princess! She likes her comforts. I supposed I should have guessed. I mean, this is the dog who sleeps on the couch with her head on a pillow.

Red Pillow - 27/52

I love showing off how well trained my dog is. She's really not supposed to be sleeping on the red pillows. Any other pillow in the house is ok, but since the red ones are definitely the most comfortable, they're supposed to be for humans. Iris knows as long as she looks really, really cute while she's doing it, she can get away with quite a lot. Spoiled much?

Now, there are 13 reptiles currently living in my house and I have to say, losing power for four days with that many herps is really pretty stressful. Luckily, we have a gas stove so we were still able to use the stove-top for heating water. All 11 of the Crested Geckos were moved into shoebox size enclosures, the ball python was moved into a pillowcase (which she loved!), and the Bearded Dragon was moved into a smaller enclosure too (he was ultimately taken to my roommate's office, which had heat). I kept all of the enclosures under a pile of blankets and heated them with hot water bottles. Actually, I was really impressed with how well the hot water bottles held their heat. As long as I was reheating the water about every 4 hours, I was able to keep everyone at the correct temperature. Really tired after waking up every 4 hours to reheat, but worth it to have everyone safe and happy.

While I was very worried about the herps, I wasn't too concerned with keeping Iris warm. I figured as long as the temperature was tolerable for me, the red dog would be fine too. Iris really did not agree.

Focus - 38/52

She was miserable. I was sleeping on the couch to take care of the reptiles, and Iris needed to sleep curled up with me. This is the dog who will jump off the bed if I'm moving around too much. Not while it was cold! She curled herself up as tightly as possible, snuggled up with me under the blankets and was happy to stay there all night. When I'd get up to reheat the hot water bottles, I'd move Iris off the couch to rearrange the blankets. Then she'd stand there staring intently at the blankets until I'd invite her back up. I didn't know this before, but if it's chilly out, Iris really likes sleeping under the blankets. So much for being a working dog. She'd rather sleep under the blankets with her head on the pillow.

October Paws - 39/52

All of the reptiles survived the power outage just fine. So did Iris, although I think next time, she'd really like to have her own hot water bottle. Or at the very least, an extra blanket. Yup, she's a diva all right.

City Dog - 26-27/52

2011-10-25T08:52:00.001-04:00

For all of her issues, Iris is actually really good about walking in a city. Back when I was doing a lot of night photography in Boston for the virtual tour company, Iris and I did a lot of city walking. She relaxed about negotiating crowds and not at all phased by city sounds and smells. She greeted everyone she met very politely (something about her seems to attract attention. Maybe because she's a merle? Everyone asks to pet her). The only trick is that I do have to cross the street to avoid sharing the sidewalk with another dog. Because I was photographing storefronts, even that wasn't too much of an issue. We really only encountered a few other dogs when passing through more residential areas. Other than that, she handles cities like a champ.

Repetition - 26/52

I thought it would be fun to take Iris into downtown Lowell for some photos. She loves getting to explore new places. She was in her element, and she even got to stop and visit with a group of elderly women sitting on a park bench. I think Iris made their day and Iris, of course, was thrilled to be the center of attention.

City Slicker - 27/52

She was less excited about having her photo taken. Definitely not as much fun as walking! You can tell because she started making funny faces at the camera. Just to make her point.

The Fort - 25/52

2011-09-04T11:14:00.001-04:00

Iris loves to lay underneath things. Under the dining room table, under the computer desk, under the coffee table... Iris doesn't actually fit under the coffee table.

The Fort - 25/52

Back when I first brought Iris home, I had a coffee table that she could crawl under, and she loved it. It was her "safe spot," her fort. She pretty much lived under the coffee table for those first few days because she was so stressed. When we moved, I ended up with a lower coffee table, so she can't quite crawl all the way under it. I bought her a fluffy dog bed thinking that I could convince her to sleep there instead of under the coffee table. Nope! She still loves to lay with just her head under the coffee table. Sometimes she's just weird.

Updates - 22-24/52

2011-09-03T11:12:00.000-04:00

I just realized that it's been months since I've posted anything here. I suppose you're due for an Iris update!

Iris is doing well. Still having seizures once every four weeks. Sigh. At least I've gotten used to it. She's had some allergy problems over the summer, but seems to be doing a lot better now with the cooler weather! Other than that, she's been pretty healthy. I've been so busy with job hunting and working on the photography business, we haven't really gotten out of the house much this summer. Lucky for me as Iris has gotten older, she's gotten less demanding about physical and mental exercise. She seems pretty happy to act as my foot warmer while I work on the computer. I was hoping to get her out for a hike this afternoon, but I think we're supposed to get some thunder showers. Maybe we'll have to put that off until tomorrow.

I'm also way overdue for a photo update! If you follow my photography blog, you've probably seen a lot of these already. I really want to keep track all the Iris photos in one place so that at the end of the year I can print them all in one album. Hopefully I won't bore anyone too much with repeats! Here's a 52 weeks update...

Bling - 22/52

Iris' fancy dog tag, because even though she's not particularly "girly," a girl still needs her bling! Not only does her tag have my contact info on it, it also says "EPILEPSY - NEEDS MEDICATION." Hopefully if she ever does get lost, whoever finds her will make the extra effort to get her back to me quickly. At the very least, it would give a veterinarian a starting point for treating her.

Show Time - 23/52

Yeah, she's the princess alright. Also, she's a bossy bitch. I'm pretty sure that if she could control the remote, she would! Actually, she's being a REALLY good dog in that photo. That bag is actually full of popcorn. I told her to "leave it" so she not looking at it (it's like she knows if she looks at it, she won't be able to control herself. Too cute!) Yes, she did get a few pieces of popcorn for being so good!

Polka Dots - 24/52

The focus isn't perfect in the polka dots photo, but I just love the look on her face. I swear she's thinking "Oh, this again..." Sometimes she's less than thrilled about having her photo taken. Actually, she trained me pretty well. If i try to take her photo without any treats as a bribe, she gives he the most tortured expression. You'd swear I was trying to steal her soul with my little back box. If I grab my camera and some treats, she turn into Iris the supermodel. She's all, "make sure you get my good. Maybe you'd like me to tilt my head a bit? Is that better?" Ready to work, loves her photoshoots. But she does not work for free. Diva? Maybe a bit.

I still have a few more photos to add. Hopefully later this weekend!

Supervising - 21/52

2011-06-10T15:37:00.003-04:00

This is what Iris looks like when she's trying to see over my shoulder to supervise everything that's going on in the condo complex (leash edited out...) She's not actually looking at the camera, and she's definitely not happy that I'm blocking her view!

Supervising - 21/52

Also, she's started ignoring me when I say her name. That might be my fault. I talk to her all the time and use her name a lot when I don't actually care if she's paying attention or not. Maybe it's time to train a new word that means "look at me."

Vintage Pup - 20/52

2011-06-09T16:14:00.015-04:00

My poor red dog is really not happy with all of the heat we've been getting. Neither are the crested geckos for that matter. We've got the AC on low and ice packs on tanks for the geckos (they're reptiles that don't make sense... they like it fairly cool), which means we need heat lamps for the beaded dragon and the ball python.

Poor Iris says "What about me?" Climate control for the herps and not the Aussie? I think she'd prefer the AC on high. If you look close, you can see the drool on her chin.

Vintage Dog - 20/52

I love the look of old black and white photos. Since I don't have a darkroom, this one was done in Photoshop.

The Clock - 19/52

2011-06-08T16:48:00.004-04:00

I debated about whether or not to include this photo, but it didn't seem right to skip over this aspect of life with Iris.

The Clock - 19/52

Every eight hours, I pick up the pill bottles. That's the clock that our lives run on.

Iris comes running every time she hears me pick up the bottles. I hide her pills inside a little bit of peanut butter. Or canned food. Either way, she comes running whenever she hears anyone in the house pick up any bottle of pills. We joke that she has a drug seeking problem. Although I'm pretty sure she just can't understand why humans don't hide their pills in peanut butter.

Life's Details - 18/52

2011-06-07T16:14:00.003-04:00

Having a dog really does change all the details in your life. The first thing I do in the morning is take Iris out. Then she gets her pills and I make her breakfast. All this before I do anything resembling taking care of myself. Vacation? Planned around whether I can bring the dog. Day trips? Iris is included. Grocery shopping generally includes buying more meat than you would ever expect a vegetarian to purchase. Even the furniture in the house is arranged to better accommodate crates and dog beds. Yup, dogs really do change all the details. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Details - 18/52

I knew I wanted to do a photo with Iris' paw and my hand, so I ended up taking about 40 shots, all somewhat different variations. Iris was really not impressed with sitting through that many photos. After all that, of course I ended up using the second photo I shot (don't tell Iris!) Someday I'll learn to trust myself.

Spring Birthdays - 17/52

2011-05-13T17:59:00.001-04:00

Spring - 17/52

I suppose I might as well come clean. I completely forgot about the red dog's Birthday this year. It's probably good that she didn't remember either. Regardless of whether or not either of us remembered, she did turn 8 years old on May 6th! I can't believe she's 8 already. Or that I've had her for almost 4 years. It doesn't seem nearly that long. I also don't want to admit that she's not as young as she used to be, but I will say that she's really matured into a wonderful dog.

The last couple weeks have been really busy for me (my excuse for forgetting), but next week I need to do some location scouting. So Iris will get to come with me to scope out some more parks in the area. A walk in the park sounds like a pretty good way to celebrate.

Happy Birthday beautiful red dog!!! And here's to many more!

Close Up - 16/52

2011-05-13T17:44:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I'm playing catch up on my photo blogging. Rather than force you took through a million photos of the red dog, here's a few of the red dog disguised as a grey dog.

Close Up - 16/52

Yup, that's my girl. Always has to know exactly what I'm doing.

Birch Trees - 15/52

2011-05-13T17:08:00.065-04:00

Birch Trees - 15/52

Here's a shoot I did a few weeks ago but haven't had the chance to share yet. I did post the final image (above) on my photo blog, but I really wanted to share some of the outtakes here. Because there were A LOT of outtakes! (Outtakes brought to you with minimal editing...)

I took Iris over to a new park to get some landscape-type photos, and I immediately fell in love with this cluster of birch trees. Iris did not. I think it was probably a combination of being in a new place, it being VERY windy out, and my forgetting to bring the usual bribe (supermodels don't work for free, you know!) added to the fact that I only had a 6ft leash so I kept having to tie her up to get far enough back (my roommate later asked me why I didn't bring the 30ft long line. Which is a very good question. And maybe something I should remember next time). I ended up with a dog would refused to look at the camera. I pretty much had to wait until she just happened to look at the camera for a split second.

Yup, she's still not looking at me. Actually, she thinks the whole thing is pretty funny.

(click on above photo for slightly larger view)

Ok. It is kind of funny.

It might be starting to get less funny and more boring. Definitely boring now.

I did (finally) manage to get the shots I was looking for. Without much help from the red dog. Next time I'll remember the bribe. Until then, she's not looking.

Thanks Iris

2011-04-21T11:12:00.002-04:00

Dear 2011, the residents of condo C1 kindly request that you give us a break Just for a little while. We'd really appreciate it.

It's starting to get a little ridiculous. If it can go wrong this year, it pretty much has. 2011 has been just one long string of back luck for the three residents of condo C1. Job losses, health things, totaled cars... The latest is a broken dishwasher. It seams minor compared to everything else, but it's still resulted in a mountain of dirty dishes. And with everything else, washing dishes has been a fairly low priority.

This morning I decided to clean the kitchen and wash everything since we're having company tonight. I was stacking the clean pots/pans on a towel on the floor next to me, and I had a pretty good stack of clean dishes going. I figured I could get the whole house clean by lunch, which would give me the rest of the afternoon to get some work done.

Instead, Iris just walked over and puked all over the pile of clean pots and pans. Sometimes you have to laugh at life.

Training, Trials, Seizures, Etc.

2011-04-18T20:53:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, I took Iris over to watch some of the NADAC trial. I really wanted the opportunity to work with her around other dogs in a fairly controlled environment. Given all of the problems we've had with other dogs around the condo, I fully expected to work well away from the other dogs to keep Iris under her threshold. Instead, Iris did awesome! She was able to be fairly close to the other dogs and even stayed pretty quiet while I chatted with some friends. It seems the good news is her issues with other dogs in the condo complex are not transferring to other environments. I was very proud of her! I was really glad I decided to head down to the trial. Good training session with Iris, a chance to catch up with some agility friends and talk dog for a bit, and I even managed to get the camera out for some photo practice.

Early Sunday morning, Iris had a couple of seizures. Damn! So she went 15 weeks, 4 weeks, 3 weeks. I'm not sure what that means. Other than the 15 weeks stretch, she's always been in the 3-5 week range. I'm wondering if bringing her to the trial was too much? I think stress can be a trigger for her, although she didn't seem overly stressed at the trial. She had four seizures Sunday morning (typical) and then was fine all day. At about 11:00 pm, she had another seizure and then a couple more in the middle of the nigh and early morning (unusual).

She's been fine all day other than just being generally, strange and crazy. It's not unusual for Iris to act weird for about a day after her seizures. Today, she's been obsessed with going outside. I have no idea why. After taking her out a few times only to have her just stand there in the grass, I started ignoring her. Not easy when all she wants to do is walk from the door to me to the door to me.... She gets fixated on the strangest things. After a time out in her crate she seems to have settled down now. Tomorrow she'll be back to normal, but today she was definitely weird.

Speaking of weird, Iris has a seizure smell. After she's had a couple seizures, she has a very distinct smell. My roommate thought Iris smelled funny on Saturday night (before Iris had any seizures) but didn't really think much of it. She's going to pay attention to it in the future to see if maybe Iris starts smelling weird pre-seizure. It would be interesting if she does.

My Dog is Weird - 14/52

2011-04-14T17:36:00.001-04:00

My Dog is Weird - 14/52

Iris loves being upside down. She loves having her belly rubbed, she loved sleeping on her back. Sometimes I think she just likes seeing the world upside down. Upside down Aussie is a pretty typical thing to see around here.

Yup, still upside down. Not much variation to the photos if she just wants to see the world upside down.

Oh hai!

So just when I thought I was finished with this post, I looked over at my sleeping Aussie. She was actually sleeping right-side up like a normal dog! Oh wait. Look closer.

She's still weird.

Window Watching - 13/52

2011-04-14T17:13:00.002-04:00

Window Watching - 13/52

If Iris could have her way, her usual view of the world would be through the window. She's the self-appointed supervisor of our condo complex, and she loves watching the world through the window. Since the bedroom is on the third floor, she can see the parking lot, lawn, and street. It's probably the best view in the house for watching the world go by. Iris is not really supposed to be supervising, but lately she's been able to look without barking. So I've been letting her get away with it. She thinks I don't notice...

(Playing a little catch up here. If you follow my photography blog, you've already seen this one! But I want to keep all 52 weeks of Iris in one place).

Housing Complexes and Reactivity - Part 2

2011-04-08T15:25:00.001-04:00

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post titled Housing Complexes and Reactivity - Part 1. Which sort of implies that there should be a part 2. I always had the intention of writing a part 2. I even had it partially written! But life sort of got away from me. A run in with Iris' new least favorite dog yesterday reminded me that I meant to write this.

So there definitely seems to be a cycle of reinforcement for reactive dogs, fueled by too many clueless owners and poorly behaved dogs in too small of a space. So what is the solution? I don't know if there is a good one. Even if you do want to actively work with your dog, it's not an easy place to work in. And there's no way to avoid it. I have to walk Iris outside multiple times every day so she can relieve herself. And very often, she's barked and lunged at, which reinforces the idea in her head that she needs to bark and lunge at other dogs. Since it seems like everyone's solution to the problem is "just keep moving," all the dogs learn is that barking works! The other dog just keeps moving on past and away. It's a hole that everyone just keeps digging deeper and deeper.

To really make any progress, you'd have to get all of the dog owners here to start actively working with their dogs all the time and really respecting other dogs' boundaries. Is it realistic? I don't think so. I wish it was! I would LOVE to have a professional trainer come in and run a mandatory class teaching everyone what to do when their dogs encounter another dog outside. I'd have everyone participate regardless of whether their dog is friendly or reactive. Everyone could use a refresher course of why not to run up to every dog you see.

In some ways, the friendly dogs are just as much a problem as the less friendly dogs. I've had people walk up with their bouncing, barking, pulling dogs because their dogs really want to say hi to Iris. Even though nothing about Iris' body language says she wants to say hi. How can you train that calm behavior will result in other dogs keeping their distance when that's just not true? The fact is, people do stay away better when Iris is acting like a bitch. If she's not exploding, people refuse to believe me when I says she's not friendly. It blows my mind.

We've had a few near misses recently - some loose dogs, some leashed dogs. Most of the time we don't. Often we can go outside and be perfectly fine. But I admit it, I've started checking out the window before I take Iris outside now. She's going to tense up every time she sees another dog because she's right, that dog will bark and lunge at her. For potty breaks, I try to take Iris out right next to my car. If we do see a dog and Iris gets barked at, I can shove her behind the car to block the dogs' view of each other and they both quiet down. It's not ideal. It's certainly not making Iris less reactive. But it does prevent the situation from escalating, which seems to be the key right now.

I'm torn between just how much work I want to do with Iris. I was leaning toward mostly management (cars as barriers, exercise outside of the complex), but now I'm not sure. A recent bad experience, which really deserves it's own post, has Iris and another dog really looking for a bitch fight.

Corgi Loves Lennon?

2011-03-29T10:17:00.002-04:00

I don't know why this video is so hysterical. But it really is. I love that the dog only responds to the guy's Beatles impersonation!

Purple Day - 12/52

2011-03-26T08:00:00.006-04:00

Today is Purple Day, a day to raise awareness about epilepsy.

I don't usually celebrate "awareness days," mostly because I tend to forget what day I should be celebrating on. But Toby's Foundation (which is a really great organization) is collecting photos of dogs decked out in purple, and well, Iris is a show off. For anyone visiting here for the first time, my beloved Aussie dog, Iris, was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2009.

Purple Day - 12/52

For this photo, she's also looking out the window - something she knows she's not allowed to do. During her photo session, she kept glancing out the window and then looking back at me. On a seizure day (yesterday started with 3 seizures), Iris' brain doesn't seem to be functioning all the way for the rest of the day. It really lowers her inhibition so things she normally never does (looking out windows, stealing food off tables, getting in the trash, etc) she will definitely do on a seizure day. On her worst days, she'll pretty much forget all her training including basic commands and housebreaking. She's also a lot less subtle. I'm pretty sure she thought she was sneaking glances out the window. Except I was sitting right next to her so she's not very subtle at all.

Sometimes it's really frustrating, but most of the time she's just sort of silly. Yesterday morning after her seizures, I had her in the kitchen on a leash while I was getting her breakfast. She'll sometimes try to eat non-food objects after her seizures, so that's the reason for the leash. I wasn't paying very close attention to her and all of the sudden she started pulling on the leash and tangling it up. I looked over and she'd managed get herself just outside of the kitchen and was sitting waiting for her breakfast. A lot like this, actually. Especially after her seizures, once she gets an idea in her head then there's no talking her out of it. At least this idea made sense! Sometimes she comes up with weird things, like needing to sit 2 ft away from where she's currently sitting. Also, seizures made her smell weird. No idea why, but there is definitely a "post seizure smell." My roommate has noticed it too.

In honor of Purple Day, I thought I'd share some of my favorite epilepsy links.

