Moving Apart

Salinas and Chima are pretty close. They regularly check in with each other, especially when they are anxious, and while at times the relationship is a bit co-dependent, for the most part it is just a healthy friendship.

But the reality is, these girls are going to be separated. As much as I'd love to keep a lot of dogs that come into foster care together, there are very few people who are interested in adopting two dogs. It the world was a perfect place these dogs would never need rescue in the first place and would get to happily live out their life together with loving attentive humans there by their side. That's not the world we live in though.

So starting two days ago, the girls started on their first step towards separation. Their crates had been side by side for the last 2 months, but I moved Salinas' crate about 4 feet away from Chima's. They can still look straight into each others crates but they can't touch or nose each other through the wire.

To the left of the crate (where the remaining blanket of fur lies against the baseboard) is where Sal's crate was located.

Chima definitely noticed, but more in a "hmmm, I wonder what she's doing that for." kind of way. Salinas on the other hand, got a very worried look on her face when this first happened. She'd stare at Chima, then look up at me, then paw at the latch of the crate, then look back at Chima. BUT, there was no whining and whimpering and no crying that first night. We did some clicker work initially, reinforcing when Sal settled in her crate with a click and a treat and after the first click she was all about earning the treat so she's not too overwrought about this. We are going to go three nights at this distance, and assuming Salinas is ready, then I'll grow the gap and try to reconfigure it so she can see Chima, but just a partial view. The goal is for their crates to end up across the room from each other out of sight line. It might seem mean, but it would be a whole lot meaner and irresponsible of me to send them into a brand new home without any practice at being apart from one another.

Salinas, looking over at Chima and making sure she's still there.  This photo was taken the very first time they were crated separately for the night. 

So stay tuned as we continue this journey towards separation. I'm pretty sad about it, and I hate doing this, but as a pet parent, you can't always be the nice buddy with the treat canister. Sometimes you have to do things that are in their best interest and will help them in the long run, but that they aren't going to be initially jumping for joy over the situation. Of course, treats are involved here too, but you know what I mean.

Search for a special collar

Salinas has skin sensitivity to metal and where it touches her skin regularly (tags and collar hardware) she will develop a bad rash and the hair falls out. We've been letting her skin heal up and for awhile I haven't had a collar on her since she had actually developed sores there before I realized what was going on.

However, I am a firm believer that I a dog should always wear ID, even if they are microchipped. People don't just have a chip reader laying around in their closet (unless they are a dog nerd like me) and if one of my dogs bolts I'd much rather have them back within hours rather than wait and hope the person who found them will take them into a vet to have them scanned.

Adding to my nervousness of Sal not wearing any tags was the fact that the 4th was nearing and I wasn't sure how she would react to the fireworks if one went off while she was outside on a potty break, and then the fact that she is so extremely determined in her hunting of critters. Even though we have a solid slat 5 foot high cedar fence, those girls are so tenacious that I can't see anything stopping them from getting to what they want, if they have enough time to work out the problem.

When I was at work I came up with an idea. I bought a Spindrift Cozy Collar and an Outward Hound Tag Bag. Instead of sliding the collar through the loop for it on the back of the tag bag, I attached the tags to the collar and then wrapped the bag and velcroed it around the tags and metal hardware on the collar. So now she has all metal covered and she has soft polar fleece against her skin.

Of course, she would much prefer going without a collar as you can tell by these blurry photos. But we are crossing our fingers that our set up will outlive her desire to remove it from her neck. So far, so good.

Salinas' Coat

Both of the girls have nice thick coat's but Sal's lacked a bit of luster. Not surprising though since she seems to have some skin issues including a sensitivity to metals. I have her on a great food - Orijen kibble with some Honest Kitchen rehydrated food mixed in - but I wanted to address the itchy skin more than just getting the grains and extra carbs out of her diet.

So I started adding some fish oil and 1/4 teaspoon of organic cold-pressed coconut oil to each of her meals and you can see the result. Her secondary skin problems that happened when she scratched where the metal tags irritated her skin has cleared up and her coat just shimmers in the sunlight now.

Remember, even if there is fish in your dog's kibble or if the bag notes that fish oil is added, when the kibble is cooked, much of the benefits of that oil goes away, or even if it's still there is no longer as bioavailable. A good healthy diet if the first step, but I've seen how dramatic the changes can be when quality supplements are added as well.

Hot diggety dogs!

Since there's usually only about 2 weeks out of the year where it's needed, we like the majority of people in Western Washington don't have air conditioning. So when the temperatures start jumping up into the 90's it can get pretty dang miserable. The last week has been super hot and the temperatures are up in the mid 90's - higher in the house.

