What Im watching this week

I love YouTube. I find so much great training stuff on there. (cough cough KikoPup cough) It is also a great place for watching funny videos when you are bored or need a pick me up. This week I have been watching some of the Crufts dog show in England. Specifically the Freestyle videos. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecq_71rymGc&feature=related



And:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=853bJhFBXIQ



Most of the dogs I love dont place well but I dont care. It is a blast to watch regardless. Im not sure I will ever be at the stage to do a full routine like this but I am having fun teaching Jenny some of the moves for freestyle. It is basically stringing tricks and skills together and adding music. Since she loves to train it is a fun way for us to work together.
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Training tricks is a great way to really hone communication between each other. It requires you to sometimes think outside the box. When I was just starting in training I didnt value tricks very much. Now I try to teach all dogs some tricks. Things like ringing a bell, (can be used for a dog to ask to go out to potty) fetch, (a great way to exercise a dog when a walk isnt possible) and sit pretty (perfect for a shelter dog to grab some attention) all have value beyond the actual trick. It teaches the dog how to work with a person as a team member. It keeps training fun. It looks like fun and games because it is. Try teaching those dogs by using corrections and see what happens. Do you want to show off how smart your dog is? Teach them a cool trick and all your friends will be impressed. For some shelter dogs a trick can be a lifesaver. Tricks arent just for kids anymore!

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What a difference a week makes

First let me report that the 5K went very well. Unfortunately Jenny had a sore paw and couldnt participate. Zola was my substitution. A pinch runner (walker) if you will. I figured if she got too tired she was small enough to carry. She did just fine. I only carried her when she panted and then it was because I was being paranoid. She only tolerated it for a few minutes at a time then struggled to get put back down. Since we werent actually running it really wasnt an issue. Here we are with our friends Ashley and Prudence (she wanted nothing to do with the paparazzi as you can see) and Angelica and Leo. The weather for the day was incredible. Sunny and warm but not too hot for the dogs.

After the 5K we went over to the Loyal Biscuit Co. for the book signing for my friend Jen Blood. Here I am looking like a psycho stalker. Somehow very fitting. Why hold a book signing at a dog store you ask? Because the main character shops there for her dog of course.

Now for the other shoe. This weekend I was cuddling with Zola when I noticed a pretty sizable lump on her jaw. So Monday morning she came to work with me to get it checked out. We needed to do x-rays as it was not just a simple abscess like I had hoped. It turns out that it is some sort of mass and she cannot open her mouth as wide as she should be able to. She can only open it about an inch to an inch and a half. The doctor also saw evidence of deterioration in the joint of the jaw. This is a problem for a couple of reasons. One is if the mass is what is interfering how far she can open her mouth, and it keeps growing, she wont be able to eat eventually. She has always been a messy eater but I chalked that up to her being a pug with an extremely short jaw and under bite. Two is that we cant put her under anesthesia properly for any length of time because we cant open her jaw enough to safely intibate her. That coupled with her liver shunt makes anesthesia complicated. The position of the mass is also bad so removal doesnt look possible regardless. It was too firm to do an aspirate on though there wasnt any pitting of the bone that looked like the typical signs of cancer. Her lymph nodes are also swollen and her eye on that side cannot be pushed back into the socket as far as the other one can. (sorry I dont know the technical term for that)
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So my options are limited because I dont have the finances to do anything extraordinary, nor does  it look like there are many things we could do anyway. We will watch and see if the mass grows and how fast it does. She is not painful in any way thankfully and doesnt seem to notice her limitations. She can eat, and bark, and play bitey face with Jack and Jenny with no issues. She even chews on her bones and shreds cardboard whenever she gets a chance. She is happy. I will just be keeping a close eye on her from now on. We might try an anti-inflammatory if I can find one that will be ok to give that wont bother her liver.
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 I am going to post photos I took of her x-rays because I think x-rays are super interesting. Dont get to excited as they arent the best since I took them with my phone. We did a few views and they vary in angle quite a bit. I wish they were more clear in showing the outline of her flesh so you can see where her nose is supposed to be to give you a point of reference. The mass is on her right side. Im sorry that I cant remember if some of these rads have been flipped. (I do that because it gives me the illusion I can see better when in fact I cant read x-rays very well.)

This bottom one is with her on her back with her mouth being held open with some gauze.
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So while she has been doing great as far as the liver shunt goes, now there is another thing that is threatening to shorten her life with us. I guess the beauty of being her is that ignorance is bliss. I wish we all could be as lucky.

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