It’s raining right now. I personally love the rain. In fact the only downside that I can see about the rain is that the agility field is dirt and it’s not covered. So…if we get too much rain at once, we’ll have a mudhole out there. Yuck! I don’t think we’re going to get that much today though. Just a nice shower to cool things down a bit and make the air smell terrific!

The problem is that along with the rain today we are getting plenty of thunder. Penny HATES thunder and fireworks! I was reading not too long ago about the use of Melatonin for dogs with thunderstorm phobias. I happened to get some a while back, but I haven’t had a chance to try it out on Penny till today.

So far, I’m not seeing a whole lot of difference in her reaction. She doesn’t have some of the severe reactions to the thunder that I’ve read about, like crashing through doors or windows or anything like that. But she does show alot of signs of stress. She generally starts panting and pacing and she’ll whine alot. When she’s really over her threshold, she has jumped into the shower (while I was in it). LOL Poor girl. She likes to be really close to my husband or myself and sometimes she won’t calm down till both of us are home. Right now she is lying at my feet while I’m typing.

Has anyone tried Melatonin for this sort of thing, and if so…what have you observed? I’m going to keep watching and hopefully we’ll see some reduction in anxiety level.

Jessie came to us back in 2001. I was working very actively with the all-breed rescue in our area at that time and we were pulling dogs from the local county animal shelter for a Super Adoption event. We actually thought that Aussie Rescue would be willing to take Jessie in, but when we contacted them, they were didn’t have any space…especially for an adult dog over 5 years. After only a couple of days, my husband decided that Jessie had found her permanent home with us and that she wouldn’t be going to Super Adoption after all.

Jessie always gave 110% in whatever she was doing! I don’t think she ever did anything half-heartedly. That’s one of the things I will always admire about her. I have been going through some old pictures and found few favorites that make me smile!

The house just isn’t the same without you here! You will be missed Jessie!

Well, I don’t feel like writing tonight, but maybe I’ll feel better when I get it on paper. This weekend while I was at the agility trial with Zoe…Jessie got sick. My husband called on Sat. morning and left a message telling me that he thought Jessie was dying. My heart sank. I felt helpless knowing that she wasn’t doing well, and I wasn’t there to help her. Those thoughts hung over an otherwise wonderful weekend like a big ominous black cloud.

I got back Sunday to find her very listless, having trouble standing up and walking and refusing to eat. Jessie is normally one of the first in the crew to jump up and start barking at new noises, and she always is right at my heels inside the house or out. To see her just laying there not interested in much of anything…(even to company coming over), was aweful! My husband had described her as seeming disoriented, but I think she just felt so bad she wasn’t interested in anything going on around her.

Since we are in a rural area, there are no emergency vets, you just have to wait it out till Monday morning. I took her in first thing this morning and had bloodwork done. The results showed that she was having major liver problems. The vet said that it was likely that she’d lived for years with less than 100% liver function and that with age it’s just manifesting itself now. I was given the option to try to treat it, which he felt might have extended her life another couple of months, or put her to sleep.

I know many people may think that we made the wrong decision, but I couldn’t justify a couple months of likely reduced quality of life just because I want her to be here longer. I sat with her in my arms as she peacefully went to sleep this evening.

Zoe and I had a great weekend at the agility trial. She qualified in five out of the eight classes that she ran in, and earned two more double Q’s, so that means that she only needs one more for her MACH! Hopefully we’ll get that last one over Labor Day Weekend. We had to break down and enter FAST again for the Labor Day trial too…because two of the runs that she didn’t qualify in were the FAST class. She only needs one more leg to finish her Excellent FAST title. Unfortunately, distance work has never been one of our strong points as a team, so it’s a difficult class for us.

Housesitting went well too. The Malinois boys were delightful. They couldn’t have been sweeter to stay with. Zoe mostly stayed in our bedroom, because she didn’t want to be bothered with silly boys, which was probably for the best because that way their routine didn’t get too out of whack! I got some more toys made up for Sheltie Rescue while we were there too, so that’s good. Mostly, I’m just glad to be home though!

I hate that rushed feeling I get before I leave on a trip. Doesn’t seem to matter how long I have to get ready for the trip, I always seem to have a ton to do on the day I leave. Ughhh! Once I’m on the road it will be fine.

Right now I’m waiting for a client to come drop off a boarder for the weekend first thing this morning. Then I have two more dogs scheduled to come in and another one going home…all before I leave today around 2:30. Let’s hope nobody’s running late!

