...and more snow

So we're still alive despite the SNOW. We have well over a foot of snow. The cover to the dog pen took a dive last night. I was talking to a friend and couldn't figure out why the gate wouldn't shut... it was because it was all imploding in on itself. A few minutes later the tarp fell from the weight of the snow. It bent all the metal uprights and put all it's weight on the actual fence. The dogs weren't in it at the time. Ed was up on a ladder in the dark and cold trying to shovel the snow off the top so we could take apart the tarp. So much for "castle shiba". While we were outside we could hear trees falling in the woods next to us. That's really a scary sound, especially the ones that are close by.

All the dogs seem to really like the snow, although Don Juan is having a hard time figuring out how to lift his leg in snow that is higher than he can lift his leg. J has spent more time outside the last couple days than he has since summer.

This is the 3rd day we've been without water. The well owners are saying it could be a couple more days before they can get the parts and have it fixed. Good thing we have our emergency water bottles, and because there was a storm coming in, I filled the bathtub up with water so at least we can flush toilets. But I'd do just about anything for a hot bath to help warm up!

Our electricity has been on and off all day. Nothing like roughing it the week of Christmas. Doesn't put me in the best "spirit".

We are expecting snow flurries the rest of the week. I guess I'm done shopping for Christmas until after the snow melts which could be after Christmas.

On a positive note - TImber just loves the snow. Watching him brings a smile to my face every time! His new favorite word is "snowball". It's amazing how the cold white stuff turns him into this...











And here's Trixie!

And more snow...

We got a bunch of snow for where we live. Normally we'll get a sprinkle and that's it. School was canceled. The kids had fun sledding this morning. And the dogs were really wound up. Timber decided the landing was so soft that who needs to take the stairs when you can leap into the pile of snow below...



And of course, when you're all done tearing up the yard, just stand around and look cute...

First snow of the season

We woke up this morning to about an inch of snow. While most of the shibas would rather not have to deal with the fluffy wet stuff on their paws, Trixie didn't seem to mind it. She and Timber romped through the snow and had a great time in it.

The big agility trial...

Timber ran really fast, stuck his contacts and made it through all the weave poles, but that's about all I can say about this boy's agility runs this weekend. The environment was so different than we had ever trained in and the atmosphere so intense that he was just insane. Insane! Turning around and jumping on me if I was behind him, doing his own course if I wasn't right there with him. Looks like we have lots more training to do.

He reminds me alot of the way Farley was in his beginning days. Looks like I have another bossy aussie in the agility ring. Now we just need to learn to work together better as a team.

The coolest thing about this weekend was that there was a huge field that we could let our dogs off leash in. To wear Timber out I started throwing some frisbees to him. By the end of the three days he was catching the long throws with pretty good regularity.


Photo by JoeCamp

The others...

While Kona was in the show ring, the rest of the litter had a little get-together. Denise and I played personal manicurist to 12 little paws while the puppies had time to play.

Denise and I faired pretty well. Only a few scratches and each of us got peed on at least once. Not bad for a days work. But, I'm sure my neighbors are wondering what we were doing to the poor little puppies with all the shiba screaming going on. Those darn shibas and their nail trim phobias.

But as you see in this after photo. They all survived.

Kona's on a roll

Today Kona won Winner's Dog and got another 4 point major! YAY. Both majors are out of the way.

BOW - WOW!

First show out in Tucson, Kona took Best of Winners and got a 4 point major to boot. WOW - OH- WOW Kona. That is awesome for a 6 month old puppy. Congratulations Valerie and Jeff for going through puppy hell to turn out a stable, wonderful boy that wows the judges like that.

Two more days of showing!



Thanks to Wendy for this photo of Kona from the match.

Earth to Satellite...

"I seem to have lost something here on earth."



Since Timber's nose didn't fill in, I couldn't show him in conformation. So I made the decision to neuter him. He's doing well. My calves are not. He flys by me and rams that cone into my legs over and over. He's already broken one cone ramming it into furniture. So now he's on the second one. No stopping this boy - even with lost parts and a cone on his head.

Kenji

Kenji's here for a couple weeks. You might also know him as Tres. He is the third puppy from Tama's last litter. He's a very calm, sweet puppy that follows you around wherever you go in the house and lays beneath your feet while you are working at the computer.

I worked with him a little with the show leash to see how he'd do. OK, the calm, sweet puppy turned into a raging lunatic as soon as he felt that show collar tighten up around his neck. He is his mommy's son that's for sure. Tama still doesn't like anything around her neck. We got through the show scene showing on a REALLY loose leash. Good thing that's in the shiba standard - they are supposed to be shown on a loose leash!

There's still a few more weeks to work on it.

In the meantime, he's doing really well with learning stand. Here's a photo of the dreaded show leash and a very pretty boy attached to it. Isn't it amazing how much he looks like Trixie?

