Schooled

Brutus' leg was bothering him too much to attend class again last night. Instead of just missing a class that I paid for - with Trainer Guys approval - I decided that Bella would substitute for him at last night's obedience class. She hasnt been to a class in about a year and I wanted to see how she would do.

She actually did very well.Her heeling was a little rusty but once we were warmed up she was consistantly giving me automatic sits. She schooled most of those beginner dogs! The only one doing better than Bella was a German Shepherd who was also an "advanced dog" repeating the beginners class. She still needs work on her socialization around people, but she is making progress. She almost even did a perfect 'stand for exam' at the last minute she tried to drop her butt into a sit, but at least she let Trainer Guy pet her without trying to flee.

I forgot how much fun it was to take classes with her, she is so easy. I am hoping that when Trainer Guy starts the next round in Januray, I will have the money to put her through again and give her a refresher.

There still might be hope that one day she can be my trial dog.

Guess I Spoke too Soon

Two days ago Bella began itching at her armpits and once again opened up some nasty irritated looking sores. I'm treating them with the usual aquaphor ointment, at least they look better already.

But this time she has a new symptom of small bumps all over her entire body. I'm not sure if it's related or not. I suppose it's possible that it was just a coincidence and that she could have been laying on an ant hill or been bitten by some other sort of insect.

Either way I guess we are still not out of the woods. After this bottle of Stimmune is gone there is one more holistic supplement that I plan to try. If that doesn't work I guess we'd better start saving up for the allergy testing/injection treatment.

Skin Update

Finally, after several vet visits, allergy medications, home treatments and herbal supplements, we have Bella's skin allergies under control! Her bald spots have completely filled in and it's been about a month since she has had any raw sores under her arm pits.

She has been on a homeopathic herbal supplement called NHV Stimmune, for about two months now, that combined with an added fish oil supplement in her diet, and regular baths with a tea tree oil medicated shampoo I am hopeful that we have found the winning combination and that her allergies will be a thing of the past.

Fingers crossed!

Now if only her little brother will stop beating her up leaving little scabs all over her, she will be my beautiful little girl again!

Pooped Pups

We had a good walk at the park yesterday :)

Walk with the Animals

This past weekend Bella and I participated in the annual Mary S Roberts Pet Adoption Center Walk with the Animals.




Bella proved that her social skills are slowly but surely improving, especially when compared to last year's walk; this year, she actually even approached a few strangers asking for attention on her own! She sat quietly and accepted the attention that people were giving her and she even got several compliments on her "I'm a Lover not a Fighter" t-shirt! (Better that, than getting dirty looks for her bald spots on her sides from her itching/allergies). She did get a bit spooked by a life-sized stuffed dog that was displaying a doggie-jacket in one of the vendor booths, but I made her sit next to it for a few minutes so she could see that it wasn't anything to be afraid of; then there were also the scary flags that lined the barriers at the starting gate of the dog walk, but again after spending a few minutes walking back and forth past them she settled down nicely. I'm quite pleased with her progress overall and am looking forward to an even better time next year!


Bella also made a new canine friend at the event, a little chocolate colored Pit Bull named Keelie. Keelie and her owner were part of our dog pack (team). I had met Keelie before and knew she was a sweet girl, granted she has lots of energy, but I had a feeling that, if Bella could get past that they would probably hit it off; they did, after some nose to nose sniffing, Keelie rolled over on her back and they became instant friends. I'd love to get them together one day where they can run around off leash I think they would have a blast together.





We had a great time, got some good socialization and exercise and our team, Dogs R Us, raised almost $600 to benefit the no kill shelter! The forecast called for rain but fortunately we didn't have anything more than a few sprinkles. All in all it was an awesome day!

The things dogs eat...

Bella was doing so well about being trustworthy in the house. I've been giving her more freedom without having to be leashed to one place. Normally she has just been going in my bedroom and snoozing on my the bed; that is until yesterday when she decided that my TV remote control would make a tasty pre-dinner appetizer.

Poor little remote didnt stand a chance...

The list of things that she has eaten now includes:

• TV Remote
• 12 Pack of Dr. Pepper (cans and all)
• pieces of a glass bottle
• some sort of blue plastic (still havent figured out where it came from)
• pillow
• dog bed
• blanket
• shoes/laces
• book that was left on the coffee table

Itchy & Scratchy!

For the past few weeks now, poor Bella has been scratching herself raw. She's always been a bit itchy ever since I have had her but only on one other occasion has she made herself bleed. I never figured out what caused it the first time, we hadn't made any food changes or anything so I assumed it was some kind of outside allergy. This time though I'm thinking it may be related to the grass seed DH spread in the back yard because from what I recall the itching intensified right about the same time the seed was put down. Great. I hope it's not the actual grass she's allergic to!

I want to give her a bath with the oatmeal shampoo that I have, it usually helps to alleviate some of the irritation, but it's been WAY too cold here for that. And apparently tomorrow we are in for record breaking cold temperatures for our area (literally, they are calling for 6 degrees colder than the record set in the 60's). I don't have central heating so I cant exactly give her a bath if it's 50 degrees (or colder) in my house! And I really cant afford paying $50 for someone else to bathe her.

I've been researching on the web and it looks like several people have had success with Gold Bond Medicated Powder, I guess as long as I can keep her from licking at it...I also read that for the long-term fish oil supplements proved to help with similar skin irritations. I've been using the vetrycin spray and it does help heal the open sores that she has created. I am also thinking about finding an old T-shirt for her to wear around the house to see if it helps keep her from scratching herself raw. Other than that I don't quite know what else to do for her. I feel bad because she looks so miserable sitting there itching and scratching away at herself!

Alarm Clock!