Toby's Foundation - I know I already shared this one above, but they have some good information and they also do a good amount of fundraising for epilepsy research.
Canine Epilepsy Guardian Angels - A lot of really informative articles including articles about medications and other causes of seizures besides epilepsy
Canine Epilepsy Resource Center - Another great collection of articles, similar to the Guardian Angels site
Canine Epilepsy Network - This website was initially put together by the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine. The articles contain a lot of good information, including info on the latest research. Definitely a slant toward traditional medicine.
Australian Health and Genetics Institute - Dedicated to improving the health of the Australian Shepherd breed. One of the things they do is fund research trying to identify the genes associated with epilepsy.
University of Minnesota Idiopathic Epilepsy Research - The big research project searching for genes connected to epilepsy. There actually was some promising news for Aussies in February. Even though there's a long was to go, any progress is good to see!

I think it's easy to get caught up in learning about the disease itself and all the meds and side effects and progression.... And being informed is a good thing. But really, the most important thing to remember about living with an epi dog is enjoy life! Iris certainly does!

Finding Phenobarbitol

2011-03-25T17:03:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if there are any epi dog owners reading this blog, but here's a heads up just in case.

I just tried to refill Iris' pb prescription and had a hard time finding a pharmacy that had any in stock. The first couple of places I called told me that pb is back-ordered and it would probably be another 30 days before they had any in stock. Not good! I did find a pharmacy that had some but had to get a smaller amount than usual (I normally get 150 tablets but was only about to get 119. That will still last just over a month, so I'm not too worried but it probably means they're low too). I'm guessing this is related to the pb recalls? I've never had a problem finding it before.

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that you may be in for a bit of drive to fill a pb perscription so definitely allow yourself sone extra time. Also, the price was more than double what I usually pay. Not really a big deal since pb is very inexpensive, but it's a pretty good illustration of supply and demand!

Witch Hats - 11/52

2011-03-25T12:14:00.000-04:00

Just a quick photo of the red dog that I wanted to share before tomorrow.

Witch Hats - 11/52

Iris' crazy ears are one of my favorite things about her. I think it was Katrin who first said that Iris' ears look like little witch hats. I love my mixed up pup with her ears that can't decide if they go up or down and eyes that can't decided if they're blue or brown.

This post also means that I've caught up on the 52 weeks project! Perfect because tomorrow we're celebrating Purple Day. I think Iris missed the memo and decided to raise awareness early by starting today off with three seizures. Sometimes Iris is a little too type-A. I'd have settled for a purple bandanna.

Sigh

2011-03-25T10:26:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure why we're back to a 3-4 week seizure schedule. Sigh. And she was doing so well.

Feeling much more disappointed in today's seizures than the round that broke her 15 week stretch. I have no idea what changed for her.

Beauty Sleep - 9/52

2011-03-24T15:08:00.001-04:00

Beauty Sleep - 9/52

This week Iris decided to take a break from the life of a supermodel. If I could please take my camera somewhere else, that would be great. As you can see, the red dog is really rather busy right now.

It is hard work being beautiful.

Housing Complexes and Reactivity - Part 1

2011-03-23T20:30:00.000-04:00

What is it about housing complexes that seems to create dog-dog reactivity?

Growing up, I lived in a neighborhood where it seemed as if every house had a family dog. As a general rule, all of the dogs in the neighborhood got along. Sure, a dog in a yard would bark at another dog walking down the street, but the dog passing by would never bark back. It was almost as if the walking dog knew he had the upper paw. And the same dogs who would bark from their yards would politely greet other dogs if they were out on leash.

After moving into an apartment, I was shocked by the number of reactive dogs living there. I'd estimate that 80% of the dogs there were reactive to other dogs (I couldn't say how many were reactive to people because I always had Iris with me). After moving into the condo, I was again shocked at the number of dogs who are either very reactive or very inappropriate in their greetings. I would say that about 80% of the dogs here are reactive and another 15% like other dogs but are way over the top in their greetings (barking, jumping and pulling in excitement). I can only think of two other dogs here who are well behaved around other dogs.

Why such a high percentage of reactive dogs? I'm guessing that it's a combination of factors. Without a yard, every dog in the complex is walked on leash multiple times a day. It doesn't matter if they behave well in public or not, they still have to be walked. That makes reactive dogs a lot more visible than in a neighborhood where all the houses have yards. With a yard if your dog doesn't behave, you don't have to walk him. Even still, I can only think of two dogs from my neighborhood who were never walked because of behavior. It was a much lower percentage of reactive dogs than the apartment/condo.

Everything about the housing complex environment just seems to really encourage dog-dog reactivity. Because there are so many apartments and condos that don't allow dogs, the ones that do tend to have a lot of dogs. So there's a lot of dogs on leash in a relatively small space. It's also a lot of untrained dogs in a small space. Odds are good that with that many dogs, there's going to a few reactive ones and I wonder how much of a domino effect that has. I know that every time Iris sees another dog outside, she's anticipating that the other dog is going to explode at her. And nine times out of ten, she's right. That certainly doesn't help. It seems like a pretty quick way to turn a non-reactive dog into a reactive dog. Without proper management do a few reactive dogs very quickly "poison" the atmosphere of the entire complex?

I'm curious to hear if anyone else has any thoughts on reactive dogs in housing complexes. Has anyone else noticed the same scenario?

The Look - 8/52

2011-03-21T18:53:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the first day of spring. Today it snowed.

That's right. Friday was absolutely gorgeous, a perfect day to be a New Englander. Today, well, today is probably just a reminder that it's still only the very beginning of spring and we're still in New England. My snowdrops are flowering outside. I guess they're aptly named at least.

Since the snow confined us to the house, I decided to practice some indoor lighting techniques and figured I'd torture Iris a bit by making her model. Today I came to the realization that Iris has only one look. Have you ever seen the movie Zoolander? Blue steel, magnum, or whatever, it didn't matter what he did. It was always the exact same "look."

The Look - 8/52

I also realized that all of the training I've done with Iris actually worked. Maybe too well. We've done a lot of "self control" games. This was a good thing for Iris the crazy dog. Turns out it might not have been the best thing for Iris the supermodel. I'm sure most people are familiar with some version of doggie zen? Well so is Iris. Doesn't matter where I hold the treat, she knows that game. Eye contact is the way to get the cookie. Telling her to stay and then tossing treats to get her to turn her head? We've played that game too. She's certain the answer is "make eye contact." Yup, Iris has only one look.

So I might be a little proud of her for remembering all those self-control games. And she's lucky her one look is damn cute.

Shadows - 7/52

2011-03-10T23:05:00.001-05:00

Shadows - 7/52*

Lately I've been doing a lot of reading about lighting with off-camera flash, so this was a bit of an experiment. The flash was positioned to the left behind a plant, which created all the shadows Also, I just can't resist the oppertunity to highlight my dog's blue eyes.

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*Ok, I know we went from 6/52 to 10/52 to 7/52. Maybe counting just isn't my thing... Actually, it's because I'm a bad blogger and I've gotten a few weeks behind. This week should be the 10th week and I really wanted to post the Mardi Gras photo this week. So that's why that one got posted out of order. Look for a few weeks with two "52 weeks" posts!

Phenobarb Recall

2011-03-10T18:46:00.005-05:00

I just came across this recall and figured I'd pass it along in case there are any other epi dog owners who read this blog.

Mislabled Phenobarbitol Recalled

The affected lots were distributed nationwide to retail and wholesale pharmacies between Sept. 21 and Dec. 29, 2010.

So the wrong medications were distributed in September and a recall was issued in February? WTF? I'm so angry right now. Whatever happened to quality control? I don't believe Iris has taken any of the recalled drugs. The Pb I have right now is from a different manufacturer than the one affected by the recall, and Iris usually gets 30mg tabs (the recall is for 32.4mg tabs). She hasn't had 32.4mg tabs in quite a long time.

I just think it's unbelievable how long it took them to issue a recall. I get Iris' prescription refilled every 30 days. Any medication she took in September is long gone by now. I'm pretty sure I'd have noticed something was VERY wrong as soon as she started taking the wrong medication, but would anyone have figured out it was because the drug was mislabeled?

Blue Dog - 10/52

2011-03-08T17:40:00.000-05:00

In honor of Mardi Gras, the red dog has decided to be a blue dog for the day.

Blue Dog - 10/52

And in case you'd like to see the actual blue dog, check out this blog post from artist George Rodrigue's wife. Happy Mardi Gras!

Not the Best Morning

2011-03-02T10:12:00.000-05:00

Three seizures for the red dog isn't exactly how I wanted to wake up this morning. Yuck. Each seizure lasted a little longer than is typical for Iris - about 1.5 to 2 min each (she's normally about 1 min). The good news is that she only went about 5 min between seizures, which means we're probably done for the day. When she's going about an hr between seizures, then we're in for a bad day.

All things considered, 15 1/2 weeks between seizures isn't bad. Far longer than I ever thought she'd go. Prior to this, she was going about 4 weeks between seizures.

A Dog's Life - 6/52

2011-02-24T17:49:00.002-05:00

A Dog's Life - 6/52

I'm not sure Iris quite understands that she's actually a dog. Iris often sleeps on the couch, with her head on the pillow. At night, she always sleeps on the bed (which is funny because for the first two years I had her, she completely refused to sleep on the bed). The other night, she woke up in the middle of the night and started scratching. I rolled over and nudged her since she has a tendency to scratch herself raw when her allergies act up. Iris indignantly hopped off the bed. I could hear her moving around in the dark looking for a place to settle down. Then very slowly, she crept back on the bed. And stood there. Staring at me. As if I wouldn't notice her getting back on the bed as long as she did it slowly? I told her she could lie down, and she very happily settled back down on the bed for the rest of the night

I was thinking about it the next day, and I'm pretty sure she got back on the bed because she couldn't figure out where dogs are supposed to sleep if they're not sleeping on the bed. Spoiled much?

Will Work for Food - 5/52

2011-02-07T17:33:00.006-05:00

Dogs in the kitchen while I'm cooking is a huge pet peeve of mine. I just don't enjoy having to fight with the dogs for foot room while I'm getting food ready. To keep the peace, Iris is trained to stay out of the kitchen while I'm in there unless I invite her in. She can sit the doorway and watch, but she has to stay out. If she's already in there (or in there uninvited), I can tell her "out," and she'll go sit in the doorway. When I was living with my dad, all three dogs were pretty good about staying out of the kitchen.

While I was visiting my dad for the holidays, I was in the kitchen helping my sister clean up. My dad's house has a much larger kitchen than my condo, but the large kitchen very quickly fills up with seven people and three dogs in the house. Without really thinking about it or even looking at the dogs, I said "Out." Iris immediately went and sat in the doorway just outside of the kitchen. The boys continued looking for crumbs on the floor, so my sister turned to me and said "Show off."

Just so that no one thinks my dog is a perfect angel, she regularly rebels against the "no dogs in the kitchen" rule with just one front paw.

Will Work for Food - 5/52

GSDs?

2011-02-02T17:58:00.000-05:00

Does anyone know of a good German Shepherd breeder? I have a friend who grew up with GSDs and is looking for a puppy. I prefer my Shepherds to be the crazy red merle variety, so I don't actually know any good GSD breeders.

Anyone out there know of any GSD breeders? All my friend is really looking for is a healthy pet and he really loved the GSDs he grew up with.

The Eyes Have It - 4/52

2011-01-31T20:28:00.000-05:00

I know, I know. It's maybe not the most creative image, but it's hard to do a photo series of Iris without doing a close up of her crazy eyes.

The Eyes Have It - 4/52

There. Now I've got it out of my system... at least for this month.

The Weather Outside... 3/52

2011-01-21T13:02:00.000-05:00

The Weather Outside... 3/52

It seems like we've been seeing a lot of this lately!

Happiness is a Warm Bed - 2/52

2011-01-15T23:14:00.001-05:00

Happiness is a Warm Bed - 2/52

This bed used to be under my desk at work. I had no intention of storing it in the living room after I brought it home. Would you have the heart to move it? Because I don't.

New Colors

2011-01-15T23:05:00.000-05:00

Since it's a new year and I wanted a format that would better show off the 52 weeks project (basically, I waned a wider format for horizontal photos), I decided it was time for a new look.

What do you think of the light text on a darker background? I like the way photos show up on the dark, but I'm a little worried that the text is harder to read. Is anyone having any trouble with it? I'm not 100% sold on the new look, so I would definitely want to change it if anyone is having trouble reading.

Big Website Update

2011-01-12T13:18:00.002-05:00

I just finished with a big update my website: Blue Amrich Studio - Pet and Equine Photography. Check it out! Let me know if you see any errors (spelling...) or anything that looks "weird." I tested it on most browsers, so I think it should be ok but you never know.

Long story short, my roommate and I both got laid off on Friday. Iris thinks this is the greatest thing ever because I brought home the giant dog bed from work, which is one of the greatest things ever. Now she can rotate between the couch and the dog bed while I work on the home computer. I'm a little less impressed with the situation than she is, but what can you do? Life happens. Anyway, right now I'm trying to really push my pet photography work. I know my website is all pets, but I also do weddings (and have pretty extensive wedding experience), human portraits, senior photos, events (private and corporate), and real estate. Actaully, I'm willing to try photographing just about anything you can think up (ok, anything PG. I shoot fluffy animals! As soon as I typed that, I realized it didn't sound very PG. I photograph fluffy animals). So if you're in the Boston area and hear of anything, please pass it along.

Also, my roommate is a fantastic 3D artist who's also looking for a job. Her art is here - Sarah Dahlinger Art and if you check out her blog, I think she has a list of positions she'd qualify for. I believe she's also planning a website update within the next couple of days. Since Sarah owns the condo where we live, Iris and I would both like Sarah to continue paying the mortgage.

One more thing that I left for last because I hate begging for favors, but I could use the help! I've been working on improving the search ranking of my website, and one thing that will help is links from other websites. So if you've got a website or a blog where it would be approprate to throw up a link to my site, I'd really appreciate it!

Red on Red - 1/52

2011-01-10T22:15:00.003-05:00

Red on Red - 1/52

Iris' predecesor was a Wheaten Terrier, and after years of living with a dog who required extensive grooming, I've pretty much decided to let Iris' coat do whatever it wants. And I admit it, I love the crazy fur around her ears.

Also, we're currently 8 weeks seizure-free. Unbelievable.

New Year's Resolution

2011-01-03T12:09:00.000-05:00

My photography related resolution this year is to improve my lighting skills. So, it's only appropriate that I somehow manage to include my dog.

This year, I want to participate in the 52 Weeks for Dogs project. I believe the project started out as a Flickr group. The basic idea is that you take one photo of your dog each week and share it with the group. While I'm not planning on participating in the Flickr group, I will be posting all 52 photos on this blog. I know there are a few other bloggers out there who participate in this (Dig-it Fetch-it Herd-it comes to mind).

I'm hoping that by committing to shooting Iris each week, I'll also be pushing myself to experiment a lot more with my techniques. Even though I'm hoping to do a lot more client sessions in 2011, I tend to shy away from experimenting during a client shoot. If I can get all my experimenting and practicing done with Iris where there's no real pressure, I'll be much more confident playing around with different techniques during a client photo sessions. That's my hope anyway!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T12:48:00.004-05:00

Merry Christmas to me!!!

Six weeks seizure-free!!!

Now THAT is something to celebrate! I honestly don't know why she's been seizure-free for so long. It's the longest stretch she's ever had (5 1/2 weeks was the previous record and that was back when she first started having seizures - about 1.5 years ago now. Maybe it's her diet? Or the season change? Her allergies have been better lately too, which I suspect is seasonal. Or maybe still related to the increase in Phenobarbital a few months ago? Who knows. Everything about epilepsy seems like a bit of a crap-shoot sometimes. Regardless, I'm not complaining. And I'm trying not to hold my breath for too long waiting for the next one...

So while I can't explain it, it's probably the best Christmas present I could get!

Iris says she'd rather have the present hidden under tree since waiting until tomorrow could take FOREVER!

Just in case you haven't seen enough of the red dog today... The company I work for makes virtual tours out of 360 degree panoramas. Every year they take a pano of the entire staff to send to clients as a Holiday Card. This year's card was shot during our the Holiday party:

EveryScape 2010 Holiday Card

I'm also certain that Iris wishes we had parties at work more often. I know she was getting plenty of handouts from my coworkers, but it's only once a year so everyone should get to enjoy themselves! Even crazy dogs.

Today's Laugh

2010-12-24T11:13:00.007-05:00

I saw this post on Craig's List and thought it was too funny not to share. Just in case it gets flagged and taken down, here's the text from the post.

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Please help! (Anywhere!)

Please help! After two long years of being on a waiting list for a dog, we have been notified by breed rescue that, at long last, our number has come up and ... WE ARE HAVING A PUPPY!

We must get rid of our children IMMEDIATELY because we just know how time consuming our new little puppy is going to be and it just wouldn't be fair to the children. Since our little puppy will be arriving on Monday we MUST place the children up for adoption this weekend!

They are described as:
One male -- his name is Tommy, Caucasian (English/Irish mix), light blonde hair, blue eyes. Four years old. Excellent disposition. He doesn't bite. Temperament tested. Does have problems with peeing directly in the toilet. Has had chicken Pox and is current on all shots. Tonsils have already been removed. Tommy eats everything, is very clean, house trained and gets along well with others. Does not run with scissors and with a little training he should be able to read soon.

One female -- her name is Lexie, Caucasian (English/Irish mix), strawberry blonde hair, green eyes quite freckled. Two years old. Can be surly at times. Non-biter, thumb sucker. Has been temperament tested but needs a little attitude adjusting occasionally. She is current on all shots, tonsils out, and is very healthy and can be affectionate. Gets along well with other little girls and little boys but does not like to share her toys and therefore would do best in a one child household. She is a very quick learner and is currently working on her house training. Shouldn't take long at all.

We really do LOVE our children so much and want to do what's right for them. That is why we contacted a rescue group. But we simply can no longer keep them. Also, we are afraid that they may hurt our new puppy.

I hope you understand that ours is a UNIQUE situation and we have a real emergency here! They MUST be placed into your rescue by Sunday night at the latest or we will be forced to drop them off at the orphanage or along some dark, country road. Our priority now has to be our new puppy.

PS - If you laughed or understood the seriousness of this posting, please repost it in other areas of the country as well as continue to repost it. It doesn't matter how quickly it was flagged (this has already been flagged twice within a matter of hours in Worcester) the point is that SOMEONE SOMEWHERE will have read it and thought about it for a minute. Maybe that person will look at the pets they are rehoming and reconsider giving them away or dropping them off at a pound. Maybe they will help counsel someone that they know is doing it. Keep the silver lining in mind, otherwise those of us in rescue will succomb to how incredibly morbid the whole situation is and we can't risk any good people giving up. I can't take credit for this posting, it was in the Best Of Craigslist section but this can and should be applied to EVERYWHERE and I think that the original poster would take it as a compliment to see that their ad helped someone along the way.

Ode to the Red Dog

2010-12-06T21:43:00.000-05:00

I meant for this to be a Thanksgiving Day post and even typed most of it up a few weeks ago, but I just haven't had a chance to get it posted. Regardless, I think the entire holiday season is a good time to be thankful! I've been thinking a lot about how much my little red dog has grown and I just recently remembered something I was told only a few months after I adopted Iris.

One of the first things I did with Iris was a beginner pet obedience class. All of the dogs in class were adults and many were rescues. During that very first basic obedience class, the instructor told the class that for most dogs it takes three weeks to get used to a new environment, three months to get used to new people, and three years to really bond.

Iris is seven now and the past summer was our "three year mark." I remember thinking that strangely enough the three weeks and three months adjustment periods actually seemed pretty accurate for Iris. But three years seemed like an eternity. Well, it turns out that three years isn't an eternity. It's actually pretty fast.

