Hedge Hunting

Salinas and Chima are always pretty obsessed with their hunting, but today there was a little squirrel in the lower branches of the fir tree that rest atop a photinia hedge in part of our back yard. Instead of their regular pacing and running, they started smashing into the hedge and thrashing around. Oh, and they were screaming at one point too. It let me know this was no ordinary chase in the back yard. They were so close they could taste the squirrel meat.

Here's how it played out:

First Salinas assessed the situation from the outside

Then she went in to see if there was a chance she could shake him out.  No such luck but she sure tried.

Chima provided backup from the perimeter

The shaking and screaming didn't work so up Salinas went...

And then up some more...  But then her mean foster mom  pulled her out and let the critter have time to move up the tree further. What a spoil sport I am.

And here's the video of part of it:

Salinas at the Meetup

Since I'm working with Salinas on being less dependent on Chima, today she went alone with me to the Seattle Rat Terrier Meetup on Mercer Island. It was a perfect day - mild temperatures and while the park was busy as it always is, it wasn't as crazy as I've seen it on nice temperate days.

Arriving at the park, a bit nervous and wondering what  adventure I'm dragging her to this time

She was much less nervous walking over to the small dog area than last visit and I was proud of how well she handled all the strollers and scooters and big dogs that passed by. Last time she spent a lot of the walk hiding out behind me but this time she walked by my side and only once chose to hide as we made our way across the busy park.

Hanging out with Maddie and Maddie's mom

There wasn't a huge turnout, but it actually was nice since it didn't get too crowded. We saw several former New Rattitude dogs there - my sweet foster boy Tofu aka Tofer, and three of Julee's fosters: Reynvaan aka Rain, Syncline aka Maddie, and K aka June.

Getting to know June

And getting to know June a little better

June and her oh-so-handsome brother, Bogart

Other than getting snappy a couple times when other dogs where crowding her trying to get to my treat bag, she did wonderfully. She followed me around mostly, but after the first 30 minutes explored more on her own, getting some good sniffs in with the other dogs. She seemed to especially like June's Rat Terrier big brother, Bogart, who's a pretty handsome guy.

Salinas hanging out with Bogart

So great work for Salinas! She definitely was a little out of her comfort zone, but she handled it beautifully and enjoyed a nice chewy scapula on the drive home as a reward.

Checking in with Troy to see if he has any more treats when we get back to the car

Ready to head home!

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.