The Ups and Downs of the Holidays

So, Fathead and I are back home (Southern Illinois, where we both grew up) for the holidays. This has been, for the most part, a very good trip. Lots of excitement and fun for doggy.

First, his cousin-dog Molly came to visit for the holidays too, and she and Zim are bestest buds. They love playing with each other and really wear each other out. The basically didn't stop playing the entire time they were together.

Second, Zim got to play with a 3-year-old for Christmas and he definitely really loved her. Unlike some dogs, who think that kids who scream and run and move funny are scary, Zim thinks they're great playmates. He's definitely a great little dog with kids. He's not perfect (he did start guarding a bit when she kept giving him and taking away a little toy car and he growled after she kept putting her hand over his eyes, but he was mostly a doll and he definitely was more patient with that behavior from the little one than he would be from most people) but it's definitely great to see him being a good little family dog. I was pretty sure before that he would be great with the kids we eventually plan to have but I'm now very confident that with the right ground rules in place, he will be nothing short of fabulous. He's really a super patient little dog and he just generally likes kids.

Finally, Zim got his first snow and oh, how he loved it. He was half-bounding through it and half stalking it and he's just had a grand old time with her. I've been desperately hoping for snow because I knew he would love it and he did! Watching him run around in the snow was definitely all that I hoped it would be. More, in fact.

That said, the trip has not been all perfect. Today Zim had a little escape and it was absolutely harrowing.

So, my mother in law was getting rid of some milkbones that had gotten wet (with icky sewage water) when the bathroom had flooded due to some pipes being destroyed under the house (so, you know, trying to make sure the dogs didn't get sick from eating gross sewage food) and she left the back door open while she did. Zim walked right out. This was, possibly, I think, because he was wearing his harness, as he is not normally prone to door bolting (although perhaps saying he doorbolted is inaccurate since he just walked calmly outside instead of running through like he'd never seen the sky before). I was near him, so I followed him and called to Fathead and my father-in-law to help me. Unfortunately, however, despite walking calmly and slowly toward him, Zim evaded capture and kept hopping along happily through the snow. Eager to explore, and perhaps confident due to the fact that Mommy and Daddy were nearby, he started away from the house and through the street. My father-in-law asked me about food, so I ran in to grab the pork we'd been heating up for my lunch. By the time I got back out, I could no longer see Zim and my father-in-law was calling to Fathead to stop chasing Zim (at a walking pace), but since Zim wasn't stopping when Fathead did, he kept forging (again, at a walking pace) after him, unwilling to let him get out of sight.

The next time I saw Zim, Fathead had him clutched safely in his arms, safe and sound. He had captured  the Great Explorer when he'd stopped to pee on a tree. However, this was only after Zim had wandered into the road, which is a highly traveled one with fast traffic. Honestly, even thinking about my baby on that road and what might have happened just makes me sick to my stomach. The worst part, of course, is that it was hard to know what to do. We were unwilling to try walking away or stop following him, because we didn't want to lost sight of him and that's usually when he decides he wants to go find you. He wouldn't come when called or stop as he didn't want to be caught and have his fun (and, in his mind, perfectly safe and probably almost normal, with Mom and Dad nearby) little adventure cut short. What this really means, I think, is that I need to implement the recall-training program I've been thinking of putting him through for the past couple of weeks. We need to come up with a new "come" command and practice with him on a long line and then jackpot him something fierce upon complying (either forcibly via the line or freely) with the command. Hopefully this will give us a better option should a situation like the escape today ever come up again.

I Got Mad at My Dog Tonight

I've never really been mad at Zim before. He's annoyed me before and he's tested my patience, but before tonight, he'd never made me mad at him.

So, Zim's demodex seemed to be getting worse, so we took him back to the vet and got a cream for it. Well, he doesn't like having it applied to the pink demodex spots at all. We think it's because this hurts (the cream is peroxide based and must sting) and then when we first started applying it, I think we made matters worse by how we were holding him and the fact that we just didn't really know how to go about making it a positive experience. So he growled, and eventually he started snapping.