Fast forward three years, and here we are today. The reason I've been thinking a lot about my crazy little red dog is because it just feels like in the last six months we've finally found the same rhythm. Even though I didn't believe it at the time, the trainer who said "three years to really bond" just may have been right. At least for me and Iris. Sure, I've loved this dog for last three years and she's been my constant shadow, but it wasn't until recently that I think we've found the same tempo. Ok, maybe I shouldn't say that I've loved her for quite three years. You want to know my deep dark secret? I really thought about returning her to the shelter. She was crazy. I mean, I wanted a fun dog. Not some insane, aggressive nut job. I felt like I was in way over my head with this crazy dog who exploded every time someone new came through the door, and exploded every time an unfamiliar dog was near her, and exploded every time she got stressed out about any little thing. I just wanted a perfect agility dog and I somehow ended up with this crazy thing that ran back and forth and back and forth through the house all day barking at everything that moved outside. The problem I kept running into is that as Iris' behavior problems were becoming more apparent, she was also opening up into a sweet cuddley wiggle butt. When she wasn't being crazy. Which was most of the time. But I'm crazy too and I didn't want just "a dog." I wanted Iris. Just, it needed to be Iris with a whole lot less crazy if we were going to make it work.

And then it seems like all of a sudden (three years later...) she's really settled down and blossomed into a wonderful little dog. I couldn't ask for a better companion. I don't know if it's her getting older or us settling into a better routine, but in just the last few months I feel like I actually have the dog I was wishing for. So many of her issues have melted away. She's leaps and bounds better with strange people than she used to be, including strangers coming into the condo. She comes to work with me regularly and sleeps quietly under my desk. She no longer barks at everything outside the windows (I think mostly because she isn't allowed to look out the windows anymore, but she knows that rule and only rarely attempts to check the windows). She's good on a leash and even gets to go hiking off leash. Honestly, the only "issue" I would say she still has is being reactive with other dogs. And while she's still a bossy bitch, she's far better than she used to be.

I look down at my little red merle shadow and I can't imagine that at one point I was seriously considering returning her to the shelter. So my crazy-head red dog, here's to three years and hope for many more!

National Sheepdog Finals

2010-09-25T09:59:00.000-04:00

I know other people have blogged about this too, but just in case anyone hasn't seen it...

The National Sheepdog Finals are being broadcast live this weekend! It's all Border Collies, but these talented dogs are a blast to watch.

http://www.nationalsheepdogfinals.com/webcast/

Bored Aussie

2010-09-14T21:15:00.003-04:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I updated this blog. Things have been pretty quiet for Iris and pretty busy for me. I've been putting all of my free time into getting my photography business off the ground while Iris has had a relatively uneventful summer. She's had some allergies off and on for the last couple weeks, but other than that she's doing pretty well. She still has seizures on a pretty regular regular basis (damn 4 week mark!), but at least she's very predictable.

For the last couple weeks, my company has been moving into new building so I've had to leave Iris home during the day. And I've been spending nights and weekends working on my photography. The result? A very bored Aussie. I've noticed that the last couple nights she's been very antsy. I think she's just really not getting enough mental stimulation. To top it off, we've battled against Iris' weight gain all summer, and she's actually looking pretty good right now. She's lost 4 lbs since the beginning of the summer. I think she could still lose a little more, but right now I'd really like to get some more muscle tone on her too. But the combination of more time by herself and feeling better physically might drive me insane before it drives her insane!

I've been thinking about ways to get her out of the house for some mental activity. I did some clicker training with her tonight and she threw herself into it. Literally. Like, throwing her entire body into it. I haven't done much training with her this summer, and it seems like someone misses that. Our last herding lesson was in June. It's been five months since I had her in a class (Control Unleashed). It's been over a year since we've done any agility. That's the one I can't believe. My plan was to take the CU class and then put her back in agility in the spring.

Her seizures became more frequent last spring before we decided to increase her meds. The meds have such a negative effect on her balance and focus until she adjusts to them better. I've really gone back and forth on whether I should be pushing her to do anything. Her last couple of herding lessons haven't really gone well. She just really lacks focus. I'm not sure she had the intensity ro drive for it anymore. If we tried to take a 6 week agility class instead, it's very likely that we'll only be able to make 4 or maybe 5 out of every 6 classes because of her seizures. I'm also not certain if the meds would have a more noticeable effect on her balance if we were doing something like agility (a rather large factor in why we haven't gone back to agility).

I've been thinking about putting her back in the reactive dogs agility class I had her in at Dogs! Learning Center. It's about a 30 min drive from here so it's not terrible. Something closer would be easier with my work schedule, but the reactive agility class runs continuously and you pay as you go rather than paying for a 6 week block. So that would be a lot better for Iris. I have NO intention of ever trialing Iris, so I'd like to do a sort of "agility lite" class for her. I want the chance to work her around other dogs and get her some mental and physical exercise. But I don't care of she's jumping full height or doing every single obstacle (weave poles.......)

Gallery Update

2010-08-01T10:36:00.004-04:00

A couple people mentioned that they didn't like the way the gallery looked on my website (thumbnails were faded out and became full color when you moused over them) so I changed it around a bit. Now the thumbnails are full color and have a border when you hover over them.

Here is the first version:
http://www.blueamrichstudio.com/canine-gallery.htm

Here is the second version:
http://www.blueamrichstudio.com/canine-gallery.htm

Which way do you prefer?

And We're Live!!!

2010-07-30T23:34:00.002-04:00

I know I haven't been around much lately, but it's because I've been pretty busy with another project. Building the website was a much bigger project than I anticipated. But it's finally live!!!

Blue Amrich Studio

Check it out, pass it along! Also, I'd really appreciate any feedback people have. My target audience is pet owners so what you guys think is important!

Is everything loading ok? Loading quickly enough?
Does all of the text make sense? Is there anything that's confusing?
How does the gallery work for you? Do you like the format? Does it load quickly? Do you like the way the thumbnails look? The way the images open in a new window?
Is there anything you think I should change? Anything that isn't there that you'd like to see?

And just in case anyone is wondering, yes the logo is Iris. :) Who else could represent the business besides my little red dog?

Bring Your Dog to Work Day

2010-06-25T02:07:00.003-04:00

Officially "Bring Your Dog to Work Day" is today, but lately it's been every day for Iris.

I got in the habit of bringing Iris to work in February when I was working late every night on a project that basically involved a lot of walking around Boston taking photographs. Iris was more than happy to be my walking partner, although there were more than a few nights when we both staggered back to the car exhausted. That project is finally over. As much as I like the city, February isn't really the best month to be walking around Boston at night. The red dog took it all in stride and at the very end of the project, I did manage to get her in one pano.

Since she's been such a help around the office, I've just continued bringing her with me a couple times a week (ok, sometimes more than a couple times a week).

She's likes to help with testing lenses.

(click on photo for larger view)

The other day, I left my desk for a few minutes and she hopped in my chair to help with some QA (I suspect she got some help from the guys).

Mostly, she's pretty content to hanging out under my desk acting as the resident foot warmer.

Since today is "Bring Your Dog to Work Day," I thought we'd share a few tips that work well for us.

This probably goes without saying, but make sure all of your coworkers are comfortable around dogs (and not allergic to them) before you bring you dog with you. I'm very lucky to be at a place where everyone loves dogs. Iris isn't the only dog who comes to work on a regular basis!
Dog proof your workspace. We learned this the hard way after Iris sat on the surge protector under my desk and turned off my computer... and the two other computers that are daisy-chained into my power strip. Maybe more important than dog-proofing is making sure your coworkers have a sense of humor. Other things to watch out for besides electrical cords are poisonous plants and toxic office supplies such as permanent markers.
Make sure your dog has a comfortable place to hang out. Iris loves hanging out under the computer desk at home, so it was easy to train her to hang out under my desk at work. If this isn't something your dog does naturally, it's something you might want to train beforehand. Most people who come into the office don't even notice there's a dog under my desk. Some alternatives would be training your dog to hang out on a mat, a bed, or in a crate. We also love frozen kongs and bullysticks for keeping Iris busy.
Don't give your dog unsupervised run of the office. I keep Iris tied to my chair so she doesn't wander off. Even if it seems like all of your coworkers are okay with you dog wandering around, you should still keep a close eye on your dog. Just because your cubicle is dog-proof doesn't mean your coworker's is (or that your coworkers even know what "dog proof" means)!
I keep a jar of treats on my desk for people to give Iris. Dog lovers are going to want to feed your dog. Since Iris is on a strict diet for her seizures, having a jar of "safe" treats is a good compromise. Also, having appropriate treats (and appropriate sized treats!) will keep you dog from looking like a beach-ball.
Teach your dog to drink out of a cup. I know I should bring a bowl, but sometimes I forget. In a pinch, Iris will happily drink out of a paper cup so my forgetfulness doesn't really matter.
Teach a down-stay. When I leave the room to use the kitchen or bathroom (my office shares a bathroom and kitchen with two other companies, so I do not bring Iris into the shared space), I put Iris in a down stay. Since she's tied to the desk, she will fidget and whine if I just walk away. If I put her in a down-stay, she'll hold the stay quietly. I think she feels more secure if she knows exactly what to do.
Get your dog out for a walk at lunch time. Tired dogs are quiet dogs! Also, make sure that your dog potties in an appropriate place (the garden next to the door is probably not appropriate) and that you ALWAYS clean up after your dog.

I am very lucky to have such a dog-friendly employer. It's a BIG perk for me and definitely ensures that I'm happy at my job. I do work hard to make sure Iris is as well behaved and unobtrusive as possible because I don't want to lose the privilege! I think everyone in the studio enjoys having her there. Dogs are great stress relief!

Herding Lesson

2010-06-16T09:19:00.000-04:00

Iris had a herding lesson on the 5th. Actually, it was a pretty full day for her. We went to a horse show in the afternoon (Iris was crated in the car in the shade) and had a lesson at 5 pm.

Iris did do better than last time. First, we worked on driving to try and build interest. Then Diane had us walk straight up to the sheep in a corner (holding them still in one spot). Iris was on a short line and when we'd get close, I'd encourage Iris to look at the sheep. After she looked at the sheep for a few seconds, we turned and walked away. Taking Iris away from the pressure was her reward for focusing for a few seconds. We did quite a few repetitions of this, moving the sheep around to different corners of the pen.

Next we worked a little bit on fetching. Iris likes to dart in for a few seconds and then checks out again. This had been a chronic problem for Iris, but lately she checks out so much it's like she's quit completely. Diane had me get Iris interested and as soon as Iris started running around the sheep, I'd walk backwards toward the fence. Because Iris had already started going around, she'd end up on the opposite side of the sheep and bringing them to me. To keep Iris from checking out, I had her on a really long line that I looped around one sheep's neck. When the sheep started coming towards me, got tugged along behind them. I was walking backwards in a circle around the pen. I had trouble getting Iris to follow the sheep because she wanted to follow me instead. Because she was focused on me, Iris kept wanting to come inside too far, instead of walking directly behind the sheep. I tried to push her out more with the rake, but I didn't have much success trying to juggle the line around the sheep, the dog, and the rake. Oh well. At least she was "working." Or doing something beside eating sheep poop.

After Iris' lesson, I chatted for a bit with Diane. We ended up talking about Iris' epilepsy and her medications. Diane really thinks that the meds are affecting Iris' working ability. Damn. I've been suspecting the same thing. Iris just doesn't have the same focus she used to, especially since starting the Pb. Actually, she doesn't have the same focus for training in general. This last lesson was better than the previous. That previous lesson was only a few days after a round of seizures (and the medication changes that go with that). Even though I thought it had been long enough for Iris to be back to "normal," it clearly wasn't.

This last lesson was better. It was also later in the day, which is a factor we're going to experiment with. Iris normally gets her morning meds around 9 am. For a 10 am lesson, maybe she has more drugs in her system and is more spacey in general? She doesn't get her evening dose of keppra until 6 pm and her Pb until 9 pm. Maybe a 5 pm lesson has her more focused because she has less drugs in her system? I'm not even sure if AEDs work that way. I'll have to ask her vet. It is something to think about. Even if Iris never gets to the point where I could trial her, Diane pointed out that I'm learning a lot and I'll be a better handler for a future dog (Diane asked when I'm getting a puppy! Ha! My roommate would kill me if I brought home another crazy dog).

We have another lesson this Sunday at 6 pm. This Wednesday is also Iris' 4 week mark since her last round of seizures. We're cutting it close. If she has any seizures towards the end of the week, I'll cancel the lesson.

Karate and Friendship Award

2010-06-14T20:27:00.003-04:00

We got an award from Julie at Run - Jump - Herd - Heal. Thank you Julie! It's the "Master of Karate and Friendship" award.

Fun fact, I was in the Shotokan Karate Club while I was in college. I stopped taking karate classes after I graduated because I could really only afford one "class" at a time and I wanted to put the red dog in agility!

And now to pass it on:

Diana at Four Dog Craziness

Nicki at Borderblog

Paw It Forward

2010-06-14T20:20:00.004-04:00

We got a "Paw It Forward" package in the mail from James, Niche, and Monty! We actually got the package last week and Iris' bad mum has taken too long to post photos. But Iris has been enjoying the treats all weekend.

Hey Iris, do you want to see what you got?

Yes yes yes!!!

Do you think you could look at the camera? Just for a second?

All of the cookies belong to me!

Fine. If you won't pose with the packages, I can find other ways to make you pose.

I know where you sleep. I will get my revenge.

Away with you, crazy lady.
I am done with posing for your face-box now. Time for nom!

A very happy red dog says THANK YOU to Katrin and her boys!

Now for the next part of the game. I'll send a "Paw It Forward" package to the first two people who reply saying that they want to play. Then after you get your package, you "paw it forward" by sending packages to two more people. Very cool! Anyone want to play?

Seriously? Sand?

2010-06-09T20:20:00.000-04:00

For some reason, Iris as been putting everything in her mouth lately. Stuff that she wouldn't normally pick up. The other day, she had a pen in her mouth. A little while later, she had tweezers.

The latest one is sand. That's right. Sand. After Iris did her business this morning, I was picking up her poop and I noticed that it was full of sand. I have no idea why she was eating sand or more importantly, when she was eating sand. I live in a condo. Iris only goes outside on a leash. She is supervised. A lot. I do have a small container of sand that I was using for an art project, so I suspect that's where she got the sand. I checked and the container is sealed, so I still have no idea when she was eating sand. She's in a crate when I'm not home and locked in the bedroom with me at night.

I really can't figure out when she could have gotten into the sand or what possessed her to eat it in the first place. Maybe she's trying to tell me that she needs more minerals in her diet?

Now I Do Have Something Nice to Say...

2010-06-03T23:13:00.000-04:00

Iris had a vet visit yesterday for bloodwork and while we were there I talked to the vet about her recent increase in seizure frequency. Once I know what schedule Iris is on, I can usually predict (within a few days) when she's going to cluster again. She's always been in the 3-5 weeks range. She was on an every 4 weeks schedule for the longest time. I thought we were making progress with acupuncture when she was going 5 weeks, but now we're back down to three. We've been on a three week schedule the last few cycles.

It seems like Iris is one of the dogs that acupuncture just isn't making a big difference for. Sigh. I was really hoping for a miracle cure. We've stopped acupuncture and I really haven't noticed much of a change without it. The vet feels that she should be going at least a month between seizures. If she's having clusters more than once a month, we should change something. Now we're left with increasing her meds.

The title of this post is that I have something nice to say, and I do! We got Iris' bloodwork results back today, and so far all of her liver values are normal! Did you just hear my sigh of relief? The vet prepared me yesterday by saying that he wouldn't be surprised if one of her levels (now I can't remember which one) was slightly high. He'd consider slightly elevated to be "normal" for a dog on Pb. But, so far so good! We also checked Iris' Pb levels and right now she's in the low end of the normal range. Because her liver looks good and she's at the low end of the dosage range for her weight, we're going to try increasing her Pb dose from 30 mg twice a day to 45 mg twice a day. It's not the solution I was hoping for (and honestly, I'm not 100% certain it's the route I want to go yet). But many dogs build up a tolerance to the meds over time and need their dosage increased. Maybe we're just at that point. We're going to check her Pb levels in a few weeks just to make sure we didn't increase it too much.

I'm also making some changes to her diet and supplements, which really deserves a separate post. Keeping fingers crossed that we start making some progress.

If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say...

2010-05-31T10:27:00.001-04:00

My mother always told me, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." That's maybe a factor in why it's been a month since I've posted anything here!

Iris has been pushing all of my buttons lately. It's not entirely her fault. Her seizures have shifted to an every-three-weeks schedule (we do have a vet appointment on Wednesday to discuss that). Seizures lead to stress, sleepless nights, and the post-ictal period when Iris forget any training, rules, and housebreaking. Lately she's been better about the housebreaking at least.

She's been a brat in general and has pretty much decided that listening to me is a "when she feels like it" option. She's been really testing her boundaries in the house. The one strict rule I have is that she can't sit and supervise the world out the porch window, a rule that she's been testing constantly. She's getting into stuff that she doesn't usually. The other day, I was talking on the phone and I looked over and she had a pen in her mouth. I took it away. A couple minutes later, I looked over and she had a pair of tweezers in her mouth. She never puts random objects in her mouth.

We had a herding lesson last week and Iris was so far in her own world, she wasn't responding to anything. Diane actually asked me if I thought Iris' hearing was ok. Yeah, this is the dog that will bark if she can hear dog tags walking past our second floor condo. But nothing would hold her interest for more than a few minutes. Not sheep, not ducks, not flanking, not driving. This is the dog that was in the shelter for chasing and killing ducks. They were cool for a few minutes, and then she was done. Driving got the most interest out of her, so that's what we're going to focus on next week.

Near as I can tell, the only thing she pays attention to is the guys at work because they'll feed her ANYTHING she begs for. I cut them off last week because Iris desperately needs to lose weight. I'm afraid of what she's going to weigh at the vet's on Wednesday. I guess neither of those things should be a surprise. Increased appetite and weight gain are both side effects of Phenobarbital. She's definitely begging more than she used to (the fact that begging from my coworkers is very effective isn't helping). It's one of the reasons I've been hesitant to increase her Pb, but we'll see what the vet says on Wed.

We're working on some basic attention stuff and some NILIF around the house. And really, life with Iris hasn't been all bad! We went for a beautiful walk at Great Brook Farm State Park last weekend. I admit, I wasn't very impressed with the park the first time I went. The farm has an ice cream stand so the place was full of families with small children. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just like my walks to be quiet. However, we discovered that if you go across the street from the farm, it's MUCH quieter and the trails are beautiful. Plus, you can easily stop for ice cream on the way out and the place is actually really dog friendly. You're supposed to go inside to get ice cream but if you have a dog, you can knock on the window and they'll serve you through the window. There is a $2 parking fee. but the trails are meticulously maintained. I think we will be going back to explore this park further!

In Other News

2010-04-28T19:48:00.004-04:00

Iris is back to herself after her seizures last weekend. She had 4 total, each about 5-10 min apart. Then the Valium kicked in and she was quite happy for the rest of the day. It had only been three weeks, but I think stress was a big factor this time.

On Saturday morning, they were testing the fire alarms in our building. Because they needed to enter the condo to test the alarms inside, we had to be home. And because we're in an end unit, we ended up being one of the last condos in the building checked. We had to listen to the fire alarms come on and off for a few hours. Iris was really freaked out by it, but she seemed to be doing ok staying next to me, and we were stuck in the building anyway. She had the seizures at 4 am on Sunday. Generally with seizures, anything in the last 30 hrs could be a trigger (except for vaccinces, which can be up to 45 days). The stress from the fire alarms definitely falls into the right time frame.