Kona

Kona is the puppy that went to Arizona to live with my friends Valerie and Jeff. They took him to a fun match this weekend. Kona did awesome and I heard a bunch of complements on what a nice puppy he is. My friend Wendy sent me these pictures of him at the fun match.

Update on the puppies

Trixie and Odie have been practicing their obedience together on Monday nights. So I was able to snap a few photos in between our sits, stays, downs, and stands. Both of them are doing great. They learn quickly.

Trixie can also do take a bow and shake paw. We are working on roll over, but that's definitely not her favorite trick.

Trixie


Odie

Timber and Trixie

These two love to play!

What I did for Kishi...

I've had several emails asking what I did for Kishi to make her more comfortable. I don't want to say that she's cured. She's far from it. But she has hair finally. And looking at photos from 2 years ago, I'd say she's improved.

It hasn't been an easy road with Kishi that's for sure. But here are some of the things that I did over the course of a couple years that helped Kishi back from where she was to now. As long as I keep doing what I've been doing I keep seeing improvements. I've kind of picked up on all of this by trial and error. Some things were with my vets approval and some were not... I don't want to make any claims that one thing might work on someone else's dog... so what I've written here is what I did for my dog to make her feel better. Check with your vet if you have questions or concerns before trying any of these steps.

I feed Kishi a raw meat diet with absolutely no grains. There are many pre-made raw diets the market - you have to find one that works with your dog- I do switch around because I believe allergy dogs can become allergic to something given to them over and over. So every few months I switch to a different protein source. Plus, how many dogs get to live their life eating veal, lamb, buffalo, rabbit and venison. That makes Miss Kishi a pretty special dog.

She also gets a 1/4 cup of yogurt with her meal. And a hard boiled egg in the shell twice a week.

And I give her and all my dogs NUPRO with their meals

And because of feeding her raw meat I worm her every 2-3 months with Panacur-C. She does remarkably well immediately after the worming.

Make sure they don't have fleas. I use Advantage, but only if I notice fleas. I don't use it regularly.

I bathe her in full strength Selsun Blue 2-3 x per week. When she's doing better this drops down to 1x per week or sometimes even less than that. I leave the Selsun Blue on her skin for 10 minutes before rinsing. AND I don't let her lick any of the shampoo for the fear that it might make her sick.

I removed all the carpet in the areas that Kishi hangs out. I believe she reacted to the chemicals that my professional carpet cleaners used on my carpets. She immediately improved and hair began growing on her stomach once the carpet was gone. Her initial allergic reaction was days after a vacination AND having my carpets cleaned. We moved, she got better. I had the carpets cleaned in the new house. She got worse. I removed the carpet, she got better.

I took her off of all medication except Thryroid medication. That's the hardest thing to do because it's against what my vet suggested, but I really believe that is what she needed. So no more antibiotics, steriods, etc.

After making the decision not to continue giving her medications, I used Nzymes to help her recover from her yeast infections.

I used two of their yeast kits and then I've just kept her on their Antioxidants ever since. When I first started using it on her, she got worse just like they said on their website, and then slowly started to get better.

I do not vaccinate her - she stays inside and is rarely exposed to dogs other than my own. All of her problems started after a vaccination reaction.

If she starts to chew on herself, she wears a cone to prevent chewing. I bought the Bonafido Soft_E_Collar... I don't like it for shibas because it's too heavy and because their neck is larger than their head they can duck and pull out of it like they do with collars. So stick with a regular cheap plastic cone.

My groomer recommended
Tomlyn Allercaine with Bittran II sprayed on her between baths when she starts to itch. It really works to kill the itch. She doesn't like it when I first spray it on her, so it must sting a little. But she gets over it fast and is much more comfortable. I will also use Gold Bond powder on her to keep her dry. Just make sure the dog doesn't lick the powder. It's medicated and I don't know if it would make them sick. So I keep her cone on her when I powder her.

The idea is that her skin MUST stay dry or the infections start up again, and so does the chewing. The vets kept giving me medicated lotions to use on her. They never worked because they didn't allow her skin to dry out.

I think that's it... although there are many other products that I tried that I didn't list because they didn't make a difference with Kishi. Like I said, I don't think it was just one product or one thing that helped. It was a combination of all of them.

The long road

It's been awhile since I did an update on Kishi. Kishi is my oldest dog with allergies and a variety of other health problems. For several years her allergies were so severe that she looked more like the shiba version of a Chinese Crested. Seeing the photo of her from a couple years ago allows you to appreciate that she is now sporting a beautiful shiba-orange coat in the middle of summer.