We've made some progress with getting him better with having the cream put on him---no one holds him while it gets put on and we try and stuff him with treats (by which we mean kibble, since we can't resort to anything higher value due to the damn allergy trial---which he ruined yesterday anyway by stealing some Thanksgiving turkey). So, he's okay, now, with getting the cream put on all the spots but the couple that are on his right cheek. With those he still growls and snaps---and worse, as he snaps, he eats the damn cream!! Well, all this makes putting the cream on him very unpleasant and I dread having to put the damn stuff on him twice a day. And tonight, as he snapped at me and licked the cream from my finger as I reached for his cheek for the umpteenth time, I just, well, I'd had enough. I got really mad. We've had so much trouble dealing with it and I'm sick of getting snapped at, annoyed that this irritated cream-eating behavior comes with it and afraid that's he's going to escalate and really bite me despite the fact that there is now food and a clicker and no restraint involved in this whole hellish process.

We've thought about looping a leash around his face just for putting the stuff on his cheek, to try and avoid me really getting bitten and since the positive reinforcement doesn't seem t be helping with that one spot, but then I think, well, won't that just make the experience worse for him? If we resort to that, mightn't we end up moving him so far backwards that he won't let us do the other spots and maybe not want to be handled at all? Because when he's not at the vet or getting a cream that stings put on his face, he has no problem with me touching all of those spots and even manipulating them to a point (he doesn't like having his head grabbed and moved but is fine with chin grabbing, lip lifting and all simple touching).

Maybe we should just give up on a strict allergy trial for a while and shove something really good into him while this happens. As I said before, it's not like he didn't ruin the trial anyway with the turkey. Maybe a few days delay in getting it started again will be worth it and we can get him to cooperate with getting his demodex under control.

Well, either way, tonight was terrible with putting the damn stuff on and it just left me really mad at the dog. Then, as soon as we were done, he grabbed something he oughtn't and I had to take it away and I basically told Fathead to hurry up and take Zim to bed with him. He'd said he was going to bed already and I was mad enough that I wanted no delays. I just wanted Zim out of my hair.

And now I feel really guilty that I got mad at my baby and that I acted mad.

Zim's First Escape

So, we've had yet another Shiba owner right of passage: we've had to get our escaped dog to come back.

So, Zim is not normally a doorbolter. He's more interested in the person coming in a door than in getting out. Well, today we were at the home of my sister-in-law and her husband for her husband's graduation party. Zim was alternating between inside and outside, but when he was outside we had him on a 50 ft leash. When he was inside, he was playing with Molly, my sister-in-law's beagle mix. Well, at one point everyone was outside except me, Molly and Zim. Molly wanted to be outside where everyone else was because unlike Zim, she still really loves people when other dogs are around (Zim normally loves people but is merely fine with them when there are other dogs for him to interact with). Well, she was trying to doorbolt the whole time and then finally one of the many people at the house ended up letting her out and Zim ran right after her. Now happily outside, Molly's attention turned back to Zim and they started playing chase. Well, we tried to call Zim back but Shiba selective hearing was the order of the day---his entire focus was on Molly. Luckily the streets were basically empty the whole time we were there (I saw a total of maybe 3 cars in the hours we spent there), because at one point Zim went into the street. It was at that point that it occurred to me that with his focus on Molly, we should be calling her instead, I only hoped she came back. Like I said before, she's people focused but I've heard stories about her occasional selective hearing. Still, I was pretty sure her recall was better than Zim's and I knew he would follow her if she ran back to us so I tried it. She came right back and Zim followed. We didn't catch him right away but at least he was nearby instead of running away. He slipped out of my grasp once or twice after this, still staying nearby because Molly was, before he suddenly decided he needed to poop. I grabbed his harness as he went and we then put him on the 50ft line so he and Molly could play outside instead.

So now we're getting Zim a Tagg Pet Tracker. We'd thought about it before, but it seemed like an awful lot of money for a dog who didn't doorbolt and who was always on a harness and leash when outside (and wasn't a harness escape artist). Now, though, we've decided. He obviously becomes a doorbolter when's he's with another dog who's a doorbolter and I do know he's capable of slipping certain kinds of harnesses (he just doesn't try). This will give us a little insurance for if he does do the unlikely and slip a harness or run through an open door.

On a way, way different note, I just found a picture online of Zim's uncle, the full brother of his father, Kisaragi no Kouten go Amamisou (Kouten). I don't really think Zim looks much like him now that Kouten has gotten older but I found this picture of Kouten from when he was younger that I really think looks a lot like Zim:

Makes me wonder if Zim will grow up to look like his uncle, or at least his uncle at the age pictured ( I would guess between 6 months and a year old).


Also, here's a picture that Fathead snapped on his cell phone of me and Zim earlier tonight, both curled up on the floor. Like owner, like dog I suppose.

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.