At least the fire alarm check only occurs once a year, and next year I'll know that Iris needs to spend the day somewhere else.

On an unrelated note, I have a couple of (potential) freelance jobs coming up, so I needed to quickly get my act together. One aspect was making a business card. Recognize the model?

I almost used the version with Iris lying on her back, but I thought it was a little harder to tell what she was doing in the small size. For the record, Iris is NOT allowed to sleep on the red futon. Her white fur really shows up on the red, so Iris is forced to sleep on the big fluffy white couch instead. If I fall asleep on the couch (which is more comfortable than the futon), the brat dog knows she can sneak onto the futon. As you can see, she clearly knows she doesn't belong on the futon and was very stressed out about the whole shoot. Yeah right. Who trained who?

Surf 'N Herd

2010-04-28T18:14:00.008-04:00

It might be a publicity stunt, but it's still a great video. Here's an article about it: Ewe Won't Believe This. Iris says she's not herding anything in the water!

4:30 am

2010-04-25T04:31:00.000-04:00

It's 4:30 am and I'm up with the seizure dog. Sigh. Maybe it is time to increase her meds.

Trouble Makers

2010-04-14T19:50:00.000-04:00

Just a fun photo from when we visited my dad for Easter.

The three stooges all hoping for a handout. Notice that Henry Beagle is the one who ended up in the dog bed.

Color Changes

2010-04-11T16:20:00.005-04:00

I'm playing around with some color changes. What do you think? I'm not quite decided on it yet. I wanted a warmer color because I think my photos will display better on that. Looking at it now, I think I chose colors that are too close to Iris' coat. Darn, I didn't even do that intentionally. I guess it means I like the color of my dog! But she isn't showing up quite the way I want. I think it's the main background color that needs to change. Also the heading photo will need to get updated to match everything else. Also, I think I can go in and change some of the template defaults via the html. Like those little green arrows in front of the links. I'll play with it more later.

Somehow while changing the colors I managed to delete all of my blog links. I have no idea how it happened. I'll have to go through and see if I can fix that as well.

EDIT: I think I've got the colors working better. I decided to try to keep the "red merle" look. Ha! Also got the blog list fixed too. Let me know if I missed you! I still want to change the heading photo, but I think I have an idea for that.

Newest Family Member

2010-04-11T15:03:00.003-04:00

And now some good news! Introducing the newest family member, Galeru.

"Galeru" is a dragon or rainbow serpent from Australian mythology. Budgies are native to Australia, and I wanted to give him a larger-than-life name because budgies have such larger-than-life personalities.

Galeru came home on Friday and is starting to settle in. He's still pretty hand-shy, but he's gotten MUCH better since Friday (there has been a lot of millet bribery. I've yet to meet a budgie who doesn't love millet!) Once he settles in some more, I'm going to do some clicker training with him. I'd taught my last budgie to target, and he thought that was pretty fun. It should be pretty fun to see what this little guy can do.

Iris hasn't shown much interest in Galeru at all, which is good. We did do some LAT when I first brought him home. Iris was more interested in the cookies than the bird, which is a really good thing!

Running Out of Tricks

2010-04-11T14:34:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was a bad seizure weekend. It had only been three weeks since Iris' last round of seizures. Damn it. She had 6 seizures total over a 21 hour period, so most of her seizures were spread pretty far apart. The post-ictal period (time following the actual seizure when the brain is still recovering, can last minutes or hours) was pretty long this time. Her last seizure was at about 4 am and she panted and paced for the next 4 hours straight. Pacing is a pretty typical post-ictal behavior for Iris. Also, she does a lot of sniffing of various objects around the house, acting like she's never seen them before. She doesn't always respond to basic commands, sometimes has trouble with her name, and occasionally forgets her housebreaking (I think she just forgets all of it because she's so confused and her mind is so foggy). Things that don't normally scare her will make her jump. Lately, her post-ictal period has been pretty short. This time, it was long. The first 4 hours were the worst with the constant pacing. She was much better after that, but I don't think she was really back to normal until Monday.

On Wednesday, we had an appointment with Dr C. He didn't like that she had so many seizures so soon. Unfortunately, he did say that we're starting to run out of tricks. Right now, Iris is on two medications (Keppra and Phenobarbital), a Chinese herb mix of Gastrodia and Uncaria, and goes for acupuncture every two weeks. None of it has significantly changed the time period between seizures. She's always been between 3-5 weeks. It seemed like the acupuncture was at least decreasing the number of seizures and shortening the post-ictal period when she would cluster. This last weekend it didn't seem to be the case. It feels like we get a brief "honeymoon period" with everything we try before we end up back at square zero.

We're trying one more thing. Dr C wants to try keeping magnets with a gold bead inside Iris' ears. It will constantly stimulate the acupuncture point there. They're a bit like a band-aid with a small, pointed magnet where the gauze should be.

Iris isn't bothered by them at all. They sit right inside and toward the front of her ears. Dr C showed me exactly where they go incase they fall out and sent me home some extra. I think the biggest problem will be keeping the fur clipped so the adhesive can stick to her skin. She already has some fuzz growing in.

Dr C told me if she does have a seizure, I can put a little pressure on the magnets during the seizure. It might help bring her around. If you look closely in the next photo, you can see the magnets inside her ears. They're barely noticeable.

We're keeping everything crossed that this helps. If it doesn't, we're starting to run out things to try. Dr C admitted that he doesn't have a lot of confidence in the magnets because we haven't seen dramatic improvement since starting acupuncture. It's still worth a shot. For now, we're still doing acupuncture every other week, but we'll see how she does between now and her next cluster. At least we're back to a more "normal" state for now.

Control Unleashed - Week Five

2010-04-09T21:15:00.002-04:00

I just realized that I'd almost finished writing this, but never actually posted it. It's been a crazy week.

I think the format of this class makes it difficult to see the progress your dog is making. Each week, the exercises are more challenging and the criteria is higher. By the end of the week five class, Iris was right at her threshold. She was probably a hair's breadth away from melting down (we did end up lowing the criteria a lot for her). It felt like a less successful week than the previous one. But I need to remember, I don't think Iris would have been successful at any of these exercises a few weeks. Even though she didn't handle the class with flying colors, she did MUCH better that I would have expected five weeks ago.

Car Crash Game
Before we started this exercise, Emma talked about how important it is to communicate with other people when moving your dog through a tight space. This isn't always easy because I can be very shy, but it so important to set your dog up for success! Putting Iris in a situation where she'll react is worse than offending someone by asking them to give us a little space.

Emma set up four jumps and had each dog/handler do this pattern simultaneously. We had to talk to each other to make a plan about how to pass safely (who was going to go first, whether one dog had to step to the side, etc).

I was actually pretty worried about how Iris would handle this exercise. Dogs walking straight towards her is definitely a trigger. She ended up doing a LOT better than I expected. I had her sit slightly to the side when the other dog passed us and she did really well with it.

Scramble Heeling
We continued working on the scramble healing exercise from last week. Iris does pretty well with it. I'd like to try it in an outside-of-class situation. I think that would really change it for her.

Parallel Running With Off-Switch Game
Next we worked on parallel running with the off-switch game. This was REALLY hard for Iris. Emma had two dogs run from one end of the room to the other, play, and then stop play and get the default behavior. Dogs playing really pushed Iris right to her threshold. She was as close to her threshold as she could be without completely melting down. She was doing some barking but it would be one or two woofs and then I could get her to work again a little. She wasn't actually exploding at the other dog. Because Iris was having so much trouble, Emma had us stop and work on LAT while the other dog played instead of running with the other dog. Of everything we've worked on in class, other dogs playing is definitely the biggest trigger for Iris.

Next we did a variation of the same game, but this time one dog ran and played parallel to a little agility course.

When we started this, Emma asked me how I thought Iris was doing. I told her that I thought Iris was pretty much fried for the day. Emma agreed and Iris sort of sat this exercise out. I brought her off to the side and worked on LAT while the rest of the class did the exercise. When it was Iris' turn, we decided to have her do a little agility but not have another dog play while she worked. She was so brain fried by that point in class. Being around other dogs who are playing is definitely something we need to work on in the future because it's such a huge issue for Iris.

Look At That! With a Person
One of the other students in class has a very exuberant Aussie. He's really friendly but can get over-the-top excited when he greets people. His owner asked Emma if we could work on that a little bit. Emma walked around the room and everyone played LAT while she walked by. The goal was to have the dogs glance at the new person and then reorient.

Also, Emma talked about ways to train an appropriate greeting. When strangers ask to pet your dog, they often bend over and stretch out their hand. Emma suggested teaching the dog to hand target the outstretched hand. For the greeting, you end up with a dog that touches the outstretched hand and then reorients to you for the reward. I hadn't thought of this before, but it is a really simple solution. Emma also talked about training reactive dogs to target a shoe instead of a hand, something she also teaches in her reactive dogs class. The reasoning behind it is if you ask someone to let your dog touch their shoe, the person tends to stand up straight with their hands at their side. It's much less threatening than leaning forward and reaching out for the dog, which is what most non-dog people tend to do.

We're done with CU now and I would definitely recommend this class, especially for anyone who does dog sports. Emma isn't offering at the MSPCA until next fall, but she is offering it at Masterpeace on Thursdays starting in July. I might be crazy enough to drive down for it. The class was REALLY worth it for Iris.

Control Unleashed - Week Four

2010-03-30T23:30:00.005-04:00

I'm getting behind on writing about Iris' CU class, so now I'm trying to play catch up a bit. Week four was on 3/17. Iris had a GREAT class on week four.

Agility Sequence with Distraction
Here is the sequence Emma had us work on. All of the jumps were at 4 inches and dogs stayed on-leash.

One dog worked on the sequence on the right. At the same time, a second dog went back and forth over the two jumps on the left as a distraction.

Iris did well. She was concerned by the other jumping dog but not overly concerned. She was able to work through it. The fourth obstacle was a pvc ladder, something Iris had never seen before. No problem! Going over the ladder meant walking straight toward Bowser (Aussie), so she was a little worried about that.

One thing Iris has a lot of trouble with was the tunnel. One of the dogs who wasn't working was sitting fairly close to the entrance of the tunnel (the room we're in is small). Emma asked the other dog to move and as soon as she did, Iris had no problem doing the tunnel. I think Iris is more sensitive to things she can see than to sounds (although sounds can be an issue too). If Iris is doing any obstacle other than the tunnel, she can keep an eye on the other dogs. When she's in the tunnel, she has no idea where the other dogs are. I've noticed that sometimes Iris has trouble orienting to sounds, so maybe that why she's so visually focused?

There's A Dog in Your Face
Emma set up a ring gate at the end of two jumps. One dog sat on one side of the ring gate and a second dog went over the two jumps moving in a straight line toward the sitting dog. Iris did much better at this than I expected! When I'm out walking her, she has A LOT of trouble with dogs walking straight towards us. I think having the ring gate as a barrier helped her a lot. Also, she was paired with Bryce (BC), who is one of the dogs that Iris is least reactive to in class. And unlike the dogs we usually encounter when we're out walking, Bryce has very nice leash manners. She wasn't straining on the leash towards Iris.

I was able to have Iris sitting fairly close to the ring gate, but I did keep her facing perpendicular to the ring gate. Bryce walked toward Iris' side, not head on. When Iris was the moving dog, she didn't seem to have any problems.

Scramble Heeling
This game isn't in the CU book. It's something Emma learned when she started doing Competition Obedience with her dogs. Emma had two dogs heel around the room (it didn't have to be perfect competition heeling, Emma told us to use whatever criteria we wanted as long as the dog was on a loose leash). Also, we were supposed to walk in a random pattern around the room. Periodically, Emma would give us instructions to change what we were doing: walk faster, walk slowly, change direction, sit, down, stay, and recall from a stay.

I really like this as a CU game. While walking around, not only do you have to pay attention to where you are and what your dog is doing but also to where the other dog is walking. We've been doing a lot of agility in class because we have a class full of agility dogs. I think it was good for the dogs to work on something a little different. Plus dogs walking around on leash is something you encounter no matter what sport you're doing with your dog. Right now, we only worked on two dogs moving around the room. Ultimately the goal would be to have all of the dogs in class moving around at once.

Iris did really well with scramble heeling. The Golden was the other dog heeling with Iris, and usually he's challenging for her (he's big and bouncy!) But she did great.

More Agility
We had a little bit of time at the end of class, so Emma had all of the dogs run the agility sequence with no distractions. She wanted to give all the dogs a chance to loosen up bit and it gave the rest of the class a chance to practice relaxing while one dog was running. Iris again had trouble going into the tunnel with another dog nearby. This time, Emma wanted us to work through it. She had me ask Iris to hand target near the tunnel entrance. Each time I asked Iris to target, I moved my hand a little further into the tunnel. After asking her to target inside the tunnel entrance a few times, I tried sending her into the tunnel again. Success! My little red dog was able to work through it! It was also a great example of how breaking something down into really small steps will help Iris succeed if she's stressing out.

Purple for Epilepsy

2010-03-21T08:19:00.003-04:00

Toby's Foundation is sponsoring Purple Day on Friday, March 26.

Founded in 2008, by nine-year-old Cassidy Megan of Nova Scotia, Canada, with the help of the Epilepsy Association of Nova Scotia, Purple Day is an international grassroots effort dedicated to increasing awareness about epilepsy worldwide. On March 26, people from around the globe are asked to wear purple and spread the word about epilepsy.

Why? Epilepsy affects over 50 million people worldwide. That's more than multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and Parkinson's disease combined. (from the Purple Day homepage)

Same disease, different species.

Sheep!

2010-03-20T19:42:00.003-04:00

This past week, it seems like the weather has really turned to spring. Knock on wood, I hope it stays this way. Today felt more like May than March. Nice weather really only means one thing: sheep! We haven't had any herding lessons since last fall. During our last lesson, it was really difficult to motivate Iris to work sheep. She acted very stressed and did a lot of sniffing.

It seems like the winter off did a lot of good. Iris was like a different dog. She was very interested in the sheep. We started the lesson with driving and praising Iris for any interest in the sheep. We had plenty of interest! Woo-hoo! Then Diane had me drop the leash to work on get around. Iris did really well. She was definitely working better than last fall. There were still times when she would go off to sniff. Diane noticed that if the sheep stop moving, Iris thinks her job is done and she quits. So we need to work on keeping her interested in the sheep even when they're still.

Diane wanted to get Iris to hold the sheep against the fence behind me. We want her to learn that keeping sheep still is as much a part of the game as moving sheep around. One problem I kept having was if Iris started sniffing (or eating sheep poo, snacking seemed to be a priority for her today) and I went over to her to get her moving again, she'd take that opportunity to dive straight back into the sheep. Brat. Diane had me lean a couple extra rakes against the barn so I could toss one at Iris if she started snacking. That way I wouldn't have to walk over to her to get her moving again. Iris was not phased at all by the tossed rakes. I think she lifted her head up to look at the first one. Then she didn't care. Diane didn't want me to move too much because if I started moving, the sheep would follow me. We don't want moving sheep to be the cue for Iris to work. Being in the pen with the sheep regardless of whether or not they're moving should mean work. Diane came in the pen and she got Iris to move when I stood with the sheep. We finally had success! Something clicked in her brain. I think once Iris understood what I wanted, she actually did a really good job moving back a forth in front of me to keep the sheep in once place. She even put back one sheep that started to break. Good girl!

Then Iris got a break and Diane brought one of her dogs out to show me how I can practice having Iris move away from the rake at home. We also talked about using a food bowl to work on "walk up" and "out." I bought a small rake, so we'll definitely have to practice. Somewhere in with all the homework for the CU class! I also got a chance to see Diane's lambs. There aren't too many animals that are cuter than a lamb.

I brought Iris back out and we worked on "get around" again. Diane pointed out that if I started cheerleading Iris right as she started slowing down, she'd get interested again. If I was too late with my praise, Iris would start to check out and then I'd be praising her for quitting. Timing is important!

After the lesson, I was chatting with Diane and she mentioned that all her dogs were in the house during Iris' lesson so none of them were barking. Maybe in the past, the other dogs have been too stimulating for Iris? It's something we'll have to keep in mind in the future. This was definitely the best lesson Iris has had in a while! We go back in two weeks. Hopefully this beautiful weather will keep up!

Control Unleashed - Week Three

2010-03-16T21:56:00.002-04:00

Off-Switch With Obstacles
The first thing we worked on was more off-switch practice, but this time we also added the excitement of obstacles. Emma had two 4" jumps, a tunnel and a low table set up. One at a time, the dogs did one obstacle, played tug for 15-30 seconds, then the handler stopped the game and waited for the dog to offer a default behavior (everyone in class is using either sit or down). Because playing dogs are a big trigger for Iris, she's getting lots of practice playing Look at That! She's doing pretty good. Definitely getting a little stressed but not to the point of barking. When it was Iris' turn to do the obstacle and then play, she pretty much refused to play. Emma pointed out that Iris seems very concerned about being in the middle of the room with dogs on all sides. Thinking about it, in Iris' agility classes the dogs were always on only one side of the room when Iris was in the middle. It was less for her to worry about. Going directly toward another dog, even if the other dog is stationary, is also a lot harder for Iris than moving parallel or away from the dog.

Next, Emma had each dog preform two obstacles, play, then offer the default. This time I didn't try to get Iris interested in the toy. I asked her to do some hand targeting because that's usually one of her favorites, but even that was hard for her.

Emma raised the criteria one more time and had the dogs do three obstacles, play, then get the default. For some dogs in class, the exercise is definitely about learning to get revved up and then settle down again quickly. For Iris, I think it's really about being able to be around other dogs who are getting revved up. Also, even just getting her to move into the middle of the room to play LAT with me was a bit challenging for her this week.

Doggie Zen / Leave It
Next we worked on the next step of Doggie Zen / Leave It. To practice this, we put a treat on the floor and then waited for the dog to give eye contact before rewarding. Once the dog is comfortable with you placing the treat on the floor, you can begin tossing the treat on the floor. In the book, Leslie suggests using your foot to cover the treat if the dog tries to go for it. For some dogs who were really excited about the treats, Emma had us toss the treat just out of the dog's reach and then wait for eye contact (sort of a cross between Doggie Zen and Leave It).

One thing we talked about in class was how you really have three options for rewarding your dog after tossing the treat on the floor. You can give the dog a release (such as "take it") to go get the treat, you can pick the treat up and then give it to your dog, or you can give your dog a different treat and never allow her to have the one on the floor. Emma said she doesn't really think it matters which method you choose. I was thinking about it and I might practice with all three so Iris really learns to pay attention me to find out where the reward is coming from.

Emma also talked about putting Leave It on cue and whether or not you really want to. Emma trains her dogs that when they find food on the floor, they should automatically make eye contact. She doesn't use a cue. In some ways, that makes a lot of sense. Especially when I was living the apartment complex, I had to be really careful about Iris grabbing things off the ground because the kids were so bad about leaving old food around. On the other hand, I like to be able to toss treats as a reward because Iris isn't very toy motivated. So I'm leaning toward using a cue.

Start Line Stays
Last we worked on start line stays. In the book, Leslie says that a lot of dogs she sees in her CU classes don't have a start line stay. The dogs get way too revved up or stressed out to be able to stay, so she teaches it in CU as part of learning self control. Iris has never had a problem with her start line stays. I think Katrin emphasizes start line stays right from the beginning in her classes, so Iris had one of the best stays in CU class.

In class, Emma had us put the dog in a sit in front of the jump, take a step away, step back, and reward. Then, take two steps away, go back and reward. The dogs learn that staying in position will get rewarded (and it that taking the jump isn't the only way to get rewarded). I think we've done this game before!

Overall, Iris seemed stressed out during class. I think starting class off with dogs playing definitely raised her anxiety level to begin with.