I can't exactly tell you that one individual thing or product worked for her. I can give you a list of things that I did consistently that brought her from the first photo to now (the second photo). I won't make the claim that one product fixed her problems. I really believe it was a combination of all things I tried and time away from all the medications that the vets had prescribed for her over the years that brought her health back. It has been a long, long road. I'm so happy she has a little comfort in her senior years. She's a great dog. She deserves as many healthy days/months/years as she can get.

Then


NOW

It's good to be home

After a long trip this summer that was totally dog-free, it's nice to be back home with my puppies.

Speaking of, the real puppy, Trixie, has really grown up. She almost doesn't look like a puppy anymore. We've been working with her on the agility equipment. J is planning on training her and eventually competing with her. She's fearless - like most shibas. Dog walk, A frame, teeter - not a bit of fear. I wish a little of that would rub off on teeter-scared Timber.

Timber is almost ready to start trialing. We just have to work on our flow between the obstacles, better communication and of course the teeter. And wait a couple more months until he is 18 months.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

I just thought this was a cute photo.

Kona

Since Kona missed the reunion here's an updated photo of him at 10 weeks.

Reunion at 10 weeks

Kenji (Tres) and Oto (Dos) came over for a playdate with Trixie yesterday. It was great to see the 3 puppies together again. They missed Kona (Tank) who is in Arizona. Long distance puppy kisses to him.










Here's Trixie!


And Oto (Dos)




And Kenji (Tres)

Hope you had a happy 4th!

Trixie was the pick to go to the parade with us this year. It was the perfect chance to socialize her with lots of people, activities and noises. And she handled it like a pro. One of us carried her most of the time since she's so small and I didn't want her stepped on. And since she doesn't walk on a leash very well and it would have taken us all day to go through the booths prior to the parade.



Fireworks make me nervous. When I moved to this area my dogs had never been exposed to the sound and Farley injured himself badly one year out of fear. So I know I'm on edge every year when the fireworks start up. But this year none of the dogs acted like anything unusual was happening outside. Of course they all had really great chewies to concentrate on. So the only one nervous and pacing was myself. And most of that was because my 8-year old child was outside with the neighbors as they were shooting off their fireworks.

Low tide!

This spring the weather has been crappy. It's been cold and rainy, and only recently have we had some sunny days. We love to go to the beach when it's low tide. And last year when Timber was a puppy, we went alot. But since last fall when it started getting cold, we haven't gone. Who likes to stand on the beach in dreary Seattle drizzle? Definitely not I.

So I wasn't sure how Timber would handle his first time back in the water. He was so young last year, he was a little afraid of the waves. But I guess all the socialization last year made him fearless. He chased the birds, jumped right in the sound, checked out the sea life and ran up and down the beach until his paws were raw. Our beaches aren't sand - they are rocks, shells and barnacles - all sharp little things on puppy paws that are flying across them.

I didn't take my camera, but Ed did. So here's Timber hanging out at Wing Point which is normally covered in water but because of the low tide we could walk a long way out into the sound. High tide is back there where the clump of trees are in the background.

Last puppy leaving...

Tres left today to go to his new home. All of the puppies have awesome homes. I will miss them, but I know they will have great families that love them as much as I did while they were here.Here's one of the last photos of Tres at my house.



So, at 9 weeks old Trixie is all by herself. I'm not sure if she is sad, or relieved that her brothers aren't around. Now she gets us all to herself. Denise gave the puppies this little bed. Trixie has decided it's hers!

Happy 8th Week Birthday Puppies

The puppies start leaving for their new homes this week. Here is probably their final photo together...



I'll miss all of them. What a great bunch of puppies.

Timber the flying aussie

Timber loves the puppies. He is very gentle with them. So when he wants to see them, he flys into their pen for a visit and when he's done he flys out. Anyone have any wings we could add to these photos?

Puppies at 7 weeks!

Not only was it Father's Day and the puppies 7-week birthday, today was a beautiful, sunny June day. So the puppies got to play outside most of the day while we were working in the yard. Ed took a video tape of the puppies running all around the pen.



But of course after playtime, the best thing puppies do is sleep. And I have to be honest, the easiest way to photograph puppies at this age is when they are sleeping!


I also temperament tested each puppy so I'd have a general idea of their reactions. I wasn't all that surprised by one outcome tests versus my observations of them the past few weeks. Who knows how accurate temperament tests are - especially with shibas. But it's fun to do and see how they react. So here's the rundown of the puppies:

Trixie
Trixie is independent but will make a loyal pet once she learns to work with her humans.


Dos - now Kenji
He accepts humans easily and will make a good pet. He will adapt to new situations well.


Tres - Jared calls him "Lost Boy" because he doesn't have a home yet
Lost Boy is extremely independent. Although he likes people, he would rather be off exploring on his own than being held.


Tank - Now Kona
He accepts humans easily and will make a good pet. He will adapt to new situations well.


And here's some puppy playtime:



And Trixie helping me take photos: