The latest

A lot has happened in the 7 days since I last posted. Last week Armstrong finally joined our family and as you can see in this photo he is cuteness incarnate. He's also hilarious with his short little legs and sausage roll body. For the first couple days he was quite sad to be away from his momma and sister for the first time, but Chava quickly took on the big sister roll and kept him so busy wrestling that he didn't have time to cry. This is the Armstrong that was in Texas with his sister Sally Ride who I've been posting photos of in Flickr when his first foster mom sent them to me. He's about 9 weeks old now and in a couple weeks he'll be neutered and ready to go to his new home where they are anxiously awaiting his arrival. He'll join Sprocket there, a previous foster of ours and I'm so happy he'll have a young dog to play with as he gets quite worried when he is alone.




Chava is growing like a weed and today she was spayed. She's recovering well this evening, kicking back and seemingly pain-free and happy. She still will need to continue with the mange treatment and today we found out that she has a yeast infection on her head as well so she'll need to start an antifungal, too. She's maturing into an incredible dog - confident, playful and kind - and her new mom is lucky indeed to have such a wonderful pup joining her family.



Since there are 3 mangy and somewhat ill black and tan foster puppies winging their way to Kathy's house tomorrow, Sally Ride will be joining our crew after all. Chava will be going home on Saturday so for one crazy day we will have 5 dogs in the house, three of them puppies. I don't know how those moms with 6 or 7 foster dogs do it.

Snow angel

Snow, typically rare in Washington, is getting to be a bad habit this winter. Once again we were dusted with the white stuff and Chava had the chance to experience her first snow. She was not impressed.

At first when she walked onto the deck she turned around and ran back toward the door. Thanks to the leash that wasn't an option so she stood still and shivered, hoping I'd take pity on her. Nope. I carried her off the deck into the grass for her bathroom break and she started walking through the grass like it was mud or something - lifting her little legs as high as they would go with each step. Finally she made it under the fir trees where the ground looked pretty normal. In this photo you see her trying to hide out under a fern, only to discover that there was snow on top of it that fell on her.

When the ordeal was over and she was finally back in the house she ran around in circles like a wild child, ecstatic that things were still normal inside the house - well as normal as life can be with three rat terriers running around.

Salted Dog

I work at a small independent pet store that specializes in natural products, and last week we got in a couple of new products by a local company named DerMagic that are specifically for dogs with dermatitis issues. After watching the video that came with the products to educate employees I have to admit that I was skeptical. It was just so cheesy and anytime I hear a bunch of people saying "nothing else worked, but this stuff is AMAZING!" I roll my eyes. I decided that my mangy little foster pup Laika (now named Chava - Shawvuh - by her future adopter) would be a great test case. Demodex is pretty difficult to treat. So I bought a bottle of the lotion and started applying it to her head area twice daily.

Okay, so now I'm a believer. Within 2 days her head was no longer scaly and the bumps were going away. It has a little sulphur in it which tends to stink after all the nice smelling oils and aloe soak in, but sulphur is something that homeopaths often use in formulae for flea treatments, etc., so it probably helps with the mites that cause demodectic mange.

Anyhow, the lotion is easy to apply to her bald little head, but hard to get on the patchy areas on her legs and back. We also received some of the Dead Sea salt bath salts that the company makes and I decided to give the salts a try because that would get to the areas that the lotion couldn't reach. My son brought up the towels and we braced ourselves for the bathing ordeal.

Chava was so pathetic. She scrambled the entire bath, trying to get out of the sink. Water and shampoo was everywhere when we finally wrapped her in a towel and prepared for part 2 of bathtime. We dissolved the salts in the sink and then set her back in, much to her horror. Her eyes screamed "NO!!!! No more! No more!" and she whined and squeaked as we poured the salty water over her, rubbing it into her skin, and then finally rinsing her off. My son held her wrapped in a towel and she stared at me with a look of betrayal and then turned her head under my son's neck as if to say, "well, at least he still loves me."

Five minutes later after countless bouts of shaking herself dry, Chava is back to herself, bouncing around as if nothing happened. Little does she know that she will have to go through the salty part again in a couple days.

For more bathtime photos check out her set of photos on Flickr.com.

Puppy Stalking

Frodo cannot make up his mind whether he loves or hates Laika. He loves her toys, that's for sure - all of those soft, delicate, plush, puppy squeakie toys just waiting to be gutted. He also loves her puppy food (who are we kidding, Frodo loves anything that is remotely edible.)

Laika is quite the messy eater and every meal she flings food left and right as she shovels through the bowl. Frodo has learned that this makes for some easily snagged kibble. He just sits next to her crate, and waits for kibble to fly out. Sometimes, if she isn't messy enough for his liking he tries reaching in to grab some, however Laika will growl and snap if he gets too annoying about it and knocks her bowl around.



So Frodo waits until we take Laika out for her after meal potty break and then sticks his paws into the crate, working any stray kibbles out of the crate and into his mouth as you can see him doing in the above photo. As intensely as he does this one would think the poor dog is starving, but this is a dog who will eat until he throws up and then try to eat some more. In his mind there is no such thing as "enough" food. How very "terrier" of him.

A wild and crazy dog

Last night I decided to take a few more photos of Miss Laika and after about 50 shots with a little black blur in them I opted for video, which is a better media for a wild and crazy little pup. Why am I not introducing a video? Well, that didn't work out either.

It seemed like every video that Hunter would start talking and say something that I didn't really want to share with the rescue world. In the first video he was talking about Guinness world records and said "did you know that there was a guy who pulled a car by his nipples?" Of course I had turned on the video camera right as he said "nipples" which sounded like a really weird thing to say as a video of a little puppy was playing.

In the next video I was about to shut the camera off when he exclaimed, "ewwww, Frodo has weiner gunk!"

Well, I thought the third time was a charm. The video was cute - Laika attacking a monster tug toy that we have. I uploaded the photos and video to the computer and when I played the video, realized that I must have double pushed the button or something. There was about 1 second of video. So I only have a photo that represents most photos taken of Laika - everything in focus but with a little black blur somewhere in the frame. This was one of the last photos taken and note the look on Frodo and Hunter's face. After 10 minutes everyone was a little tired and wondering how much longer until the little bucking bronco was worn out.

Introducing: Laika

Little Miss Laika arrived on the scene on Friday the 16th and has made it her mission to take over the house. She may just be 8 weeks old and four and a half pounds but that doesn't stop her from trying to boss around dogs and humans alike. This little spitfire knows what she wants and she isn't afraid to let you know! She will need some humans who will take some puppy classes with her and make sure she knows that she doesn't get to be the alpha. That said, she is a loving little girl who is full of playful puppy energy.

When she's out of her crate the other dogs run and hide to avoid her sharp puppy teeth munching down on their tails (chase the tail is a favorite game of hers). Frodo has done a puppy smackdown move on her more than once when the teeth bit down a bit too hard.

She never just runs, but instead bucks around like a wild stallion. In fact she was running under the coffee table and bonked her head pretty hard when she bucked up when she was close to the edge.

I think that she has a mild case of demodex on top of her head and around the ears. Mostly the hair is just thin but I saw one telltale bump that made me think that mange might be just starting up. Since this starts up because of a weak immune system I'm going to see if just getting her on a high quality puppy food (Orijen Puppy with Mulligan Stew) along with an Omega 3 supplement and pre and probiotics will be enough to beat this without going the route of having to take Ivermectin.