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In other news, Iris made it to five weeks and one day between seizures. Damn it. It really seems like her trigger is time. Her schedule is so regular.

CU Homework

2010-03-07T22:17:00.005-05:00

I want to have some notes on how we're working on the CU exercises at home and how Iris is progressing. In a few weeks, I'd like to have something to look back on so here's where we're at now.

Look at That
This isn't something we've had much opportunity to really practice. There are no strange dogs walking around my living room. Well, there is one strange dog in my living room. But I need a second strange dog for practicing. I really need to make the commitment to take Iris out where we'll encounter other dogs that are not reactive. I'm amazed at the number of dogs in the condo complex (and the apartment complex too) that are very reactive and are NOT being managed by their owners. It's not a good situation for training Iris in. While I think she's at the point where she'll handle another dog walking past, she's not at the point where she'll handle another dog exploding and straining at the end of the leash. My homework for next weekend is to get out and go somewhere that Iris can succeed at LAT practice!

Default Behavior
I've been thinking a lot about this one. When I first got Iris, she was TERRIBLE about shaping. She would literally sit and stare at me without moving a muscle. She could handle luring but if I wasn't really actively helping her out, she got stuck in a sit. My first reaction was that I don't want to train a default behavior. It's been a lot of work convincing Iris not to just sit and stare, and she still isn't always great at shaping. She gets frustrated very easily and defaults to "sit still and make eye contact." After re-reading the section in the book on default behaviors, I've decided I am going to train a default behavior but not in a "formal" training session. I'm just going to have to carry treats around with me all the time and reward Iris when she offers the default (in this case, I am going to use a sit). For example, if I'm getting Iris' dinner ready and she happens to sit, she gets a reward. If I'm putting my shoes on and she happens to sit, she gets a reward. Hopefully, that will avoid the "stuck in a sit" problem during training sessions.

Whiplash Turn
We've had a really hard time working on this. We've only tried it a couple of times, and I've ended up cutting the session short because I'm getting frustrated. Not productive for either of us. What's happening is I toss the treat, Iris eats the treat, I say her name, Iris continues to look for crumbs, and only turns back to me she's decided she's done sniffing around. I think I need to do something similar to what I'm doing with the default behavior. If I walk into a room and say "Iris" she turns and looks at me. I think I need to make a point of always rewarding that rather than tossing treats. I need a wristband to attach my clicker to! The possibility of food on the floor is too exciting right now. The other thought I had was using two different treats for the tossing food method. Toss a really low value treat so she'll turn away from me to eat it, say her name, and give her really high value treat when she turns toward me.

Doggie Zen (Leave It)
Iris already knows the Doggie Zen game and does it without any problem. In the CU book, Leslie uses Doggie Zen as the beginning of Leave It. Iris' leave it is only mediocre. She'll do it for something low value but not something high value. We might be jumping ahead a little bit, but I started working on some of the Leave It exercises in the book. Right now, I can drop one treat and she'll leave it. I think the next thing I'm going to try is dropping the single (low value) treat outside of a training session. She knows when we're playing the "leave it" game. I'd like to work on her leaving it even when she doesn't think she's supposed to be "working."

Go to Mat
I've been working on moving Iris' mat to various places around the house and at work. She's done really well at home and had a little trouble with it at work. She really loves her mat now! After we finished practicing the other day, I got a phone call and forgot to pick up the mat. I looked over and Iris was patiently sitting her mat waiting for her next cookie. A few minutes later, I looked over again and she'd fallen sound asleep on her mat. Silly girl!

Off-Switch
I honestly haven't gotten the chance to work on this at home with her. It's sort of a low priority for me because Iris isn't highly toy motivated. It's tough to rev her up with a toy so usually once I get her playing I like to keep her involved in the game. Although now that I'm thinking about it, I'm wondering if this exercise would actually help build some toy motivation as well.

Reorienting
When I adopted Iris, she would bolt out doors. Since Iris also really wants to chase cars, I had to do something to stop her from bolting out the door whenever anyone opened it. I trained her to stop and make eye contact until I say "okay" before going through doorways. It worked really well to stop the door bolting. The problem is that when I release Iris to go through the doorway, I completely lose her attention. I think I need to reframe the game. I'd like her stop and make eye contact before AND after going through a doorway. Because Iris has been practicing "make eye contact, go through door, stop paying attention to mom" for years, she's had trouble with the new rules. However, we have to go through two door to get outside of the condo so we have plenty of opportunity to practice.

Looking over these notes, I realized how much I have to make this stuff part of our daily life. A lot of this isn't things that I can work on only as part of training session. It's things I need to be aware of working on as we go through our daily activities.

Control Unleashed - Week Two

2010-03-04T22:18:00.000-05:00

The class is down to five dogs - two BCs, two Aussies, and a Golden. The 6th dog transferred to another class. The BC who was very reactive last week gets the award for most improved. The owner has clearly been spending a lot of time working with her dog. She mentioned they were doing private lessons in addition to CU class. It's definitely paying off!

We started class with massage again. Iris was much more relaxed this week than she was last week. For the rest of class, one dog was working (or two for parallel games) and the other dogs were on their mats either working on attention or "Look at That."

Parallel Games
The first thing we worked on was parallel games. Emma had two rows of jumps set up (one row was three jumps, and the other row was two jumps and a table) parallel to each other. The jumps were set at 4 inches, so all the dogs in class just could just step over them. The dogs all stay on-leash.

The first time we went, Emma had one dog start earlier than the other so we weren't exactly parallel. Next, we turned around and Emma had the dogs start together, so we were actually walking next to the other dog. I had Iris on the outside with myself between her and the other dog. She really didn't seem bothered by the dog walking parallel to her. I think the jumps helped because she had something to think about. Walking back was definitely harder for her because we were walking straight toward the dogs who weren't working. When Iris started to get stressed, Emma had us pause and play the "Look at That" game until Iris started focusing again. Each dog got to go down and back twice.

Off-Switch
Next we worked on the off-switch game. The purpose is for the dog to learn how to alternate between being revved up and then settling down quickly. Emma had a box of ring gates set up and each dog went in individually to work on this game. We were supposed to rev our dogs up by playing with them for 30 seconds. Then we'd stop playing and either wait for the dog to offer the default behavior or ask for the behavior we want to be the default (depending on the dog). As soon as the dog settled down and offered the default, we started playing again. The reason for the second round of play was so that the game wasn't ending after the dog offered the default. A fast was to ruin a good behavior is to have it mean the end of fun things! After another 30 seconds, Emma had us end the game, giving a release word in a neutral and uneventful tone.

Other dogs playing is a huge trigger for Iris. I moved her away from the ring-gate box and worked on LAT while the other dogs played. She did a pretty good job. She did do a little bit of quiet woofing and huffing but not actually exploding. I could get her focused again pretty quickly.

When it was Iris' turn to play, she refused to touch the toy. I brought her tuggy-fox to class, which is usually a favorite at home but I've never gotten her to tug in class before. Actually, I think the only toy she's ever played with in class is her screaming monkey (thank you Julie!) Screaming monkey is really her favorite, but I was worried about monkey being too much noise for the other dogs in CU class. Off-switch is something we'll have to practice at home.

Most people used a toy for tug, but the Golden's owner did some gentle wresting with him. They were actually really interesting to watch. The Golden wasn't mouthy at all and he was clearing having a blast. We talked about different ways of playing with our dogs. Emma asked us to think about different ways to play with our dogs, whether we really needed a toy or not, and could we use a toy or game to distract our dogs from a situation if we needed to. She mentioned that being able to play with your dog without a toy can be a really good and useful way of engaging (and distracting) your dog if you need to.

Reorienting
Emma set up two ring gates with a gap in the middle to make a "doorway." Emma had us take a step forward and then wait quietly for the dog to reorient ("reorient" depended on the dog. For some dogs, it was looking up and making eye contact. If a dog was really distracted, it could be just turning an ear toward the handler). We'd c/t for reorienting and after the dog reoriented a couple of times, take a step forward and repeat the process.

Emma wanted us to make sure we didn't have anything in our hands and our hands were down by our sides. She didn't want us luring the dog's attention (so the dog isn't thinking "I'm only supposed to pay attention to mom when she has food!" It should be that you're acting not very exciting and then treats appear for reorienting!)

Iris had a lot of trouble with this. The ring gates were in the center of the room and Iris started to stress as soon as I wasn't actively engaging her. She kept giving the deep little woofs at the other dogs. Not exploding but definitely treading right on her threshold line. She did manage to reorient to me a couple of times.

Mat Races (more Parallel Games)
The last thing we did was mat races, which is basically another form of the parallel game from the beginning of class. The same as before, we did this two dogs at a time. This time we had the dogs' mats at one end of the room and had to run to the mat from the other side of the room. When we got to the mats, the dogs had to down on the mat. Iris did really well with this. I didn't get her running, we just did a really fast walk. The other dog was running and Iris did manage to keep her attention mostly on me. I think by this point in the class she was starting to get a little brain-fried, so I didn't want to push it too hard.

Overall, it was a really good class. Iris was a little more tense than she was last week, but there was also a lot more moving around this week.

Control Unleashed - Week One

2010-02-27T22:11:00.013-05:00

Iris started her Control Unleashed class (taught by Emma Parsons) at the MSPCA on Wednesday. The class is based pretty closely on Leslie McDevitt's book, Control Unleashed. If you haven't read the book yet, I highly recommend it. The basic goal of the class is to learn focus and self-control.

Our class is six dogs with a huge range of personalities. There's a sound sensitive BC who gets nervous around sudden changes in the environment, an very friendly Golden who wants to go say hi to everyone, an Aussie who also wants to visit everyone but not quite to the extreme of the Golden, and a VERY reactive dog who I think think is a BC (Emma had the dog stay mostly behind a barrier so the dog wasn't getting overwhelmed by all the other dogs in the room). There was also a mixed breed (looks a little like a Bearded Collie, but bigger with a coarser coat and all white) who is really pretty well behaved but is taking CU before starting agility.

Massage
In her book, Leslie emphasizes starting each class with massage or TTouch as a way to connect with your dog. Emma told the class that she thinks this is one of the hardest parts of class for the dogs. Iris agrees! One of the easiest ways for me to manage Iris around other dogs is to have her actively doing something (hang targeting, the space game, etc). Asking her to "just be" while I massaged her on her mat was very hard for her. I'm thinking about picking up a book on TTouch.

Look at That!
The next thing we worked on was the "Look at That" game (LAT). Essentially, you click and treat you dog every time she looks at the stimulus (something that is either concerning or exciting). For Iris, this is other dogs. It's important to c/t before the dog starts having a reactive response so the dog learns it is possible to notice another dog without exploding!

Emma said to feed the treat so that the dog has to turn back to you. In Iris' case, the other dogs were toward her right and I was offering the treat slightly toward her left. She had to break her stare (I was only letting her look for a second before I'd click, so it wasn't much of a stare) and reorient toward me for her reward. Emma told us eventually what will happen is the stimulus will become a cue to reorient to the handler. "Hey mom, did you see me looking at that other dog? Where is my cookie?" Then you can start to c/t the resulting eye contact. Emma mentioned in the future it will be good to start with LAT in any new distracting environment. When the dog relaxes, shift your criteria to rewarding for the resulting eye contact.

Leslie says, "A dog that is strongly conditioned to watch his handler no matter what doesn't get the chance to learn to cope with his environment."

I think that really sums up why LAT works. The dog learns a structured way to deal with the stimulus. "I look at the dog, I turn back toward mom, I get a cookie!" By c/t each time the dog looks, it becomes a trick instead of the beginning of a reactive response. Plus, you get the added bonus of classical conditioning - another dog appearing means cookies.

Iris did really well with this exercise in class, although we went through a lot of cookies! By the end of class, she was actually alternating between looking at the other dogs and choosing to offer eye contact (depending on how much movement there was in the room). I was rewarding both. She made it through the entire class without exploding once!

Default Behavior
The next thing we talked about was default behaviors. The ultimate goal of a default behavior is that the dog will offer it when you haven't given another cue.

Leslie explains it better, "These are behaviors that the dog automatically gives you when he wants something from you or doesn't know what to do and is asking for more information."

So, if you stop to chat with someone while out of a walk, the dog will offer the default. Or if the dog is getting excited while you're making dinner, she offers the default. A few different behaviors you could choose from are sit, down, hand targeting, or eye contact. I chose to use sit.

In the center of the room, Emma had set up a box of ring gates. She then had each student bring their dog individually into the box to practice the default. While one dog was in the box working, a second dog and handler walked around the box. The other four dogs in class were spread out around the room on mats working on LAT. The room we're in is the smallest place I've taken a class. Emma said it was about half the size of the other location she teaches at (Masterpeace), and I think she's right. The dogs are fairly close together.

Iris did really well. When it was her turn in the box I was cuing the sit, taking a step back, and asking her to sit again. At this point, there was too much distraction for Iris to offer any behavior on her own. Having a cue helped. Actually, I was really happy she was able to be in the center of the room surrounded by dogs and still able to work with me. When it was Iris' turn to walk around the room, she also did REALLY well. I was more worried about this than being in the box. At least inside the box, she had a visual barrier between her and the other dogs. Walking around the room, she had to pass dogs without any barrier. She stayed with me and offered a lot of eye contact. Good girl!

Targeting
Iris is an old pro at hand targeting. It's one of the things I use a lot to manage her around other dogs. Before Iris explodes, she stares at the other dog for a few seconds. If I can break the stare by asking her to turn and target, I interrupt her explosion. I think partly because it's been rewarded so many times, it's one of her favorite tricks. One thing we did in class that I actually haven't really worked on with Iris is moving when I ask her to target. If I'm walking and ask Iris to touch, will she? She had trouble with it in class but has since done great with it at home.

Whiplash Turn
To get the whiplash turn in class, Emma had us toss a treat. After the dog ate the treat, we'd say the dog's name. As the dog is turning back to you, c/t. You want to c/t for the movement of turning toward you. Ultimately, you want to the turning back to you so quickly at the sound of her name, she might get whiplash!

This one has been surprisingly hard for Iris. In class, I thought she was just very overstimulated, but she's also had trouble with it at home. I think I have to reevaluate how we're practicing this at home, but since this post is getting little long, I'm going to make a second post about our homework.

In class, I had Iris wearing her Gentle Leader. While we were working on the whiplash turn, I noticed that Iris does not like to look up at me if she has the GL on. She will look up with her eyes, but she won't turn her head up to look at me. When we were working on LAT, I was sitting on the floor with her on her mat so I didn't notice this. I'm debating about whether I want to try her without the GL next week or not.

Doggie Zen
For doggie zen, you hold a treat out to the side and wait until the dog makes eye contact with you. The dog learns that making eye contact is the way to get what she wants. I've played this before with Iris, so she really didn't have any problem with it in class.

Go to Mat
We've been working on this a lot at home before class started. Mats seems like they're a pretty important part of CU - both going to the mat on cue and then relaxing on the mat. In the book, "go to mat" included in some of the more advanced exercises so I wanted to have it trained or at least mostly trained before class started. I'd just put it on cue at home a few days earlier. Since Iris is just starting to understand the cue with no distractions, I didn't even bother cuing it in class. I did get her to offer the behavior a few times and rewarded her for that. It was the very last thing we worked on in class, so we only went over it briefly. I'm glad I already have a head start with Iris.

We have a lot to work on now! I already feel like I've gotten a lot out of this class.

Westminster

2010-02-17T21:05:00.002-05:00

In case anyone hasn't seen these, I thoroughly enjoyed the Westminster photography from the Boston Globe. Very nice work!

Vet Vist

2010-02-14T11:47:00.006-05:00

Time for a more positive update! Iris had a visit with Dr C on Wednesday morning. We had been planning on switching to acupuncture every two weeks with this week being our week off. With Iris' seizures last weekend, we decided to do a visit this week and have next week be the off week.

We had a very nice appointment with Dr C, and I feel a lot better about her seizures last weekend. I felt like it was a big set back, but Dr C thinks we actually saw some good improvement. She went about 5 weeks between seizures, which is a little longer than her usual roughly 4 weeks. Also, she had 3 seizures with about 10 min between them. I thought this time period seemed worse than before when she was going 2-3 hrs between seizures. Dr C pointed out that last weekend her entire episode lasted about 20 min. In the past, it's been an 8-10 hour affair. Interesting, I hadn't looked at it that way. Also thinking about it some more, she recovered from her seizures faster than she has in the past. After the seizures, I fed her breakfast and we curled up on the couch and went back to sleep. No pacing, no desperately trying to steal food (in the past, even breakfast wouldn't have been enough). By the afternoon, she was acting back to normal. Not spacey like she usually is.

We're going to continue with the acupuncture on an every-other-week schedule for now. Also, Dr C put Iris on Cholodin, a Choline supplement.

Choline is a B vitamin-like molecule that is naturally produced by the human body. The body uses choline to produce certain brain chemicals, to mobilize fat, for normal transmission of nerve impulses, and is used for a range of body functions... Studies show that it may be an excellent memory tonic having positive effects on our thought processes and mental well-being, as well as muscle control. (NutriHerb.net)

In addition to being good for the brain, choline also has positive effects on the liver. Even though that's not the reason Iris is getting it, it's a nice little bonus given the possible side effects of phenobarbital she's also on.

Dr C also wants to start Iris on a Chinese herb. I can't remember the name of it right now. It was back-ordered so Dr C didn't have any when we were in there. I got a call on Fri saying that they did get it in, so I have to go pick that up too. I feel like we're slowly getting on the right track even if my kitchen does look like a pharmacy of doggie prescriptions and supplements!

Overwhelmed

2010-02-07T23:30:00.002-05:00

Just to give everyone a quick update. Iris had three more seizures over the weekend. They were very close together - about 10 min between each seizure. That's unusual for her. She usually goes about 2 hrs between seizures. I am bummed. She was doing so well. I was thinking about it, and Iris did get a few different points during her acupuncture appointment last week. We were planning ongoing two weeks between appointments this time (we've been going weekly). That's why she got the additional points this time. Did that change things? I'm going to call Dr C in the morning to see what he says.

I'm on a canine epilepsy email list and there was a recent discussion about dogs that were retired from agility after starting phenobarb because of the lethargy, ataxia, and weight gain associated with the drug. It made me a bit depressed. The list ranges from being very informative to being very sad. Don't get me wrong, the list members are extremely supportive of one another. It is just difficult to read about dogs deteriorating so quickly. I think in some ways it's not an accurate sampling of the population. The people with dogs that are doing well are not the ones posting on the list.

The overwhelmed part is mostly because of a big project at work. Basically, I'm working for 8 hrs and then going into Boston to shoot restaurant exteriors from 6:00 to 9:30. Very long days and very cold nights! I am exhausted, but Iris thinks this new schedule is VERY cool. The only way I can manage to work the long hrs and still get Iris her meds on time is to bring her to work with me. She's thrilled! And she's getting tons of exercise walking around Boston, which is good because Dr C wants her to lose a few pounds. Just in case I disappear for while, it's because I'll be working late for the rest of the month most likely, not because anything has happened to Iris.

On a much lighter note, the one night I won't be working late is Wednesdays. Iris is starting class again this week and I refuse to miss it! It will be the first time I've had her in a regular class since last summer (probably July?) Much too long. I miss being in a class. This one is a Control Unleashed class, and I'm really looking forward to it! After that, I'm hoping to get her back into agility. Maybe that's why the discussion about retiring agility dogs on phenobarb depressed me. Just because Iris will be 7 years old in May doesn't mean I'm ready to retire her yet.

