It is most definitely in shedding season here. It’s been a very strange year, weather-wise, and I guess it was all late getting started. But the warm weather is here, and Zoe’s coat is leaving in bucketfulls. I went outside with the undercoat rake again today and brushed the heck out of her. Our front lawn looks like a 50-cat-fight took place. Zoe is looking much slimmer than she did. I just hate seeing her look so scruffy with clumps of white undercoat sticking out all over, as if I haven’t brushed her in a year! She’s usually so sleek and shiny.

I also clipped her nails today. It’s one of those things I keep saying I need to do, but don’t do nearly often enough. It went fine. She would much rather have been running wildly around the yard, but she sat still okay for me. No whining or pulling away, just some argument when I wanted her to face my right and she wanted to look at something to my left and kept turning around. But honestly she’s very good. Oreo always obeyed fine when clipping her nails, but she always looked like I was torturing her and was surely going to use those clippers to remove her tail next. I don’t even know why she always behaved like that, as the only time I ever nicked a nail quick was when she was about 5 years old!

Having only previously ever clipped Oreo’s nails - all of which are black - I never really concerned myself with being able to see the quick. Black nails are pretty much proceed at your own risk - I’d err on the side of caution and trust that I would do just fine. And like I said, I only got the quick once. (And of course, it was right after I was explaining to Dad that cutting her nails was really easy and I’d never cut the quick. I think I scared him off from ever trying it himself.) But Zoe now, she has white and black nails. And you know, I prefer those white ones. Much less stressful, I must say.

Behavior-wise Zoe has been acting… well, not terrible. But not great either. I don’t know where my perfect little princess has gone, but I’m not so sure she’s coming back. Zoe is 2 now, and apparently somewhere along the way she picked up a little bit of confidence - which is a good thing! Unfortunately she also picked up some mommy doesn’t exist. She’s been frustrating lately. Outside on leash she behaves just horribly. It doesn’t seem to matter to her how many times she hits the end of the leash, she just keeps doing it! In fact I was injured last week by her and Zeeke (but mostly her). She clotheslined me with her leash across the back of the knees, while I was yelling at her to STOP! STOP! STOP!!!! I have two huge very PURPLE bruises now. So she and I are working on the commands such as STOP (which is supposed to mean STOP MOVING) and HEEL (which is supposed to mean STAY NEAR MOMMY). Right now I think she hears everything as “blah blah blah”.

She’s just very frustrating because she’s very hyper and yet very sensitive. She’s either over-stimulated and doesn’t listen to anything, or she shuts down completely and doesn’t listen to anything. You really have to be very firm, very calm, and very, very patient. I’m finding it difficult to find that balance.

But she is still the sweet, happy-go-lucky dog she’s ever been. In fact, she just brought me a very disfigured goose toy. I think she knew I was writing about her.

I need to take more photos soon, I’m afraid I’ve been direly slacking. We just haven’t been doing anything at all of interest around here.

Well now, we had a really shitty couple of days. Literally.

Saturday evening we gave the dogs each some steak leftover from a dinner we had out. We’ve given them the exact same leftovers before without issue, so we really didn’t expect what happened.

Zoe got sick. Real sick.

It started in the middle of the night, she woke me up frantic. I took her outside and she had a lot of diarrhea. We went back to sleep. An hour and a half later she woke me up to do the same thing again. A little while after that hubby got up and took them both out, but Zoe didn’t go. I fell asleep for once to try to catch up on a little bit of sleep. A couple of hours later Den bursts into the bedroom all upset because Zoe puked all over the living room rug.

And that’s pretty much how it went the rest of the day: diarrhea, and a whole lot of throwing up. I made sure she had access to water because I didn’t want her getting dehydrated, but every time she’d drink some she’d almost immediately throw it all up again. She couldn’t keep anything down at all. I’ve never seen so much puke in my life. It was a horrible mess.

Zoe very obviously felt horrible all day. She looked so upset… her tail was down, her head hung, her eyes were wide and sad. I went out and bought some Kaopectate from the drug store, as well as some pediatric electrolyte. From my boss I picked up a dosing syringe and some chicken flavored baby food. I did manage to give her one dose of the kaopectate, but she sure wasn’t happy with me. She didn’t have any more diarrhea after that thank god (just some more puking).

She napped a long time. I made sure she was undisturbed by the other animals and I just let her sleep on the bed beside me (though I got worried and put a blanket on the bed after a while - really didn’t want her puking on our comforter). When she woke up in the evening she obviously felt much better. Her tail was high, and she was even showing interest in the baby food (which earlier she outright refused). I mixed some of the baby food into the electrolytes and let her drink it up. She didn’t puke it all back out! Yeah!

What a horrible day that was, though. I don’t know why that steak went over so badly with her, or if she got into something else (though I don’t think she did). Zeeke had a little bit of the runs afterwards, but with him that’s pretty normal for eating anything other than his normal kibble. He certainly didn’t have the explosive stomach upset that she did.

Of course last night we locked the cats out of the bedroom so we could get some actual sleep, but middle of the night Merlin starts crying. “Mow-ow-ow-ow!” he’d sing-song right outside our door. And that was after scratching at the door for half an hour. I finally couldn’t take it anymore and let him in. So he was winding around my head purring and kneading with his sharp little claws - made sleeping rather difficult. Then I fall asleep only to hear scratching and meowing from Jo - but it didn’t sound like the bedroom door. I figured he must want into the linen closet (his new favorite spot). It was so annoying! Loud. I got up to check on him and bring him in too, and found out he had been locked in the linen closet all night! Poor guy! That explains why Merlin had been so upset all night too - he was all alone. So we ended up with Zoe, Merlin and Jo all piled on the bed between us, Zeeke asleep on the floor. Didn’t get much sleep after that.