The poor dogs were panting away last night and I felt so bad for them I decided to make some treats that will hopefully help us get through today a bit more comfortably. First I mixed up a sample pack of Honest Kitchen Ice Pops but that didn't seem like enough for several more days with the house getting hotter every day.

So I pulled a quart of chicken broth out of the pantry, grabbed a muffin tin and made a dozen more brothsicles using watered down broth.

Today we'll pull them out of the freezer and see how the kiddos like them. Luckily it's supposed to cool down to the mid to upper 70's on the 4th so until then the dogs will be munching their brothsicles and Troy and I will be enjoying some of the lemon-mint frozen yogurt that we made. I'm sure the dogs would eat that too but we're not sharing.

Seeking Enlightenment: Barking at Buddha

The dogs' foster dad was working in the yard and he decided to move a Buddha statue from a somewhat hidden corner of our Japanese garden up to a corner of the deck. Many of our new foster dogs are initially pretty suspicious of old Buddha and spend some time initially barking at him until I hang out next to him for a bit and then eventually we get to having Buddha hold some dog kibble and that pretty much seals the deal that he's an okay statue.

Surprisingly, none of the girls were upset by Buddha making his move up from the patio to the deck. Chima and Salinas glanced at him once but then continued their hunting for critters. Tilly loved the warmth coming off of Buddha's concrete and actually laid down for a snooze in the sun next to him.

But Langley was quite wary and barked a bit and spent a lot of time inching up for sniffs of the tiny man sitting under the fern.

But most upset of all was Frodo. I had just got home from work and heard all this barking in the back yard. Troy said "oh he's just barking at Buddha. He's been doing it for awhile." Intrigued I went to look and there was Frodo, quite concerned that Buddha had moved onto the deck and refusing to get closer than 24" to him. I worked with him a bit and gave Buddha some kibble to meditate on and before long Frodo was able to eat kibble from the statue. He's still not too sure about him though and makes a wide arc around him when walking past. Enlightenment takes time, I guess.

Big Losers: Getting to the Goal

Salinas and Chima have been managing with smaller portions, tiny little training treats to help shed the extra pounds they came out of the shelter with and it has paid off.

Chima and Salinas from above. Looking good, girls!

Salinas has some great news! Her portions will be getting bigger! Well, that's what she is going to be excited about. I'm excited because she's down to 16.5 pounds after arriving in foster care at 20 pounds. She is officially off her weight loss plan and moving to a maintenance diet: same high protein, low carb food, just a bit more of it.

Salinas, looking muscled and trim.

Salinas and Tilly, sniffing at something and showing off their  sleek physique.

Chima has more weight to lose so she is still in progress, but she also had a successful two weeks. She's down to 24.5 pounds. That means she's lost a full 4 pounds since arriving here. I'm guessing she has just a couple more pounds to go and she too will be at a good healthy weight for her structure.

Look at the nice waist that Chima has now!

I wanted Frodo to show off his waist too but he was not amused.

It's not a lot of work to get started on the road to helping your dog lose weight. Upgrade their food to a higher quality food that is low in carbs and high in a quality protein. Measure portions and remember to limit treats to tiny ones that don't have a lot of calories. Terriers rarely say no to a meal so it's up to us to help them stay healthy.

The hunting continues.....everywhere

Now that they've flushed out some mice and barked some raccoon up a tree the girls are sure that evil critters lurk in every corner of the backyard. Most of the morning and afternoon it was dry out so they had plenty of time for hunting sessions...with me supervising of course. I'm fine if they want to catch some mice but there's no way I want them following those mice over our fence into the neighbors unfenced yard.

First Salinas searched high...

And Chima searched low...

Then Chima searched high and Sal searched low.

Frodo waited, keeping his feet clean and dry, finding the whole thing  somewhat low class and trashy. There was plenty of nose work for treats that could be done in the clean, dry house.

Chima had a great idea.

If she perched herself up on the wall she'd have a good view of the yard and any potential hiding places. Salinas soon joined her...

That totally paid off for Chima when she found the grill and had the drip pan cleaned out and was working on removing the cover by the time I was onto her.

Then the weather changed.

Wet, wet, wet! But we still stayed outside for awhile. After all, it's Western Washington and if you let rain keep you inside, you'll lead a boring existence. We headed inside, a wet and muddy crew, when the thunder arrived.

 I'm glad that their hunting has become more generalized and they have forgotten their desire to tear down the shed to find the mice underneath. It was a nice, soggy, summer afternoon and I'm guessing tomorrow will be more of the same - hunting and playing and messing around in the rain.