Holding My Breath

2010-01-30T10:33:00.003-05:00

It's been 4 1/2 weeks since Iris' last seizure. Iris generally goes 3-5 weeks between seizures, so we're pretty solidly in her "red zone." I haven't posted about it because I've been very afraid of jinxing a good thing, but I did get a couple of photos from Iris' last acupuncture appointment.

Iris has gotten more relaxed around Dr C, which is good. Last week, the only time she really flinched was for the two midway down her back. She was definitely uncomfortable for that but such a good girl, she just twitched her muscles like a horse shrugging off a fly and keep still for Dr C.

Dr C told me that the point in the center on the top of the head increases blood flow to the brain. When Dr C took his final acupuncture exam, every one in his class had a needle in that point on the top of their heads. Too funny! If you look closely at the next photo, you can see the three needles across the top of Iris' head - the one in the center and the two "bug antennae" near her ears. You might have to click on the photo to make it larger to get a good look.

Once all the needles are in, we wait for 15-20 min and Iris pretty much just lays down and hangs out. She was demanding belly rubs but I couldn't get a photo of that. She says "Hey mom, put your face-box away and get back to petting me!" She's too fluffy to really see many of the needles once they're in. There's one near her right rear paw that you can see.

We're going to do another appointment next week (that will be acupuncture treatment #5) and then I think the plan is to spread her visits out a little more depending on how she's doing. The longest she's ever gone between seizures is 6 weeks, and that was last summer when she first started on Keppra. I'm holding my breath for the next two weeks.

Six Words

2010-01-29T19:42:00.002-05:00

Patricia McConnell recently lost her dog, Lassie. She wrote a short story for Lassie in the style of a challenge Ernest Hemingway gave to his friends. McConnell suggested that her readers do the same, and it seems like quite a few bloggers have joined in. I think it's a very cool way to celebrate your dog.

My six words for the red dog:

Hiking! Happy dance. I am yours.

No News

2010-01-14T20:54:00.000-05:00

No news is good news! I really don't have anything new to report about Iris' epilepsy. The funny thing about epilepsy is that's the whole goal of treating it - to have no news. Right now Iris is laying at my feet while I type, acting perfectly happy and healthy. If you didn't know Iris and met her on the street right now, you'd think she's completely healthy. That's the funny thing about it. The point isn't to alleviate a symptom, it's to prevent one.

At least that's the way it seems. Although maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. From a TCM perspective if there's an imbalance in Iris' Qi, then we are treating the problem and not just preventing it. I admit it, even though I know this is a 50/50 shot I'm really hoping it works. And really trying not to get my hopes up too high. Still, one of these days we're going to get a break, aren't we?

Iris had her second acupuncture on Tuesday. It went well, Iris was very good and very relaxed. She got more needles this time than last. Three across her forehead, one right between her eyes, two behind her ears, one between her shoulder blades, two midway down her back, one a few inches above her tail, one on each of her back legs, and one on the inside of each of her "ankles" (I write this down mostly so that I can keep track of it for my own curiosity!) 14 needles total. Iris only flinched once. It was for one of the needles behind her ear. Other than that, she was completely relaxed.

The 27th will be four weeks since Iris' last seizure. That means we should be able to get in one more appointment next week and then her fourth appointment will be on 27th. Iris has not gone longer than 6 weeks between seizures since this started, and she hasn't managed that since last summer. Holding my breath.

Acupuncture

2010-01-06T20:19:00.004-05:00

Iris finished out 2009 with a couple more seizures. Had to end it with some sort of bang, didn't you Iris? Iris' last seizure actually happened while I was at work, which is very unusual for her (she usually has them at night) and was on the one night where I didn't go straight home from work, which is very unusual for me. Because Iris lost bowel control during the seizure, I'm pretty sure she was a nightmare for my roommate to come home to. I only saw the mess in the crate when I got home, but if the crate was any reflection of what the dog looked like, she was a complete mess. By the time I got home, Iris was shiney clean from her bath, had gotten her meds, and been fed her dinner (which included the job of chopping up raw beef heart). You know you have a good roommate when she'll bathe your sh*t covered dog without a single complaint. I think I'll keep her around :)

Now it's a New Year, and it's time for a new treatment plan for Iris! Iris had her first acupuncture visit yesterday. Dr Caviness was very gentle with Iris. The first thing he did when he got in the room was kneel down to give Iris a couple of cookies. Then he gave her a couple of minutes to check him out while we talked. Very nice for my dog who can be nervous around men!

While we were going over Iris' history, we talked very briefly about her diet. Dr. C seemed pretty knowledgeable and was supportive of Iris' raw diet. His only suggestion was adding a multivitamin daily (and definitely keep giving bone daily. A vet who's ok with bone!) I've been giving a multivitamin somewhat sporadically. He did say the brand I'm using is a good one (Vetri-Science Canine Plus).

Dr C said her coat and overall condition are great but actually said she's looking a little pudgy! She's gained two pounds since her last vet trip (November) which is probably because of the phenobarbital. It's definitely something to pay attention to and I agree, she is looking a little heavier than she was a couple months ago. He asked about heartworm preventative and I told him I have been giving it year round. Dr C suggested taking her off the hw preventative for the winter to give her body a break. He even noticed her slightly pink front paws, which I'm pretty sure is a stress/boredom behavior for her. She rarely licks her paws when I'm home. It's only when I'm at work.

We talked about her seizure pattern. He asked if I could think of anything that triggers her seizures, and I really can't. Other than the regular time interval, and there's nothing else in my life that occurs at roughly 4 week intervals. I mentioned that Iris' regular vet thinks she has epilepsy and the ER vet thought I should be considering a brain tumor or just about anything other than epilepsy because of her age. Dr C thinks that even though Iris had just turned 6 when the seizures started, epilepsy was still the most likely candidate. Also he said if it was a brain tumor, I probably would have seen a lot more progression by now. So that's very unlikely. Phew!

So now what? Because Iris is on two different medications and we've been increasing her meds without any significant improvement, Dr C agrees that Iris is a good candidate for acupuncture. He did tell me that about 50% of dogs have dramatic improvement with acupuncture but for the other 50%, it doesn't seem to do much. I am glad he gave me realistic expectations. If Iris responds well to acupuncture, Dr C has had success with gold bead implants for epilepsy patients (it works like a "permanent" acupuncture). If Iris doesn't respond to acupuncture, Dr C has also had success with Chinese herbs. For now, he'd like to try one thing at a time.

Next, Iris got her first acupuncture treatment. Three needles across the top of her head, two behind her ears, two on her back, and two on her ankles. I wish I had a camera with me. Two of the ones on top of her head looked like antennae and they moved whenever she moved her ears. It was adorable and pretty comical too. Iris didn't even flinch when Dr C inserted the needles, and she didn't seem bothered by them at all while they were in. Nice and easy for the red dog.

The plan now is to do acupuncture every week for four weeks and then reevaluate where we're at. Iris' last seizure was on December 30th, so we should be able to get in a couple of acupuncture visits before she's "due" for a seizure.

Happy Holidays

2009-12-22T22:50:00.000-05:00

Wishing everyone a very happy holiday season!

Snow Day!

2009-12-20T13:39:00.004-05:00

It sounds like we got a lot less snow than our more southern friends. I'd say we got about six inches and it looks like it's slowing down. We actually have a pretty good amount of snow on the ground, but some of it is left over from the last snowfall. Since the older snow has a layer of ice on top, Iris can walk on top of it. It looks like we have barely anything on the ground.

A certain red dog has been stuck in the house for a little too long. There's a little field in right outside the condo so we went out to get some exercise.

snow + long line = very happy red dog

All of the tracks in the snow were made by Iris. Think she had a good time?

Four Weeks

2009-12-18T20:49:00.005-05:00

The goal was to get Iris to go 2 months without any seizures. That was one of the big reasons for starting her on Phenobarbital. Since her seizures started, Iris has averaged about four weeks between clusters. She's always been in the the 3-5 week range, usually right around 4.

Since starting on Pb, she managed to go four weeks to the day between seizures. Actually, it was four weeks almost to the hour. She passed the four week mark by about 2 hrs. Damn it. The low dose of Pb didn't buy her any more time. The two seizures she had on Sunday morning (last weekend) were a little longer than "normal" for Iris. I gave her Valium during the second seizure and she came right out of it. No more seizures after that although the Valium made her really out of it for the rest of the day. At least Valium actually does something.

I held off on acupuncture while we were gradually increasing her Pb dose (to help with the ataxia she gets from Pb). I wanted to only change one thing at a time in case she suddenly got worse, but now her med dosage is consistent so acupuncture is our "next step". I want to give it a shot before we increase her meds yet again. Since Iris' seizures started, none of the medication changes have increased the time between seizures. She was going roughly four weeks before we started her on meds. It's definitely time to try something else.

Snow Herding

2009-12-08T19:15:00.004-05:00

Between getting Iris' seizures under control and getting my car issues sorted out, it's been two months since Iris' last herding lesson! I didn't realize it had been that long. Goes to show just how crazy life has been.

I thought we were going to get snowed out of our lesson, but we ended up getting a lot less snow than they predicted. Hooray!

Hey! I thought moving north meant more snow!

We got there early so we could watch some of Julie and Bug's lesson. It's been a while since I've seen Bug work and he is really fun to watch. Plus, I always learn a lot just from watching. There was another CWC there for a lesson too (the red dog was out numbered by the short dogs!), and he was very vocal while he worked. It's always really interesting to see how different dogs have different "styles."

When it was Iris' turn to work sheep, it was really hard to motivate her. Initially, she seemed interested but after getting corrected for lunging at sheep a couple of times, she pretty much checked out. The first time I brought her in the pen, I had her on a long line and the goal was to keep her moving and encourage her to fetch sheep. With the long line, it's easier to get her working again when she starts to check out. We've done the same thing during the last couple of lessons. The second time I worked Iris, we focused on driving and trying to get Iris motivated. I think she was pretty much fried for the day.

I've been thinking a lot about the lesson and I admit it, I was a little discouraged when we left. It seems like Iris used to have a lot more interest in sheep, did great at the Jan Wesen clinic, and since then she's really quit on me. Sometimes it seems like she does want to play, and then sometimes all she wants to do is glue her nose to the ground. It feels like she is a lot more stressed out than she used to be. Stressing my dog out wasn't the reason I got started in herding.

I think the problem is that Iris doesn't really understand what's expected of her (hence all the stress sniffing). I was thinking about it, and Iris tends to shut down if she's wrong. In agility, I'd lose her if I screwed up a sequence too many times. She'd start to get stressed. If I do any shaping with her, I have to be really careful about raising my criteria too fast or else she'll quit completely. Bad handler, the only feedback she was really getting during herding was "don't lunge at sheep like a crazy dog." From Iris' prespective what was she supposed to do? Ignore the sheep?

I know Diane said this to me during the lesson. MANY times. I need to remember to praise my dog when she's doing it right. If I'm excited and happy, she'll be excited and happy. Iris is extremely sensitive to my mood. I have to remember this! Iris loves verbal praise. The other day, I was working on "go to mat" with her and I was just using a click/treat as the reward. She was able to go all the way across the room to lie down on the mat, but she was very slow. Without thinking about it, one time when I rewarded her I told her what a good girl she was, petted her, and said "are you reeeaaaady? go!" She bounded over to the mat and slamed into a down. I know some people like to use purely a c/t as reward, but it doesn't work for my dog. She likes being told she's brilliant! It's only a reward if your dog thinks it's a reward! I think praise needs to be part of the reward for Iris.

So that was my little epiphany last night. If a "good girly!" can completely change Iris' demenor during a simple training game in my living room, then of course it would matter to her during herding. How many times did Diane try to tell me that? Too many to count! I tend to be quiet in general, and I'm not always good at giving Iris verbal feedback. Especially if I'm trying to think about what I'm doing at the same time, I forget to talk to her. I had the same problem in agility. If I remembered where to put my feet and where to hold to my arm, I probably forgot to actually say "tunnel."

The plan for next lesson is to start with sheep. We'll do the same thing with the long line and fetching and trying to get her motivated. Then Iris will get a break and the second time she works, we're going to try ducks. Starting on sheep will give Iris a chance to get some of her energy out, and switching to ducks should hopefully change the game enough for her that she'll want to keep playing. And I have to remember to tell her she's perfect!

Pink Elephants

2009-11-18T23:47:00.003-05:00

Iris had a rough couple of days last weekend. Eleven seizures in 36 hours.

She started seizing every couple hours Fri night. I got her in to see her regular vet first thing on Saturday morning (lucky us! Her regular vet happened to be the vet available to squeeze us in), and we decided to start Iris on a low does of Phenobarbital. Iris didn't tolerate a high dose well last time we tried it. Also, she got a Valium injection while we were there. Usually the side effect of Valium is drowsiness. Not so for Iris. She gets really loopy and off balance, but not drowsy. Not quite on this planet mentally but not ready for dreamland either.

We decided to start Iris on a very low dose of Pb to help her adjust to it (about 1/3 of what a dog her size would start on if starting on only Pb). She'll also stay on her full dose of Keppra so that we can keep her on a lower amount of Pb. In 2 weeks, we'll double her Pb (so 2/3 of a "normal" dose).

The Valium on Sat bought Iris roughly a 6 hr break from seizing. Dr K sent me home with a couple doses of Valium, which bought us another break from seizing but still didn't interrupt her cycle. She was back to seizing as soon as it wore off. At that point, I gave her a higher dose of Pb and that seemed to do the trick. No more seizures since Sunday morning, and I've weaned her back to the very low dose.

Interesting enough, Phenobarbital doesn't make Iris drowsy either. She's been very out of it mentally, and at the beginning of the week she would not relax. She was very sniffy, sniffing everything in the house multiple times. Acting very nervous, pacing, panting, not sleeping through the night. Jumping at little sounds. She was so mentally out of it that she was having trouble with basic commands and housebreaking. Iris never has accidents in the house, but unless I was taking her out every 2 hrs, she wasn't remembering to go outside. Pb makes her thirsty so she was drinking more water than usual which wasn't helping. Also, Iris really looked like she was hallucinating? She was very worried, eyes darting around the room looking at nothing in particular. It was taking her longer to recognize people/things. I'm pretty sure she was seeing pink elephants. Or maybe heffalumps and woozles.

Thankfully, Iris seems like she's finally getting back to normal. Last night was the first night where she didn't look like she was hallucinating and she was actually able to relax on the couch while I worked on a project. We both got a good night's sleep.

This was by far her worst round of seizures yet. I'm not sure what triggered it. I've been without a car for the last couple weeks and have been running on my roommate's schedule. Her schedule is a lot less consistent than mine meaning Iris' schedule was really varied. Did that throw Iris off? Or my roommate had been working on an art project on Thurs. Did the glues from that set her off? I wish I knew.

For now, the plan is to keep Iris on both Pb and Keppra in hopes of keeping her on a lower dose of Pb long term. The goal is to go 2 months without any seizures, and at that point we'll think about lowering her meds, probably the Keppra dose. I've also been doing some research on acupuncture. Some dogs have pretty positive results, so I think that's going to be our next step. Does anyone know a vet who does acupuncture in the area that they'd recommend?

Seven Groups

2009-11-01T09:02:00.002-05:00

I've seen this on a few different blogs now and figured I'd play too.

IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE A DOG FROM EACH CKC/AKC "GROUP," WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WHY? (excluding your own breeds)

Group 1- Sporting
Group 2- Hound
Group 3- Working
Group 4- Terriers
Group 5- Toys
Group 6- Non Sporting
Group 7- Herding

Sporting - I had a tough time with this one. From a purely visual stand point, there is definitely a reason that Wegman's breed of choice is the Weimaraner. I can't think of a breed with a better coat to photograph than the short silver coat of a Weim. However for a breed that I'd want to live with, I have to go with a Vizsla. Makin and Tessa are great ambassadors for their breed!

Hound Group - After living with a scent hound, I would have to pick a sighthound (sorry Henry!) instead. I've meet a couple of Rhodesian Ridgebacks, and they have great personalities. I think it would be fun to try lure coursing someday. Also, I really like the look of Salukis but I've never had the chance to actually meet one.

Working Group - My first choice would have to be a Portuguese Water Dog. I came very close to getting a PWD after I lost my Wheaten. I love their personality, and I really like dogs that have some coat. Right now I don't think I have time to manage a PWD's coat, but I do enjoy grooming so maybe someday. I really like Siberian Huskies as well. I love dogs who are smart with an independent streak! Maybe that's from growing up with a terrier. I've met a few Bernese Mountain Dogs who are awesome dogs, and I saw a few of them at a herding clinic. They were really fun to watch!

Terrier Group - I do really like the terrier group. Such big personalities in little dog bodies! I think my top choice would actually be one of the taller terriers. I really like Irish Terriers, especially since they don't need as much grooming as a Wheaten or a Kerry Blue (although maybe someday...) I like JRTs a lot as well.

Toy Group - I'm not really a small dog person. My ideal size for a dog is around 45 lbs. Not too big, not too small. That said, if I was going to get a small dog, it would probably be a Papillon. I actually did look at a Papillon (who was large for the breed) at a shelter before I looked at Iris. I admit, a small dog would have made more sense in an apartment but I just really like the herding breed personality the best.

Non-Sporting Group - I had the hardest time with this group. I think I would go with a Keeshond. I do like their personality, although I would worry about all of that coat in the summer.

Herding Group - There are too many herding breeds I like! I'm not certain which breed other than Aussie would actually be my top choice. I like Kelpies a lot, and they might be my second choice right now. If I was going to get a bigger dog, I think I would go with a Belgian Shepherd. I like Border Collies, but I've never actually spent much time with a BC. I'd like to actually get to know the breed a little better. What is funny, almost everyone who asks me what breed of dog Iris is asks if she's a BC. Strange! I think it might be that the general public thinks every medium size herding dog is a BC? Another breed I'd like to learn more about is the Pyrenean Shepherd.

Herding Lesson

2009-10-08T20:51:00.003-04:00

Last Sunday, Iris has a herding lesson with Diane. It was Iris' first lesson with Diane (same location as the Jan Wessen clinic). It was GREAT! I think we've finally settled on a herding instructor. :-)

Julie and Bug also had a lesson, so I got to watch them work as well. Sometimes I think you can learn just as much from watching someone's lesson as you do from having your own! It was one of things that I really liked about the "group class" feel of the last herding instructor we worked with and definitely something I don't want to miss.

Diane had me work Iris on a shorter line initally, walking her around and asking for stops and downs, having her change direction, and having her "walk up." When I dropped the line, Iris was full of piss and vinegar and quite happy to chase sheep. We sort of worked on getting Iris to bring sheep to me. Something Diane said that stood out for me was to let Iris bring me the sheep. I feel like I should be doing something, but that's not really the point of herding. The dog is supposed to be doing the work!

Because Iris wanted to rush the sheep, Diane had me loop the line around Iris' chest making a sort of no-pull harness. Also, when Iris would lunge, I'd change direction. I think she figured it out pretty quickly. Diane had us walk up to sheep and then try to keep the sheep in a corner. Trying to keep the sheep in a specific place really helped me see where I (and my dog) needed to be in relation to the sheep. It's easy to get sheep to move; it's much harder to get them somewhere specific!

Diane pointed out that Iris definitely wants to work on Iris' terms. She is quite happy to bust in like the kool-aid man and run sheep around, but as soon as I stop her from acting like a nut, she doesn't want to play any more. Then she'd rather sniff around, check out the sheep in the other pen, chase butterflies, whatever. She'll herd sheep all day long if she can herd her way. As soon as I ask her to herd my way, she doesn't really want to play anymore. This is very typical of Iris.