I’ve still got to finish packing and oh yeah…get all my newly planted trees watered too. My husband has been really super at taking care of our dogs and the boarders while I’m gone, but not always so great at watering the plants. LOL Guess I shouldn’t complain. If I was to pick something that I’d rather have him be lax about it would be the plants.

I’m waiting for two packages to come today too, so I hope they hurry and get here before this afternoon. One is a new shade/sun shelter tent that I ordered and the other is a package that has a new toy for the dogs. I’m really excited to try it out! It’s called a Chase N’ Pull. (I think). Anyway, I’m really hoping that it will build some enthusiasm for some of the dogs here that don’t think toys are all that interesting. I’ll write more about it when I get a chance to try it out.

OMG! I was packing my suitcase and all the other dogs were out in the yard except Raven. I just happened to look up and notice her curled up napping on the pillows on the bed. I know I’m probably biased, but how cute is this!

Well…bathtime isn’t really a favorite among the dogs here. In fact, once they figure out what is going on, I usually have to go hunting around the house for the dogs in hiding. I always think it’s funny though how even though they seem to dread the whole idea initially, once they are done they are so happy! Go figure!

Anyway, all I had time to bathe today was Zoe, since she’s the only one entered in the agility trial this weekend. Here’s a picture of her airdrying a bit in the yard afterwards. Doesn’t she look like she got electrocuted! LOL I wish I could’ve gotten a picture of her right as we finished her bath today…she has such little chicken legs when she’s all wet.

Hard to believe another week is already started! It’s going to be a short week at home again. I doubt we’re going to get much training done before I leave again on Thurs. for Salt Lake. There’s a three day agility trial in Farmington and Zoe’s entered all three days. She only needs three more double Q’s (Q’s are qualifying runs in a class, double Q is when you qualifying in both classes on the same day), anyway, she only needs 3 more to earn her MACH agility title! Zoe will be glad that she’s the only one going this time. She loves having all the attention to herself!

We’ll be housesitting for our friend and taking care of her two Malinois boys while we’re up there. Should be fun! Course, I always get nervous that I’ll forget something, so I hope she writes good instructions for me.

Some days I really wonder what makes me think that I can manage a life with 7 dogs and keep it running smoothly for all involved! Yesterday was one of those days.

Zoe has hated Rogue ever since she came to live with us. It hasn’t really diminished over the last year and a half. As a general rule, they are fine together while we are home, but I don’t leave them together if we are gone. Well, yesterday I made the mistake of leaving them in the house together while I ran to town. To make a long story short, when I came home Rogue wasn’t putting any weight on her left front leg. I didn’t find any punctures, but I’m pretty sure that Zoe nailed her in the few minutes I was gone. Fortunately, this morning Rogue is back to her normal bossy self, without signs of lameness, so I’m just grateful that it wasn’t worse than it was.

I guess that it was a good reminder that I need to be more diligent about managing the dogs. Can’t afford to be lazy about even the seemingly small things when you’ve got this many living together.

Well, we had a great time training on Friday with the dogs. We worked alot on Twist’s dumbbell retrieval. Seems like alot of times we run into one training challenge and then overcome it only to create a new one! LOL Guess that’s just part of the learning process.

For example: Twist was having trouble with his “wait”. He would anticipate me calling him, and break out of the sit or down, or whatever. So, I really worked on reinforcing his “wait” and the same time I accidentally taught him that he needed to “wait” till I gave him a verbal release of “OK”. I guess that it would be fine in some situations, but in regards to his dumbbell work, not great at all. It means that when I tell him to “wait” and throw the dumbbell out there, then he won’t move until I say “OK”, then give a second command of “get it”. That’s a problem. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t give a double command like that. (Ughhh, I won’t make that mistake again though…I hope).

So, to overcome this we are working on sending him out to a target lid with a treat by just saying “get it”, (no “OK” beforehand). He was a bit confused to start with, but we started using the clicker to mark any movement forward and boy pretty quick he was figuring out what we wanted from him. What a good boy! Then we started really increasing the distance till he was running all the way across the building to get to the lid. Then we repeated the same process with his dumbbell. It worked!

I decided to try it out at a friends house that has a basic obedience class last night. She lets me come and train with my dogs off to the side of the class. They use me for a distraction and I do the same. Anyway, Twist did great. Woohoo! I just sent off the entry forms for an Obedience trial in Aug. in Idaho. I’m really hoping that he can get his second and third Novice legs for his CD there. Our Obedience instructor wants us to have our Open work ready too, just in case we get to move up to Open for the third day! That would be so exciting. Here’s some pictures of Twist from this morning in our yard.