Oh, plus - Merlin has come up with a new hobby: pushing dishes off the kitchen counter. So far he’s broken a drink glass and a plate. No more dishes left on the counter, I guess.

What a crazy weekend.

Today I got an email from Zoe’s sister’s adoptive parents! They sent along a little movie of Schatsie, and hopefully will be sending some photos my way too. The two dogs look very different - Schatsie has a white body with some dark spots, with a dark head - but the head and build is very similar. She said Schatsie too is around 30lbs, and has a big fluffy tail. Schatsie, unlike Zoe, doesn’t have any fear issues… they said she’s very friendly, no behavioral problems at all. Which only reinforces my opinion that the pups were NOT abused, Zoe’s just hardwired this way. Oh well, I love her just the way she is. Anyways, it’s just really neat to see how Zoe’s sister is doing. Sometimes I would think about her.

Oh by the way - I did a group weigh-in on our new digital scale the other day.
Zoe: 31.8 lbs
Jo: 11.2 lbs
Merlin: 11.8 lbs

Yeesh, no wonder Merlin has been feeling heavy lately!

Just so I don’t forget… Zoe’s adult height is 18″.

Well Zoe is definitely double-coated. I’ve been noticing little puffs of white undercoat sticking out of her shorts (which I pull out), so today I took her outside with an undercoat rake. Last time I tried using the rake it accomplished absolutely nothing. (That was months ago, I guess when she was still transitioning from her puppy coat.) Well this time that certainly was not the case. I got tons and tons of white fuzzy undercoat coming off of her. So yes, undercoat rake is excellent. I might go over her topcoat later with a bristle brush or slicker brush (though I hate slickers). But now her fur is beautiful looking (as always) and she must feel a lot better.

I’m curious as to why she’d be blowing her coat at the end of summer though. Very strange. Maybe I just haven’t noticed it until now.

I have a confession: I don’t really brush Zoe very often. Yes! Condemn me to mommy-hell! People always ask if she sheds a lot, if I have to brush her a lot - and I just really don’t. I would, if she looked like she needed it. Sometimes I get out the boar bristle brush and get her looking all slick and shiny. Sometimes I grab the rubber brush and rake and get out some of that undercoat. But her coat surprizingly is very self-maintaining. When I pet her and play with her I don’t notice puffs of fur coming off her (like they do Zeeke). She never mats up (like Oreo does - her fur is aweful for matting). Dirt and slobber all fall right out after it’s dried. She’s seriously the lowest maintainance dog coat I’ve got. Obviously she does leave fur around the house, on the bed and couch and such - part of dog ownership. But it’s nothing that I really notice, not around here.

Oh my god, Zoe has the WORST gas. She’s clearing rooms here. All last night I was hunting for a pile of poop because I could smell it… turns out she was just passing gas. Not like that’s any better for the nostrils! Unfortunately this morning I was still in bed and the dogs went out of the bedroom with Den… I woke up half an hour later to a very peeved husband, who was cursing. I got up to find a puddle AND piles on the floor from Zoe. But they were very unhealthy piles, so I’m inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt - hubby’s mad because he says she never whined or barked or anything. I think this stomach upset can be traced back to the canned food hubby gave them last night. Zeeke’s fine, but Zoe didn’t handle it well. So no more canned for her.

Ew ew ew!! Today when Den came home he was petting Zoe and saying hi when he says to me, “What’s this on her skin?” At first I thought it was just a fur clump, but then we parted the fur back and it was a tick! Yuck!! It was on the back of her head, top of her neck. So I held her still while Den got some pliars and pulled that bugger out. *shudder* It was so disgusting. Then we had to check the wound with tweezers to make sure we got everything out. I was SO proud of Zoe… it obviously was not fun at all, and probably hurt a bit when we took it out, but she stayed right there and let me hold her head still while we did it all.

But still, gross. Guess it’s time to start the dogs on the K9 Advantage. The only problem is that it’s not good for cats, so we’ll have to keep Jojo seperated from Zoe for a few days after we put it on them. (He doesn’t go near Zeeke at all anyways, but with the way he bites Zoe it would definitely be a problem!)

Well yesterday was a disaster. Just after I’d mentioned on some forums about Zoe constantly whining to go out, she had an accident of the poop variety. Ew. Yuck. Then, after dinner I took her out, she peed, got distracted by dogs and owner walking down the street. Five minutes later inside, she pooped again. I think I was pretty ready to throw in the towel at that point… but man, did it reek. So I spent a good part of the day scrubbing and spraying and mopping. Ugh. After that she pooped (outside), then again in the middle of the night. I don’t know what was up with her stomach. Today has gone much more smoothly, but her bathroom break sure did smell aweful. Yuck.

Well, yesterday was eventful. Zoe had her last trip to the vet’s for her DA2PP (distemper/parvo) booster. Now she’s all up to date and ready for her obedience class. The vet’s trip was hard on her - she was shaking like a leaf in the truck. In the waiting room at the vet’s she was very anxious, whining and shaking, but she also really wanted to see around one of the walls where another dog was. That surprized me - she wanted to go closer to the big dog. That’s encouraging. But then the tech came and took her into the back for her booster. When they came out a while later she told me that Zoe had lost control of her bladder twice and had to be cleaned up. I put her in the truck while I paid so she could calm down a bit.

So today I sent an email to the trainer asking if there’s anything we need to do (or they need to do) for Zoe’s class. I worry that it’ll be a waste if all she does is freak out every time we go there. When she’s that upset she doesn’t give any attention to toys or treats, she just wants to hide behind me and run away. I hope the trainer has dealt with dogs like her before and knows how to deal with it. Because I don’t.