Diane had some good ideas about keeping Iris in the game. She had me put Iris on a very long line, so I could keep Iris moving around the pen when she'd try to quit. Even though it was a challenge to juggle the long line, rake, dog and sheep, it helped a lot. No more quitting Aussie! After that, we worked on driving the sheep around the pen. Diane had me keep Iris and the sheep moving and just tried to get her excited about the sheep. Since Iris seems to border between being really excited about sheep and then not wanting to play at all because she thinks my rules are no fun, I thought it was a good way to end the lesson.

After our lessons, Julie and I were chatting with Diane. Julie wants to try for Bug's PT in the spring. When Diane asked what my plans are for Iris, it caught me completely off-guard. I'd pretty much written off trialing Iris because she can be so reactive and gets so stressed by crowds, dogs, etc. I hadn't actually thought about doing anything with herding other than lessons. I didn't even expect Iris to work at the Jan Wessen clinic. I was very aware that the number of people and dogs could shut her down, and that was ok. However, Iris had no problem working! I was very pleasantly surprised. So I guess the other pleasant surprise is that Diane thinks Iris won't have any problems with a herding trial. Based on how Iris did at the herding clinic, I think Diane is right. She seemed to think Iris would be ready for something (HT? PT? She wasn't specific) in the spring.

Blanket

2009-10-06T20:56:00.003-04:00

The blanket wasn't even in her crate to begin with.

My retribution is that if she breaks it, she wears it. Think she'll behave herself tomorrow?

Someone is under-stimulated... I might have to start running her instead of walking her before I leave for work. And maybe leaving her crate further away from my blankets.

Music

2009-09-26T10:46:00.002-04:00

Normally, I hate websites with background music. However, I stumbled across this website and I have to admit the background music is pretty cute.

New House, More Seizures

2009-09-20T11:43:00.001-04:00

I haven't been particularly good about keeping this blog updated lately, although there hasn't really been much to tell either. We're pretty much settled into the new place now. Iris handled the transition very well. I think Iris is an old pro at moving. This is the third place I've lived in since I adopted her, and before that she had four other homes. She's lived in at least 7 places in her 6 years of life, not including the breeder or the shelter. That's enough to make MY head spin.

I did have to deal with a "boundary testing" stage. Yes, all of the same rules still apply in the new house. Iris just needed to check. Multiple times. However, she's been VERY good while I've been at work. There have been various people in and out of the condo (electrician, plumber, etc), and I've been told that Iris is quiet as a mouse. Quiet? My dog? I think the change has been good for her. The condo complex is A LOT quieter than the apartment. No screaming kids outside of my bedroom window.

We've done a little exploring in some of the local parks, but we haven't found a close one that I'm excited about yet. Iris isn't picky though. Any old park will do. A parking lot is good enough as long as she gets to go for a walk. The other day we ran into another red merle Aussie at the park. Cool! It's the first time I've ever seen another red dog outside of a doggie event (agility and herding have a disproportionate number of Aussies compared to the general population so they don't count)! He was quite a bit bigger than Iris, heavier boned, and had a lot more coat. He made poor Iris look like a scrappy little pipsqueak. Although I admit it, I prefer the "scrappy Aussie" look to the "show Aussie" look.

Our exploring got sidelined last Saturday because Iris started having seizures again. We ended up at the ER vet on Sat night. She was seizing every 3 hrs almost on the dot. It seems like once she starts seizing like that, she gets "stuck." The ER vet was nice enough, although she didn't really have any insight for what set off this round of seizures. She seemed to think that Iris is too old for epilepsy (she's over 5 years old) but a little too young for a brain tumor and asked if I though maybe it was a toxicity? Could Iris have eaten a penny? It sort of went downhill from there. No, I think it is very unlikely that my 6 year old Aussie ate a penny. She picks and chooses which crumbs she'll eat off the floor. The vet also pretty much said that she didn't agree with the decision to start Iris on Keppra instead of phenobrab (a decision I made after a lot of discussion with my regular vet. Mostly I was just annoyed that she was openly second guessing the decision without knowing any of the reasons for it).

Iris did have a seizure at the ER vet, so she got a Valium injection and the ER vet started her on phenobarbital (they gave her a "loading dose" - a higher than normal dose to get her jump-started because it takes time for phenobarb to really start working). They shaved her front leg to give her the first dose of phenobarb via IV catheter and did a shoddy job of shaving her. Her poor leg is all scraped up now. I brought her home, and she was one drugged up pup. She could not keep her feet under her, and I had to carry her up the stairs into the condo. Mentally she was on another planet too. She'd urinated on herself at the ER vet and desperately needed a bath. In hindsight, I wish I had a video camera during the bath. She lay down in the tub completely spacing out the whole time. Getting her to flip over so I could get the other side wasn't easy! If you could have seen us, it was pretty comical. At least Iris didn't seemed stressed out by it. I don't think she knew she was in the bath.

I talked to Iris' regular vet on Monday morning. He still thinks epilepsy is the right diagnosis, and the reason she's still having siezures is that we haven't gotten her medication right. I've heard a few times (and the ER vet definitely seemed a little hung up on this) that seizures in a dog 5 years old and younger indicate epilepsy, but Iris is 6 years old. Iris' vet doesn't think that's such a rigid cutoff.

This is the second round of seizures since she started on medication. The dosage of keppra that Iris started on is on the low end of the dosage range. We talked again about what medication to put Iris on. The reason for putting Iris on keppra in the first place was to avoid the side effects of phenobarb. With that in mind, we decided to take her off phenobarb and increase the dose of keppra instead. Keeping fingers and paws crossed that will do the trick.

So far, she's gone a week without seizures. I actually think the 4 week mark will be more of a milestone for Iris. At least the side effects from the drugs have subsided. Her balance was really affected by the meds. On Sun she could barely keep her feet under her. Thurs night was the first time since Sat that Iris was actually walking normally. For much of the week, even standing up to relieve herself was a struggle. Her butt-puff is not-so-neatly trimmed as result, but at least it helped keep her clean. Mentally, she wasn't "all there" for the beginning of the week. Very spacey. Any sort of sudden noise would make her really jump. Wed she was finally acting more like herself and Thurs was the first night she was able to do stairs on her own. I'm not entirely certain which med she was reacting to (some of the side effects are the same), although I think the worst of it was phenobarb. It was another reason for taking her off of it. Her vet said it could take up to 30 days for her to fully regain her balance if we left her on phenobarb (some dogs adjust faster). Just because she was having trouble walking doesn't mean she didn't have energy.

At least she's back to herself now.

Jan Wesen Clinic

2009-09-14T22:36:00.000-04:00

A week ago, I brought Iris to an Intro to Herding clinic with Jan Wesen. It was worth every penny! I will definitely go to another clinic with Jan if I have the opportunity.

At the beginning of the day, Jan gave a lecture about herding basics. She has a good summary of this already on her website. She talked about the different commands used in herding (down, stop, out, back, go bye, away to me, walk). Jan teaches all of her dogs "out" (turn away from the stock and move away in a straight line until told to do something else) and "back" (back up in a straight line away from the stock). Jan mentioned that she uses "out" more with her Aussies and "back" with her Kelpies, although all her dogs know both. I think the difference is that Aussies are generally "loose eyed" and Kelpies are "strong eyed?" I hadn't realized there would be different command preferences for different herding styles, but it does make sense.

The two directional commands, "go by" and "away to me" mean to move around the stock in a circle, ideally without causing the stock to move. The length of the command helps the dog know how for to move. So "go" is a shorter distance than "goooo by." I thought it was very cool that dogs can learn these differences in the commands. You can do the same thing with "walk." "Walk" would be go slowly and "walkwalkwalk" is faster.

Jan talked a little bit about working with puppies. One on the things she suggested is pretty much the same as the space game that Katrin teaches in her beginning agility classes. I love this game because it's such a good way to get Iris to refocus. And it's applicable to so many different situations!

One other thing that Jan explained was how to teach herding commands with a toy instead of sheep. Iris isn't very toy motivated, but I think I could do it with a stuffed kong instead. I was able to find a kid's rake, so we should be able to get in some practice. I haven't been able to find a fenced in place to train yet, but there is a grassy area across from the condo where I could take Iris out on a long line.

After the lecture, all of the humans got to practice herding ducks. Two people had to move the ducks in a set pattern. Ducks are VERY sensitive to pressure. It was a great way to learn about pressure and balance points without worrying about a dog too. It only took a small amount of movement to put pressure on the ducks.

Next the dogs all got to do some herding. Each dog worked for only a short period of time, but I think they got to work about 7 times each over the course of the day! I felt like it was really good for Iris to get that many short sessions in one day. There was quite a variety of dogs, all different ages and breeds although I think almost all the dogs were very inexperienced in herding. If I remember correctly, the group had a bunch of Aussies, a few Collies (rough and smooth), a couple of BCs and Shelties, and a very cutie young CWC.

I could hear dogs barking in the cars during the lecture, and I have no doubt that Iris was one of those dogs. By the time I brought her out, she was pretty revved up. On top of that, Iris was the last dog to work. Even though she was VERY good about waiting, I had to work hard to keep her attention on me (and not on supervising everything else!)

The first exercise we did was walking the dogs through the pen. I think Jan used that as an opportunity to gauge each dog's interest in sheep. The second time I brought Iris in with the sheep, Jan came in with us. Iris was still VERY revved up. There's a reason I call her the Kool-Aid dog, and she was happy to demonstrate. I think we were supposed to be working on balance, although for Iris it turned into a "respect the rake" session.

We also did an exercise Jan calls "around the clock." You ask the dogs to preform every skill she needs (get around, stop/down, there, walk, out, get around, there, walk, back). We did it with the dogs on leash. Eventually, the handler should be able to stand in the middle of the pen and the dog should do everything off-leash. The goal is to have the dog reliably preforming all of the commands in a small pen before moving to a bigger pen.

Another exercise we did was driving. We kept the dogs on leash and had them drive the sheep around the pen. It's good for the dogs to learn that they can bring stock both to the handler and away from the handler. I think fetching and driving seem like they're very different concepts for the dogs to learn. Most of the dogs seemed like they would be happy to keep running circles around the sheep, so I can see how driving would be more difficult to learn. Jan said it's not only good for the dogs to learn both, but also it's good for the sheep. If you only work on fetching, the sheep learn that they're "safe" from the dog if they're on top of the handler.

The next thing we did was something Jan called "packed pen." It was a very small pen with three "light sheep." Iris did a lot better than I expected. I think by that point in the day she was starting to get tired. She was a lot less "wired" about being so close to the sheep. Interesting. The ultimate goal in "packed pen" is for the handler to stand outside while the dog works inside the pen.

After that, each dog got to work individually a few more times. I think we working on balance and flanking again? The dogs were off-leash for this exercise. Iris was much better than the first time I brought her out. She was less pushy and paying much better attention to the rake.

Also kind of cool, at the end of the day Jan asked me what Iris' breeding is. I told her, and she'd actually heard of Iris' breeder. Cool! I thought Iris is from a working line x conformation line cross. Pincie Creek definitely breeds working dogs, and Jan said that Dogone has a working line and a conformation line. I thought Iris was from Dogone's conformation line, but now Jan has me wondering. Either way, Jan told me I have a very nice dog.

Overall, I was VERY happy with how Iris did. The very first time I brought her herding was at a Tenley Dexter clinic. Iris was completely overwhelmed and had a lot of trouble working. During that clinic, she repeatedly went over to the fence while she was working to see what the people and dogs were doing outside the pen. Not so this time around! Iris was VERY focused while she was working. She actually ignored barking dogs (for the most part) while she was in with the sheep. By the end of the day, Iris had even gotten better about hanging out with me while we were waiting our turn. It was probably a combination of her being tired and her getting used to the environment over the course of the day. Either way, I was very happy that Iris was so willing to work with me in such a stimulating environment. This dog really loves herding.

Quiet

2009-08-25T23:07:00.003-04:00

All is quiet on the canine front. We haven't been doing much of anything lately. Ok, actually Iris hasn't gotten to do much of anything lately. I've painted every room in a 2 bedroom condo, moved countless boxes (many thanks to the local liquor store for free boxes) and all of my too-many plants, and have vowed never again take a "vacation" at the same time as my room mate. I think my vacation has been more work than my job! All that has left my poor dog severely neglected. Thank the dog gods for bully sticks. Not only does it keep her busy while she's chewing it, but also she always zonks out after she finishes. At least Iris is starting to relax more in the condo. The last of the furniture is getting moved in the weekend, so it will finally feel more like "home."

I am really starting to miss doing classes with her. Plus Iris is starting to get antsy too. I might be exhausted, but Iris hasn't gotten nearly enough exercise the last couple of weeks. I am taking her to one day of a Jan Wesen clinic on the 4th, so the red dog will get to do some sheep herding. After that, I think we'll probably hold off on group classes until after the Control Unleashed class in Oct. Maybe we'll try to get in some herding on the weekend or a drop in agility class. We'll see just how crazy my bored dog makes me. At the very least, I think there's a NADAC trial in Sept we should be able to watch for "being around other dogs" practice.

Who does that?

2009-08-11T20:48:00.006-04:00

First, an Aussie health update. So far, no seizures since last Wednesday night. I still think it had something to do with refilling the prescription. Iris has always been on the generic for Keppra; the only difference is where I got the prescription filled. The tablets look exactly the same from both prescriptions, so I think it's likely they were from the same manufacturer.

I know that using a generic drug for seizures is sometimes considered a little bit like playing with fire. For a generic to be bioequivalent to the name-brand, the FDA requires the generic's rate and extent of absorption to be between 20% below and 25% above (USPharmacist.com) the name brand. Seems like a large range to me. Ok, so I know there is variation between the generic and the name-brand, but I haven't been able to find out if the FDA allows variation within the generic. For example, if company X makes a generic drug that is 90% equivalent to the name-brand, do they always have to be 90% or are they allowed to vary between 80% and 125%?

Regardless of why Iris had a few seizures last week, she seems stable now. When I refill her prescription again, I'm going to ask the vet for a few doses of Valium just in case. Her prescription lasts 60 days, so hopefully she'll be ok until then.

Now a weave poles update. Or lack of weave poles update since that's what I seam to have. We finally got a break from the humidity tonight, so I decided to take Iris out for some weave pole practice. Because we're in the process of moving, I've been storing a few things under the stairs just outside of the apartment (we live in a basement apartment). It's only a few things, and only things that I doubt anyone else would care to steal. There's a x-pen, a folded up wire crate, a few empty plant pots, and the pvc weave poles. I actually had the weave pole bases inside the apartment, but the 6 poles were under the stairs.

I'm loading the dog stuff into the car so I can drive over to the tennis court, and just to be sure I'd grabbed everything, I counted the weave poles. One, two, three, four, five.... I counted them again. Still five. I can't find the sixth pole anywhere. I know I left all 6 below the stairs. Nothing else was touched. Someone stole ONE pvc weave pole. Who does that???? The only thing out there that was worth anything was maybe the crate that I got off of craig's list (yes, my one dog needs 3 crates) so I didn't actually pay much for it. But the pvc pole? At least I have a few more poles already cut at my dad's house. Even if I didn't, I'm only out a couple bucks.

My guess is that it was one of the kids. There is a rather large pack of small children that run loose around the apartment complex. It's one of the things I won't miss about this place. I know I ran loose around the neighborhood when I was that age, but I like to think I had better manners than these kids. I don't ask much, but I do want my personal space respected. Do not ever touch my car, run up to my dog, or take things that don't belong to you. I don't think that's asking too much. I can deal with them screaming outside my bedroom window all day if they'd learn to stay out of my personal space.

And the end to the story? I have a pvc jump bar that I was going to substitute in for the missing weave pole (my weaves are 3/4" pvc and my jumps are 1" pvc, but with the cages on, it's close enough). When we finally made it over to the tennis court, there were other people already using it. They were actually using the tennis court to play tennis! Who does that? Clearly, tennis courts are fenced in for dog training. I'm starting to think the dog gods are against us.

Yet Another Round of Seizures

2009-08-05T12:41:00.001-04:00

I just really wish life would give my little dog a break.

Last night, I took Iris over to the park for some exercise. My original plan was to bring her over to the tennis court to get some training time in, but it was a beautiful night so we opted for the park instead. We did get some practice walking politely past other dogs.

At 10 pm, Iris had another seizure. Then she had another one at 1 am. The first seizure was about 4 hrs after she got her evening med, and the second seizure was only one hr after she'd had her before-bed dose (she gets her meds 3x a day). Now I'm starting to worry if she's on the right drug. It's been 6 weeks since her previous round of seizures. Before going on medication, she was going 3-4 weeks between seizures. This time she only had two seizures instead of the seven she had last time. That's a definite improvement in the number of seizures, but I was really hoping she'd go longer than 6 weeks. I wish I knew what was triggering it.

Iris is on levetiracetam (generic for Keppra). I refilled her prescription last weekend, and she started the new prescription on Sun night (exact same drug and dosage, but I had it filled at Costco instead of Wallgreens because of a significant price difference). It seems odd that she had a seizure 48 hrs after the switch.

Maybe Iris came in contact with something on our walk last night? One of the paths runs alongside a cornfield. Were they using any pesticides or fertilizers on the corn? Also, Iris has been having allergy issues for the last week or so too. She's itchy, and her eyes are runny. On Tues morning, I increased the amount of fish oil she's getting because the extra omega 3s seem to help her allergies. I have seen a couple studies which indicate that omega 3s decrease the frequency of seizures in humans, so that's my least likely suspect unless it's something else in with the fish oil?

Iris just had another seizure while I was typing this. Crap. I'm not sure what to do next. Try switching her meds? Refill her prescription at Wallgreens? Have her seen by a neurologist for a second opinion? It took her longer to snap out of this last seizure. Every other time she's had a seizure, she's been up (or at least trying to get up) as soon as it's over. After this last one, she just lay still on her side panting for 3-4 min. Now she's up and searching for food (typical for her post-seizure. She was eating dirt earlier tonight. Dork) and pacing around the apartment.

Hopefully we'll both sleep through the rest of the night.

Reactive Dogs - Part II

2009-08-01T22:45:00.008-04:00

After Tuesday's events, I figured Iris would be a complete bitch in class on Wed. Not so! I'd say she was pretty average on her scale of reactivity.

For the last couple months, we've been going to a reactive agility dogs class. The emphasis is on getting your dog to work around other dogs without exploding. Not an easy thing for a certain red dog! The class we're in now is usually 3-4 dogs - a very little Poodle, a Border Terrier, and a Bernese Mountain Dog.

The class starts with everyone walking the dogs in a circle around the room. Heel position isn't important, just loose-leash walking. It gives the dogs a chance to settle in and see the other dogs moving around a little bit. Even this is hard for Iris. When we started taking the class, I was tossing treats on the floor pretty much every time Iris took a step. "Hey, you just took one step without exploding! Cookies rain from the sky!" She's gotten better and will usually take treats from my hand. We switched classes a few weeks ago, so the dogs in class are relatively new to Iris, which means Iris got worse again. Not horrible, but if either of the other dogs moves too quickly (in Iris' opinion) or make any noise, she'll get in a couple woofs.

Next, the dogs spread out around the room and they all do one obstacle each simultaneously (everyone is on leash). Carolyn has been having all of the dogs do a jump first and then everyone switching to something else, usually a contact obstacle. Moving dogs, especially if they're doing something that makes noise (like running across the dogwalk), are the biggest trigger for Iris. This part is HARD for her. Getting her to go over one jump while there's a dog on the other side of the room going over one jump is not easy for her. She has a tendency to walk through the jump if she's trying too hard to watch the other dogs. This is BY FAR the most difficult thing we work on in class.

