Friday, April 27, 2012

Zim's Second Fear Period

So, I think that Zim is going through his second fear period. He's suddenly starting to whine and whatnot in the car and he was scared at the vet on Monday. We're going to be trying to use food to condition him to fear those things less (we've already made some progress with the scale at the vet, which he's never liked) and trying to ignore his upset to not encourage his fear. Hopefully it all goes well.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Picture Time!

These first ones aren't actually mostly of Zim, but rather of the Gir collar I made for him out of a lanyard. Pretty spiffy, huh?






Yes, that is my character sheet sitting right next to a dog who loves to shred paper. And, yes, I did notice this before he did.


Zim sometimes decides my backpack is a dog bed.

Zim has taken up the adorable habit of sleeping under the couch sometimes. It's super cute.



Monday, April 23, 2012

Little Zim at the Vet

So, we took Zim to the vet today because he was having problems with loose stool on Saturday (he was going about once every three hours as well) and he had some discharge from his right eye as well. I suspect the stool was either worms (right after we left the vet I saw some specks in his stool) or the fact that he's been on one brand of kibble (Avoderm) and another of canned food (Merrick), which might have been messing him up as well. Either way, we're going to try and get him onto all the same brand of food after his bland diet is done and hope that either that or the deworming he got at the vet takes care of it. We're also going to keep an eye on the discharge and take him back to the vet for it if it doesn't clear up in a couple of days.

Now, for the real reason behind this post---despite stuffing the little one with treats and him always having been fine before, he was super scared at the vet. He was shaking and wouldn't even take food when the vet took him in back to be dewormed---but when they led him back out from the back he was perfectly happy! No more shaking, no whining, tail up, just trotting along like the happiest puppy in the world. It was really strange. Maybe I made him nervous by not putting him down after having him on the scale? He's not a big fan of it and he climbed right onto my shoulder to get off of it. Maybe I should have put him down right away. Whatever it was, hopefully he'll be better at the vet next time---and we'll bring along hot dogs to try and make sure. He loves hot dogs.

He also growled when both the vet and the nurse wanted to look at his teeth. I guess Ben and I will have to be better about getting him used to that. It's funny, though, because I do look at his teeth every now and again to make sure his baby teeth are coming out. That said, I usually don't open his mouth to do that, I just let him open it and then I put a finger in there for him to chew on while I look at his teeth. I guess that's not good enough. We'll work on it to make sure it doesn't get worse as he ages.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Update

So, the little brat has probably been getting less training lately than he should because mom and dad have finals coming up---which is too bad because dad has figured out how a way to train him to shake (he's a dog that has to do the motion himself or he'll just think the treat is for behaving while we grab his paw), he really needs some more time with the clicker and the crate so that he can stop being so miserable when we leave the house and we need to bell train him because his signals to go out have gotten subtler and subtler. I'm going to try and work with him tomorrow through Friday when I have less class but I really don't think we're going to be able to really go at it until after finals. I'm really wanting to use the summer, when we won't be having as many people over, to really knock into his head not to put his paws on the coffee table, grab arms holding toys, jump on people, etc. You know, really work on his manners when it's only Fathead and I who have to be consistent with him and if we need to timeout him for something then there's no one else over to be tortured when he protests this (just as a note, we don't timeout him in his crate---the last thing he needs is to associate it with punishment).

In other news, he's decided he likes kibble---as long as it's coming out of his kong wobbler (this dog, he won't eat kibble from a bowl but he'll do tricks for it and eat it out of the wobbler). We actually call it his slot machine because he looks like he's pulling the handle on one when he plays with it. We do need to switch the kibble he's on, though, when this bag runs out. He's currently on Avoderm Puppy, but it's given him gas. We're going to switch him either to Wellness or Taste of the Wild, I think, once this bag runs out.

In other news, Fathead weighed the little sucker today---he's 12.2 pounds. He's getting so big!

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Pictures and A Short Update



















The last three pictures are from the last day of puppy class on March 26, 2012. That was also the day he got the last of his puppy shots too, so it was a really big day for him. Now that he has gotten all of his shots and is 4 months old we intend to get him a tag for the dog park up the road and take him there sometimes. The one near our house is rarely used (the one in Urbana is nicer and more popular) and I plan to take him on Wednesdays when I don't have class so I'm thinking we'll get the place to ourselves. In fact, if we stick to the small dog area I bet we'll definitely have it to ourselves.

Zim's next "big day" is May 14 when he gets neutered right after Ben and I finish finals.