Bella is still doing very well overnight without her crate. My only issue is the new morning routine. Lets just say that she's more of a morning person than I am.

I usually start waking up around 6am, but don't drag myself out of bed until closer to 6:30-6:40am. Lately however, Bella has been wide awake staring at me and pawing the bed by 5:50am and is quite insistent that it's time to get up. She has thus far proven to be the most effective and reliable alarm clock that I've ever had. I just wish someone had installed a 'snooze button'!

Vicious-less Pit Bull...

...mauls daddy with kisses!

Changes

Over the weekend I decided to give Bell a trial period without crating her at night. While doing my house cleaning on Saturday I moved the crate into one of the spare rooms and in it's place I washed all of the doggie blankets and put her bed/blanket down and attached a leash to the leg of the bed.

In the evening I let her out to go potty and then told her to "go to bed", instead of walking around my bed to go to her corner she likes take a shortcut by hopping up and over my bed, but this time when she saw that the crate wasnt there she put the breaks on and stood on the edge of my bed looking down. I told her again to "go to bed" but she stood there looking at me funny, like 'I wold but it's not here'.

I again told her to go to bed and guided her off of my bed and onto hers. It took about 10 minutes for her to settle down and get the idea, she kept wanting to either climb up on my bed or go over to Sadie and but her; but once she finally laid down she stayed put for the rest of the night without any problem.

She repeated the process last night except that it only took her about 5 minutes to settle down and go to sleep. I think that she is going to be just fine! Though the crate was doubling as a night stand for me and I dont have space for a night stand and both doggie beds, I think I'm going to make some sort of shelf for the wall that I can put up to use instead. For now though I'm just happy that I can get that huge crate out of my room! And now I'm going to now be on the hunt for some new doggie beds instead of a new crate!

The other new change for Bella is that over the weekend, we added a doggie door to the door that goes between the back yard and the garage. This way the girls will have access to the garage without us having to leave the door open all of the time. When it's cold or windy outside this should help to keep it warmer in the garage.

After about 5 minutes and some treats, Sadie is a pro and loves coming in and going out through the door. But my poor little 'fraidy cat' having a more difficult time adjusting. I have coaxed her through it a few times, as long as she is on a leash so she cant run away and I hold it open for her she will creep through. But she now is even balking at walking through the doorway even if the regular door is open. I'm hoping that with some time she will settle and get accustomed to it, and that with Sadie using it, it will help show her that it's not going to hurt her.

Poor girl I guess it was just a lot to change for her in one weekend!

To crate, or not to crate?

Lately I have been considering whether or not to continue to crate Bella at night. Her crate is the huge plastic "varikennel" kind and takes up so much precious space in my teeny 10x11 bedroom so at first I was considering purchasing her a new smaller wire type crate that wouldn't be so bulky but then DH mentioned just getting rid of the crate altogether and leashing her to the leg of the bed, like I do with Sadie. I could spend the money I was going to use on a crate, and get them both nice new cushy beds and blankets (it gets REALLY cold in there at night) for the floor in my room instead.

I'm undecided. It's been over a year that Bella has been sleeping in the crate; she does fine and sleeps the entire night without any problems, she never has any potty accidents. Sadie started out in the crate and eventually graduated to the leash/bed; and if she is leashed, she wont be able to wander and get herself into any trouble during the night. But Bella doesn't tend to handle change very well, I'm just not sure if it's too soon for her to graduate. My other concern is whether or not she will leave Sadie alone and let her sleep. I don't have the space to put them on opposite sides of the bed and even if leashed (one to the head and one to the foot of the bed) they will still be able to touch each other.

I'm thinking that before I spend any money either way, I might give it a trial run one night. I'll move the crate out and then move her bed that she has in the living room (one that she's used to being leashed to and sleeping on) to my room and see how she does. If it works, it would be awesome to get some space back in my room!

If only...

This past week as I've been doing "homework" with Sadie for her obedience class I have also decided to work Bella to refresh her training as well. I really haven't done much formal training with her for a while and I had forgotten how good she can do (at least she does at home when no one is around) She hasn't missed a beat!

I think the break may have been good for her because she seems even better now than she was before. Even things that seemed to give us trouble in the past, such as the "moving down" she did quite well the other night!

If I can only get her past the extreme fear/shyness that she has. Last week there was an episode of Dog Whisperer that confirmed my beliefs about why she is the way she is. It was a Mallinois who was a trained sniffer dog. He was awesome at what he did but he had a problem with being very shy and afraid of sudden noises and movements around anyone other than his primary trainer/owner. The poor guy acted just like Bella does! When DW and the owner/trainer sat down to discuss the dogs problems the owner told him that he had spoken to the breeder and asked why the dog behaved like that and was told that the dog had spent the first 8 months of his life confined to a crate. I truly believe that this has been Bella's problem, I have no idea what happened to her during the first 5 or 6 months of her life but based on her behavior I think that nothing happened! I really think that she spent her time either tied up left in someones yard/garage/crate without any interaction during the critical developmental stages that a puppy goes through.

The good news is that DW was able to bring the dog on his show back from what he called "total rock bottom", unfortunately I am not him and I don't have access to some of the things he did to bring about such a rapid and extreme change in the dog. He took the dog everywhere, even places like New York! He had someone with the dog 24/7 working on his confidence and socialization.

I do have hope for Bella though, I now know that have been doing the right things with her, it's just been a bit slower going. She has improved some but she does still have a long way to go. I think the weather is starting to get better so I really want to start getting her out and about again. I want to take her to places like, petsmart, the park, and even the outdoor areas at restaurants/coffee shops. Even if she never improves enough to compete at another trial, I want her to be able to have a happy panic-free life!