For the last couple weeks, we've worked on having one dog off-leash doing one obstacle (last week it was the dogwalk) while the other dogs lay down on matts nearby. Iris actually does better with this. She has no problem with working while the other dogs are laying down quietly (which is close to what she's used to for agility class anyway), and she does pretty good about laying down while the other dogs work. She's not really relaxed, but she's not exploding either. I end up doing sort of a combination of asking her for attention and playing the "look at that" game while we wait.

The biggest accomplishment of the week is that the events of Tues did NOT seem like a major setback for Iris. She wasn't any more reactive in class that she usually is, and she's certainly still less reactive than when we started the class. Big sigh of relief!

Reactive Dogs - Part I

2009-07-31T20:08:00.003-04:00

Since we don't have class on Tuesdays anymore, I decided to take Iris over to the state park to get some exercise. Also, Tues was VERY humid and the park has a pond. We usually see a few dogs while we're there, but we've never had any problems before.

Not so on Tues. This woman shows up with her very reactive cocker spaniel and a rambunctious young (I'm guessing around a year old) pit bull. The cocker is on a leash and is completely melting down, barking and lunging at the other dogs in the area. The pittie is off-leash and bounds up to Iris and jumps up on her. She snarks at him (Iris is on leash) and he backs off. No big deal, neither dog seemed phased by it. It looked like a pretty typical "adult dog telling a rowdy teenager to knock it off" interaction. Meanwhile, the cocker is still melting down, and this woman has no clue how to handle the situation.

Iris, however, was being awesome. Because the cocker was on leash and this woman was walking away from us, I stayed by the pond and decided to work with a Iris a little bit. She was being so good, it seemed like a good chance to reward her for it. I'm still kicking myself for sticking around.

All of the sudden, the cocker is off-leash and running toward us at full speed, barking and growling. Great. The cocker gets right in Iris' face, but luckily both dogs just make a lot of noise and don't actually make contact. While poor Iris is fending off the cocker, the pittie shows back up and tries to hump Iris from behind. @*!&#(*#@!!! I pull the pittie off while the woman is yelling at her dogs. They both suddenly back off and go over to her. She puts their leashes on and leaves. She's yelling at her dogs the whole time, saying things like "Get over here! That's it! We're leaving! THAT'S IT!" Never says a word to me. Not a single thing.

Once I knew that Iris was completely uninjured, I really wanted to find a friendly dog to walk past before leaving. I did not want the fight to be the last thing in Iris' mind. It took some wandering, but we came upon a very nice woman with her two dogs - an Irish Wolfhound named Falkor and a Heinz-57 named Belle. Both were very polite, laid back, friendly dogs. The dogs all got sniff and the humans had a nice chat. I was so relieved I was able to end the night on positive experience for Iris.

At first I was really pissed off at the cocker's owner. What was she thinking letting her dog off-leash? And then not even asking if my dog was ok? Seriously? But after living with Iris, I have a lot more empathy for people with crazy dogs. The woman was clueless. Her dogs should not have been off-leash. But she didn't mean for them to go after Iris. What I think happened is she got far enough away from Iris for her dog to stop exploding. She thought it was safe to let her dog off-leash, but then he noticed Iris again and the shit hit the fan. When the woman got her dogs back, I think she was so shocked and embarrassed by what happened, all she wanted to do was get out of there.

Shocked and embarrassed? We've has those days too.

Changes

2009-07-21T23:41:00.000-04:00

Last week was our last Tues night agility class. Now the big question is, what next? The end of Tues night classes feels like the end of an era of sorts, especially since we're moving again in August. Here's a lot of thinking out loud because I've been thinking quietly for the last couple weeks and still don't have a decision I'm happy with.

For the last few months, I've had Iris in two weekly classes. The plan right now is to cut back to one weekly class (especially in light of recent veterinary expenses). For now, I'm going to keep Iris in the reactive agility dogs class at Dogs! Learning Center. It's right down the street, and I do like the class. Iris gets to practice working around other dogs, but the downside is that we won't be doing as much agility. The class is more focused on getting dogs to work around other dogs, which isn't a bad thing for Iris.

After we move, I'm not sure what we're doing. I can keep Iris in the class in Hudson, even though it is less agility focused. The other option is to check out Gemini Dogs. I don't know a lot about their classes other than that they're only about 10 min away from the condo we're moving into. Much easier commute than what I've been doing! Whether or not I can make it to class in Hudson on time is going to depend a lot on how long my commute ends up being. On the other hand, Iris isn't always a model student so the reactive class might just be better for her.

I just found out that Emma Parson is running a Control Unleashed class at the Methuen MSPCA in October. I have been dying to get Iris into a CU class. It seems like every time I try to get her into that class, something else comes up. I was going to take it in July at Masterpeace, but then it looked like we were going to move halfway through class, so I wouldn't have made it all 6 weeks.

The other thing I'd really like to do more of is herding. Iris LOVES herding. She was SO focused the last time I took her out herding, even with a group of dogs and people watching. We took one class with a new instructor right before Iris started having seizures and then had to cancel our next lesson. While Beth's style of training was a lot like what we're used to, the way she runs lessons is a little different. She runs it more like a group class. The plus side of this is that I got to watch a bunch of different dogs of various experience levels work sheep. You can learn a lot by watching! The downside is that each dog got less individual time on sheep. I'm having a really hard time deciding which way I want to go with that. The more I think about it, the more I think it would benefit Iris to have more individual time with the sheep. I could supplement that by trying to audit a couple of clinics. On the other hand, I know Iris can handle the environment at Beth's farm, and that is always a bit of an issue with Iris. And I did like the way Beth handled the dogs, which matter a lot too.

Decisions, decisions...

Sport of Choice?

2009-07-19T14:41:00.002-04:00

This question was posed on an Aussie forum I frequent, and some of the responses were pretty interesting.

What got you into your sport of choice...why that one, why not another type of dog sport? What else have you tried, but don't care for? What haven't you tried but would like to?

It's no secret that agility is my "sport of choice." I love the challenge of running a different course every time we go out. Iris loves getting to run around like a nut. She loves doing the different equipment and getting to play. It's just a big game for the dogs. I love watching the dogs - my dog and my classmates' dogs - figuring things out.

I love training agility because of the variety of challenges it presents. We haven't competed because Iris can be pretty reactive to other dogs. Instead, we've just been really enjoying classes. I've been lucky to take classes with a great group of people and their dogs. It give me an excuse to get outside and play with my dog.

We've also done some herding, which I think Iris likes even more than agility. I love the dynamic between the handler, the dog, and the stock. It's so cool to see the dog's natural instincts unfold. Herding is a completely different way of training. With Iris, I could go out there with all the treats and toys in the world and my dog wouldn't give a damn. She wants SHEEP.

As far as other sports go, I know Iris wouldn't be able to handle to environment of flyball. I don't think I'd enjoy it as much as agility anyway. It's too repetitive! Plus, Iris has very little desire to retrieve (which is too bad because I think it's be a great way to exercise her), so that rules out disc dog as well. I suppose I could train her to retrieve as a trick, but it's just not her favorite. Musical freestyle looks fun, but I'm way too self-conscious to ever take that outside of my living room!

At some point I'd like to try Rally, but that will probably wait until Iris is a little older. For now, I need something that tires her out! I'd also like to get her CGC someday, but I think she still has issues she needs to work out before we can do that (some things are as simple as loose leash walking, which has gotten worse and worse lately. Oops!)

Ok, so now what's your sport of choice?

Final Tues Night Class

2009-07-18T20:30:00.001-04:00

Tuesday night was our last Tues agility class. It was long course, with a tunnel/dog-walk discrimination, a couple sets of 6 weave poles, and a rear cross at the end. Iris was great. Class was a lot of fun. Well, class is always a lot of fun. I get to go play with my dog for a little while.

Iris flew off the teeter the first time around but after that she was good about waiting (that seems to be a regular occurance for Iris!) I did get her to do the tunnel/dog-walk discrimination correctly, although I really want to work on her directionals more. I have to "baby-sit" her a lot or else she'd rather do contacts than tunnels. Sometimes I think she understands "out" and sometimes I feel like she doesn't. Actually, I don't think she was too bad about it on Tues? This week has been a blur. I probably should have blogged about class earlier this week! Sandy (with Baxter Black) took a bunch of video during class, and I'd really like to see it! I'm not sure if she got any of me and Iris.

We did finish class with a nice rear cross (for us. Maybe not that fluid but better than we often do). Not a bad note to end on. I feel like I should say something emotional, but I'm not good at that sort of thing. It's been a blast, but we're not dropping off the face of the planet yet. We'll still be around.

Cook Out

2009-07-12T23:54:00.002-04:00

Just a quick brag before I head to bed.

I brought Iris to a cookout at a friend's house on Saturday. Iris can get pretty overwhelmed in large groups especially if there's a lot of guys. Because she was going to need her meds before I was going to make it home and since I hate crating her on weekends, I decided to bring her (and her crate in case she needed a time out). I have to say, Iris was AWESOME. Really, I couldn't have asked for better behavior from her. She greeted everyone politely. Well, mostly politely. There are a few people she gets excited to see and forgets to keep 4 paws on the ground. I admit, I often let her act a little too bouncy when she's happy to greet someone because that's better than barking at someone approaching. I probably should teach her better manners but if she's sitting politely to greet people, you don't get to see her wiggle butt!

Iris didn't react to any people (a few woofs at cars pulling up but she relaxed once the car stopped moving) and 2/3 of the group were people she'd never met before. I even got her to relax during the bonfire. Iris is absolutely terrified of matches and lighters. She was concerned about the bonfire, but not terrified. Lots of treats and massage helped.

Iris actually acted like a "normal" dog all day - begging for attention from everyone, showing off her tricks for handouts, relaxing in the grass. She was leaps and bounds better than I expected her to be. We've still got a long way to go, but it definitely felt like we passed a milestone.

Agility Update

2009-07-12T22:08:00.006-04:00

I'm well past due for an agility class update. We've still been going to class even though I haven't been blogging about it. I really do get out to do things with my dog besides just worrying about her!

The last two agility classes we've had have been the same set up but different courses (which I didn't notice until after Julie posted the course maps). The course from two weeks ago focused a lot on distance, something that I'm not very good about. There were a couple of dogs in the class that have better distance than us, and it was VERY cool to watch them work though the course. Watching them makes me want to get better at it with Iris!

When I did the course with Iris, we did a rear cross after the second jump, and front cross after the 7th jump. Front crosses are much easier that rear crosses! I think I'm going to start bringing some cones when I take Iris over to the tennis courts to play. I don't really want her doing any jumping there because it's pavement, but that doesn't mean we can't work on her direction cues. We still have a lot of trouble with rear crosses, but I think our front crosses have gotten better.

During class, Katrin asked if problems with muscle coordination can be a side effect of Keppra. Iris was jumping ok with her back legs, but she was jumping funny with her front. I wasn't actually sure if it could be a side effect. The biggest side effect I'd talked about with my vet was hyper-activity, which for Iris lasted less than a week. I had a lot of trouble finding any info about Keppra that was specific to dogs. The only thing I found about Keppra and dogs is that the elimination half-life is significantly faster in dogs than people (hence the 3x per day dose). Problems with muscle coordination did come up on the list of possible side effects in people, so I'm guessing it's the same in dogs. My poor girl. Actually, I never would have noticed it at home. There are benefits to being active with your dog!

In class last week, we did the same set up but with a different course. I decided to do a rear cross before the 5th jump which meant I had to do another rear cross before the 9th jump. At least we're getting in some rear cross practice. We probably need a lot more.

Iris seemed like she was feeling pretty good during class. I think she was jumping better than she was the week before too? Of course she started class by running face first into the side of one of the jumps. It looked like she was going to run around the jump and at the last second decided to try and jump over it. But she made the decision too late. I didn't think too much of it, but this weekend she managed to hurt her face twice running into things. She's got a cut above one eye (she hit her face on a table during her joyous post-bath celebration), and the next day she bruised the side of her muzzle after turning quickly into a door frame. Both injuries happened when she was really excited and acting like a dork.

During class we're still doing weaves with cages on. At home, we've been practicing (not as consistently as I'd like) and we've gotten to the point where Iris will do them with the cages off of the first three poles. She's gotten very consistent about doing them correctly when she's on my right side but is still missing the entrance about 50% of the time of when she's on my left. Because we're moving in a month, I'm making it my goal to have her weaves trained before we move. At the new place, I won't have a fenced in place to train her (I'm going to try to find something, but there isn't anything in the condo complex) so if I don't do it now, it might be a little while before we can get back into doing regular off-leash training sessions.

Keeping Busy

2009-06-28T21:26:00.003-04:00

This dog certainly keeps me on my toes.

Last Sunday, Iris started having seizures again. Six grand mal seizures in 18 hrs. I got her in to see her regular vet Monday morning and we decided to start her on meds. Her vet was great. I think the appointment ended up being about an hr long. We talked a lot about what could be going on and a lot about what medication to start her on. There's no good explanation right now for why Iris suddenly has so many seizures at once. I can't think of anything in particular that would have triggered it. It was a rainy weekend, so we'd spent the whole weekend home and the seizures didn't start until Sunday night.

One odd side effect of the seizures is the Iris was starving. She was trying to steal food off counters while I watching. She never counter surfs. She tried to chew a hole in my sweatshirt pocket to get at a couple of crumbs. I was still wearing the sweatshirt. In hindsight, it was humorous. At the time, we were both pretty freaked out.

Right now, the decision is to just try and control the seizures with meds. We've tested her for tick borne diseases. We've checked all her bloodwork including thyroid. She is on the old end for the start of epilepsy, but it's still possible.

After a lot of discussion, we decided to try Iris on Keppra instead of Phenobarb. The drawbacks to Keppra are that it has to be given 3 times a day and its more expensive than Phenobarb. Also, Phenobarb has been in use longer than Keppra, so it has a more proven track record. The upside is that Keppra doesn't have the side effects Phenobarb does (Phenobarb can cause liver damage if used long term).

So far, Iris hasn't has any seizures since Monday night. She was got an injection of Valium at the vet, and had one more seizure later that night right as the Valium wore off. Since then, she's been seizure free. It seems like the meds are working. We took the rest of the week off from classes. This may have been a mistake. The meds made Iris very antsy (the vet warned me that Iris might be extra crazy for the first week! Seriously? Something that makes my Aussie more crazy?) She's acting a lot more normal now, thank doG. She was making me more crazy too!

In other news, we're officially moving again sometime in August. This poor dog. I'm her fifth home, and this will the third place we've lived since I adopted her. I'm sure she's dying for something more consistent! She adjusted to the apartment very quickly, so hopefully she'll be good for this next move. We're heading even further north this time.

The upside to the move is that I found a new herding instructor in southern NH. Actually, she's right down the street from the shelter I adopted Iris from. We had one lesson with her a few weeks ago (I canceled Iris' lesson for this weekend). I liked the new instructor. She was recommended by some Aussie folks, and her training style is a lot like Colleen's. Hopefully we'll be able to get out to do some herding more regularly after the move. I love agility, but I'm pretty sure herding is Iris' favorite.

Where Did My Dogs Come From?

2009-06-06T21:54:00.007-04:00

We got tagged by Julie from Molasses Ain't Got Nothin' On Us to tell the story of how my dogs came to live with me. I've really enjoyed reading the stories on a lot of different blogs. I think just about everyone who reads this blog has been tagged. If you haven't please play along! I'm going to tag Lauren at Why Everyone Sould Train Dogs and Service Dog Sawyer.

Henry
I don't live with Henry Beagle any more (he's still living with my dad) but he likes to make an occasional cameo on the blog. Plus, he's got a pretty good story.

My cousin adopted Henry (formerly named Fred) from animal control in 2001. Animal control seized him when his first owners were arrested on drug charges.

In December 2002, my cousin called and said she was moving to DC, could we pet-sit for her Beagle while she was down there for a week to look at apartments? Henry came to stay for the week. Just for one week. One. My cousin wasn't going to take Henry to DC with her, so she was looking for a home for him. At the time, my cousin was working for the Archdiocese of Boston. One person who'd expressed interest in Henry was Cardinal Law. If you remember back to 2002, it was during the height of the Catholic Church sex scandals. At that point, it was looking very likely that Cardinal Law was going to resign and return to Rome.

This is Saint Peter's Basilica. It's in Rome.

If you can imagine, those tall ceilings probably give that room a pretty good echo. Now close your eyes and see if you can imagine what a Beagle bay would sound like in those halls.

This is Henry. He's a Beagle.

While "Henry Goes to Rome" might make a great children's book, I have doubts that it would have actually turned out well for the poor bugger. He'd have left quite an impression in those halls I'm sure. Needless to say, it's been six years and Henry never made it to Rome. He never even made it out of my dad's house.

Iris
After I graduated from college, I decided I wanted a dog. Specifically, I wanted to do agility. Henry was overweight and getting older. Not really a great prospect for agility. My dad relented and decided that 3 dogs couldn't possibly be much worse than 2 (at the time, Henry was living in the house all the time and Zeus was living there only on weekends). If you're considering a third dog, yes three is more than two. If one of those dogs is an Aussie, it will feel more like 5 dogs. And if one of them is a Beagle, it will sound more like 10.

I wanted an adult dog, and since breed wasn't really important I started looking at shelters. I was looking for a medium size herding dog mix. My first choice would have been an Aussie if I was going to get a purebred, so I was hoping to find an Aussie mix.

I had a friend who lived in NH, so I started checking out some shelters up there on weekends. I saw "Lula Mae" listed on the NHSPCA website but I actually wasn't going to go look at her. It was a little further away than I wanted to drive, but I couldn't put her out of my head. She sounded exactly like what I was looking for. I went up to visit her and she was so sweet and quiet. She settled down next to me and leaned up against me. She seemed very mellow for an Aussie (if you've read this blog at all, you know she's not really quiet or mellow). I asked someone at the shelter if they could tell me more about her, and I was told the only thing they knew was that she'd been surrendered for killing ducks. No big deal. I don't have any ducks.

It wasn't until after I got home and went through the paperwork from the shelter that I learned a little more about the dog I adopted. She'd been through a total of 4 other homes. Not only was she killing ducks, but she was chasing and nipping their kids and very "overprotective of the house." I believe that roughly translates to "barks at every car, kid, dog, human, insect, etc that passes the house and explodes at any person coming through the door."

Would I have done anything differently if I'd known more about her? Who knows. I'm glad I didn't.

Another Seizure

2009-05-28T22:00:00.004-04:00

Iris had another seizure Monday morning. It was almost exactly the same scenario as the last one. The sound woke me up at 6:30 am (her previous seizure was at 7:30 am). The seizure itself looked exactly the same as well. Again, no loss of bowel/bladder control and a pretty quick recovery. She was begging for breakfast about 30 min later. At least I was able to stay a lot more calm this time because I knew what was going on. Iris seemed a lot more disoriented this time than she was after the last one. I was really hoping the first one was a weird isolated incident, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

We did run a 4DX snap test to check for tick borne diseases, which was negative. Because she has no other symptoms and did go three weeks between seizures, we're going to stick with a wait and see approach. Iris' vet still thinks we should hold off on medication for now. If she has another seizure within the next couple weeks, then we'd think about putting her on meds. If she goes a few months, then we'll continue to hold off on meds. Other than time of day, I can't think of any other parallels between the seizures. We did have a thunderstorm and drop in temperature the day before her second seizure, but I can't remember the weather before the first one. Katrin sent me a couple of very good links about epilepsy: Canine Epilepsy Resources and Canine Epilepsy Guardian Angels. So I've been doing a lot of reading these last couple weeks.

On a much lighter note, we did have agility class on Tues and Iris was a happy girl. Chris commented that the way Iris runs makes her looks so happy. I agree, you can really tell Iris' mood based on how she's running. She gets so bouncy when she's having fun!