My Dog Day

I had my first "Dog Day" on Wednesday which was a wonderful way to end my week, I had so much fun just hanging out with dogs and taking them on extra long outings and walks. My first dog was Astronomy (no photo) of the "Digging Through the Desert" post. Being such a scent driven dog, I thought he might enjoy a trip down to Horse Haven and all the new and different smells that accompany horses, goats, burros, sheep, and pigs. The car ride down was . . . challenging; he was very excited and anxious and insisted upon leaping from the back seat to the front seat at ten second intervals for the entire ride. As we walked toward the horse and goat pastures after parking the car, he seemed to be enjoying the new smells and sounds of the area, until he spotted the goats and sheep and decided that it would be great fun to go chase them around and bark at them. As soon as he started fixating on the livestock, we turned around and went back in the other direction. I took him down into a small valley across the street from the Welcome Center and we took a nice long walk there instead. On the ride back up to Dogtown, I kept hold of his harness to keep him in the front seat and stop him from hopscotching back and forth (disclaimer: my preference is for dogs to ride in the back seat or have a seat belt in the front, however when the choice is seat belt-less front seat riding or risking driving off a cliff due to the distraction of a leaping dog, I choose front seat!).
My next playmate was Twyla, an older dog that is incredibly sweet but has issues with some people. We still aren't sure what gets her going so my team leader suggested getting her out and if she reacts negatively to anybody, make a note of it in her file so we can start working on those issues more. I decided to walk her down to Tara's Run, an open air building that has agility equipment, space to run, and some things dogs might find in a home environment. It is a great place to take dogs and let them go crazy for a little while off leash, even if you aren't doing agility training. Twyla is somewhere around eleven years old, so I wasn't about to have her jumping through tires, but I thought she would just enjoy the play time and did she ever! She did go over the A-Frame and the Catwalk with some enticing cookies from me, she even tried the See-Saw but got scared when it started to move. And the tunnels, oh she loved those tunnels, she was going through them without cookies, she just loved running in and out and investigating the fun sights and smells they contained. There was also the requisite frolicking with the stuffed animal in her mouth, we had a great time. After about fifteen minutes in Tara's, somebody else was in need of the space, so we took a walk down a trail that she doesn't usually get to use and by then she was getting tired and it was her lunch time so we headed back to her run.
After Twyla, I spent a little time sitting in Heidi and Pirate's run. Heidi is a very exuberant Rottie mix, but her run mate Pirate is incredibly shy and will only take treats from me through the dog door (I think there is one caregiver from whom he will take spoonfuls of wet food when she is giving out meds). I had to lock Heidi inside while I went and sat outside with Pirate. He only ever came within about six feet of me and spent most of the time pacing, barking and growling well away from me. Once we get into a better rhythm of Dog Days, we are hoping to start hand feeding him which will do wonders for increasing his desire to be with humans.

After about 25 minutes with Pirate, I went down to give Niblet (no photo) his fluids and then it was my lunch time.

After lunch, I went to visit with some of our new residents, Cole and Bagera (no photos). They are both shy and not able to be leashed up for walks yet. They will come close enough to take treats and Cole likes to stand about four feet away and bark at you. I took some treats and a leash down with me and just sat in their run for about a half hour. They were curious about the leash and perfectly willing to take the treats, but I wasn't able to get the leash on either one of them.
At about 1:40, it was time to take Pickles to his Hydrotherapy appointment.

BF has a special underwater treadmill for physical therapy for some of the animals. Pickles has bad joints and bow-legs, so he goes to Hydro three times a week. It was only just a few weeks ago, after three months of appointments, that they were finally able to get him to actually walk on the treadmill. They were just filling the tank with enough water to take some of the pressure off his joints and letting him wander around for a little while. Over the last couple of weeks he has gone from no treadmill time to walking for a couple minutes at a go with somebody in the tank with him and a belly sling to help him from sliding back on the treadmill to walking for twelve minutes in the tank by himself at this most recent visit. It has been very cool to see him finally get it and be making such great progress.

After Pickles was back in his run, I decided to take Tasha for a special outing. There used to be a caregiver that worked down at Horses that would come up and get Tasha most days and take her down to be an out dog at Horses (out dogs get to walk around off leash and out of runs because they can be trusted not to wander off or get into trouble - usually). I decided that Tasha might like to go visit her old stomping grounds for a little while. Unlike Astronomy, Tasha was an absolute dream in the car, sitting quietly in the back seat watching the scenery go by. When we arrived at horses she was very excited to be somewhere different. We walked all around the horse pastures and even passed somebody else walking their little dog. Not a single bark or growl at anybody (human or animal). She is a truly excellent dog and I would love, love, love to see her find a home someday. She is almost ten years old and is so incredibly well behaved its is amazing, she just has this one issue that has been holding her back. She comes to people like she wants to be pet but then when they start petting her, she sort of panics and starts growling and snapping. I have been working on this with her, and Keely, another caregiver has been doing the same, hopefully, with a concerted effort, we can really start making some good progress with her.

After Tasha's outing, it was time for Marge's clinic appointment. I noticed some crusties on her ears about a week ago and the Dog Tech suggested we take her to the clinic. Now, I will admit, Marge is one of my favorites up at the Lodges, on of our smilers and she just loves to bury her face in your legs ("Itchy Face!") while you scratch her butt and she dances with her back feet. I will admit, I have given her more than a few kissed on the head over the past few weeks, and now it has been determined that she probably has some kind of topical fungal infection (possibly ringworm) on her ear flaps, so Keely and I were joking that our lips are probably going to fall off or something (Keely kisses her, too). Just as the vet was telling me to make sure everyone knows to wash their hands after handling her ears, Keely walked into the clinic and grabbed Marge's head and laid a big kiss on her head. The vet looked at me and said, "Tell her to wash her hands."

By the time I got Marge back to her run, I had just enough time to fill out files for a few of the last dogs I had taken out and then went down to spend a few minutes with Ophelia in her run, since I didn't have time during the day to get her out for some more fun. She is such a cuddle bug though, I think she enjoys just having somebody around for a while to pet her and rub her belly.

All in all it was a great day. I want to get a little more organized about my next Dog Day, perhaps have a bit of a plan in place already, so that I can work with a few more dogs, but for the dogs that I did work with Wednesday, they had fun and really, that is what it is all about. I hope everyone is doing well and has a great weekend!

(All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)