Emma and her poop update

After writing about Emma's poop problem, we decided to change her diet. The past few months our dogs have been on a grain free food. Since I have taken gluten out of my diet and feel 1000% times better, I wondered if it would help my dogs. So we switched Emma to grain free food and within 3 days, she was only pooping 3 times a day. Half the amount and she is not peeing nearly as much (meaning hardly any accidents).

While our dogs have been on grain free food, I still allow them to have some treats with grain in it. Neither have shown any signs of sensitivity so I think it is fine for them. However, for Emma, given her  issues, I have purchased grain free treats as well. 

The other change is we are limiting her access to rope toys. We have discovered that she eats the rope and that upsets her stomach.

We will see if these changes continue.

PS: Zaphod is a gentleman and always let's Emma win with the rope. He is very gentle with her and it is very sweet.

Accident update

We are happy to report that we didn't have accidents in the house Thursday or Friday. We have created this temporary solution to blocking the basement. The chairs allow the cats to go up and down, but keep the dogs from going down. Not going down = no accidents.

We have also changed Zaphod's feeding schedule. After lots of reading and research we determined that maybe we were feeding him too much food now that he is at his ideal body weight. So now he is getting 4 cups plus treats instead of 5. We are also only giving 1 cup in the morning and 3 at night. He is now just pooping 2 times a day. He gives the sad eyes in the morning when you only give him one cup in the morning so we may start to play with that.

We did have some accidents Saturday.  Saturday am, when I first got up Lee snuck downstairs while I was in the bathroom and pooped on the floor. This is very unusual. She can usually wait while we go to the bathroom. I guess she was desperate.

Snuggles in bed

Then on Saturday we ran to the hardware/grocery store (out here in the country it is one store, you can get beer, bananas and a wheelbarrow, how great is that - it is like a general store!). When we got back someone (Lee) had taken 2 tupperware containers off the counter and chewed them up. When the Man was verbally scolding the dogs and making them sit and wait while I cleaned it up, our poor Phod got scared and had an accident. It breaks my heart that having a voice raised to him does this to him.  I hate whoever did that to him. However, I wish it had ANY effect on my Lee! For this accident, we just cleaned it up without drawing any attention to it.

We will see how our new system works this week.

Proof no good ever came from a Thursday

Editors note: The Lady hates Thursdays. She thinks they are the worst day in the week. She has a firm belief that no good comes from this day. It is what one gets for naming the day after Thor, god of thunder.

The Lady's eyes pop open 10 minutes before her alarm is about to go off. She silently groans as she reads 4:53 am on the clock. She lays there for a few minutes and gets up. The next half hour is a quiet one of feeding dogs, packing lunches and getting half ready for work.

At 5:35 the Lady slips into her Merrels, slips collars around the dogs necks, and off they go on a walk into the cool, crisp morning. The Lady is amazed at how wonderful the stars look. The first 1.5ish km of the walk are uneventful, in fact the dogs are walking better than usual. Only 2 cars pass. The dogs do their business. On the last .5 km, the Lady and dogs stop as a car passes. The Lady is holding the dogs in one hand.

Suddenly Zaphod lunges at the fence, Hailey too and the next thing the Lady knows she has landed hard in a ditch. She is flat on her belly, her legs are under her like she is sitting sort of cross legged. The dogs are still in one hand pulling. After a quick assessment, the Lady realizes no major injuries, but she is being pulled slowly in a ditch by the dogs. Hailey has gone one way and Phod the other. She is trying to pull them back, but it is hard laying on her belly. They are not responding to vocal commands (aka yelling). Out of desperation to be able to get up, the Lady swings her free hand to give Phod a swat to try and get his attention in hopes he will stop pulling so she can get up. The Lady would like to make it clear that this was a swat and not a hit and that at the time laying face down in a ditch in the pitch black, sort of being dragged on her belly she didn't feel she had a lot of other options. The Lady has had a momentary lapse that Phod was abused, so he interprets this swat as a beating comes and flips over to his back and starts shaking. This is when the Lady started to cry. She tried to give comfort to Phod, but he was just a puddle on the ground.

The Lady realizes she is not being pulled anymore, so she is able to pick her crying self up off the ground. She is able reach down and assure Phod she loves him and he is ok. She realizes Hailey has totally missed this looking at whatever she was looking at. The pack then makes their slow way home, amid tears.

The Lady finishes getting ready and goes to work.  The Man takes the dogs out for more business (Lee had 2 morning poops and Phod 3which is unusual) and goes to work.

As the day goes on, the jolt from the Lady's fall begins to catch up with her. Her hands and forearms hurt,  she has a pulled muscle in her back and neck and there are spots on her legs she expects bruises. She is thankful that is all.

The Man is the first one home and he comes home to pee and poop all over the basement. The Lady is not sad that she didn't have to clean that up.

The Man and the Lady, who love their dogs very much look at each other and had that rare pet owner moment when you wish you didn't have them.

Today is a new day and not a Thursday so hopefully all will be well.

Bodily Functions and other fun and games

Anything I did wouldn't be as bad as Lee, so you love me more!

I am away for 36 hours for work and here is what has happened according to the calls I have gotten.

Hailey did not destroy anything yesterday. She could take the baby gate before I got out of the house so I just trapped her in the basement. However, Zaphod had what appears to be 2 accidents in his crate (poor guy), so the Man had to clean that up.

Both pups did a great job with the horses. Hailey would sit and not bark as long as the horses kept their heads on their side of the fence. When they came over, that scared her. Zaphod will sniff the face of a horse and try and get them to play.

Zaphod had a great play at the beach with one of the neighbour's dogs. We live in a great dog friendly neighbourhood. This is great!

Hailey showed Zaphod the deer across the road and he did run away and took a longer time to come back. So we know if he sees deer he will run. 

The house had a very rough night. Hailey threw up. Cinder threw up.  The man didn't really sleep. 

Today they are calling for severe thunderstorms so the man, who is tired and very cranky, will stay home with them. This will be a temporary solution until the thundershirt comes and we find some sort of steel (not wire) cage for her. 

I hope they have a good day cause I don't want to get home this evening to cranky people:)

Days without Destruction - 0

Wow, it has been a very long time since I wrote about destruction. This is because Ms. Bug has been a pretty good girl.

Yesterday, we decided it was in our best interest to go to town and get a few things. Going to Gatineau is now a big deal (it is about 30 minutes to the Gatineau shopping district of Maloney). Off we went. While we were gone a storm rolled in. (I got drenched in town, like ring your undies out drenched but there was no thunder etc). We are not sure how it was at our place in the mountains, but the power had been out, so we think there was either thunder or strong winds. Ms. Bug does not like the thunder. So this is what she did:

Door to garage

While we appreciate she suffers from anxiety, this really ticked us off. Here we are in our new house and she is wrecking the place. We are going to take a few days and figure out what we can do for her. It is possible a friend will calm her down. Our vet has been suggesting drugs for her for months, we may explore this. We are also wondering if going back to crating her would be helpful. We have a HUGE garage we could set the crate up in (so if she did get out, she couldn't destroy anything).  Time will tell.

Other updates: She is on a regular poop schedule and even pooped on leash this morning. However, yesterday when I was putting some empty boxes in the garage she went in and peed there. What a girl!

You know you are a true dog owner when

Your dog hasn't pooped for 2 days and you are getting worried and when she finally goes (in the garage of all places) you are just so happy you can't scold her!  (Later when she asked to go to the garage to poop I took her outside and waited her out and she finally went in the bush - it is hard to imagine there is not a spot on these 2 acres that is not suitable for pooping!)