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Lucy has come a long way in 10 months. She has gone from a dog that is afraid of visitors to one that is curious and loving with them all, and everbody that meets her falls in love. She has had two incidents with two separate dogs (neither one have been recent). The first was when my daughter came to visit with her Pomeranian (Raina). There was a snarled growl, but it only took a verbal correction to stop. The second was a blue heeler that belongs to a couple of friends that had come to visit. He snapped and lunged at Lucy without being provoked, and she pinned him down. No harm was done, and she was easy to separate from him. Both times she was without her e-collar, and enjoying some “freedom.”

She has also come a long way as far as her health goes. Her leg has healed up, her ears are doing better (although we do have the occassional yeast flare up), and we finally got the sore in the crease of her ear to heal up. I believe the thing that has finally helped the wound to heal up is CBD oil. We both gave it to her to take internally and we applied it directly to the wound. We had been trying for 8 months to get that thing to heal, but within 2 months of beginning to use the oil, the wound had completely closed up.

A month previous to this, we had made one more change. We put Lucy on a raw diet. She loves it. She has slimmed up even more, and if she isn’t the perfect weight for her, she’s pretty darn close.

Because many of you have read Lucy’s story and have become part of the Okay Lady family, I feel I can share the sad developments that have come up. Lucy has always had a bit of a limp, but it never seemed like anything serious – not as serious as getting her yeast conditions under control or taking care of the fear and aggression she was dealing with. Within the last week, something has happened. Lucy became weak in her back legs – weak enough to begin falling quite a bit and to be unable to climb onto the chair that she loves so much. We started taking her to the front yard to potty where the porch only has one very low step, and we called a vet to come out to the house (there is no way we can lift her into the truck without hurting her). Yesterday morning, the morning the vet came out, Lucy went out to potty, and as she was taking that step back onto the porch she fell. She has not gotten up since.

During the visit from the vet, we learned that she has arthritis in her toes, she has a wierd hard lump on the inside of her knee (on the joint), and she has a heart murmur. As much work as we have done to help her, she is still a really big mess.

The vet said the reason for the problems she is having with falling could be a few things – arthritis, an injury, bone cancer, or a tumor growing on the underside of her spine causing interference with nerves. She prescribed carprofen. While I am not a fan of pharmaceuticals (I prefer a more natural homeopathic approach), we decided that if pain is truly keeping her from getting up (at this point she had been down for 7 hours) we could begin with the NSAID to get a handle on the pain until the more natural remedies could have time to build up and begin working.

As of the moment I am writing this, it has been 35 hours since she has gotten up or used the bathroom. She has had 3 doses of the Carprofen, she is still chowing down at meal times, and she barks at us for attention when we are sitting together if she is not in the middle of us, but there has been no change.

Early this morning, she managed to drag herself with her front legs off her bed and to the entrance to the hallway. When she got cold, she woke us up by barking. We put a blanket under her and slid her back to her bed where she happily went back to sleep. And this is where she has stayed.

Around noon today, my husband and I tried putting two towels under her – one under her chest and one under her abdomen – as a lift, hoping that if we could get her on her feet that maybe she would try walking with the support. She never even tried. Instead she passed a small amount of stool, but it wasn’t enough to count as a regular daily bowel movement, and she still hasn’t urinated. Another call to the vet to report all of this today, and she said he feels like it has something to do with her lower spine.

We are now to the point of having to think about making that horrible decision. Before we so, we want to know if this is just an injury that might heel without surgery or if this is something that will never get better. We have asked about x-rays and were told to wait until morning to see if there is any improvement at all. She said that if Lucy does not want to try to get up in the morning, she is probably not going to get better.

We have a week’s supply of her medicines, I am still giving her CBD and golden paste. We are not ready to make a decision tomorrow, but we feel like if there is no improvement by the time we run out of her meds we will need to make one.

Your prayers for Lucy and for us as we try to make the best decisions for her would be greatly appreciated.

So it’s been a couple of weeks since the last update. So sorry. Spring is an incredibly busy time of the year for me.

Lucy is doing great and making a lot of progress. She is goofier with us everyday. 🙂 I am now able to trust her to be in the backyard with the other large dogs without a need to supervise too much. (Of course I don’t leave her out there with them for more than enough time to potty.) I have not heard her growl at other dogs from inside her crate in at least a week, but she will still growl at strangers if they stand too close while she is in there. The other day, my daughter brought a few of her friends over, and Lucy was allowed to meet them. She was wonderful with that (much better than when she met me). I am also still working on her calmness of mind when it comes to filing her nails. She is getting better pretty quickly, but she definitely isn’t able to completely relax during the process yet.

Now for the progress with Raina…. (Drum roll, please!) I have been giving Lucy more exposure to Raina under very structured and supervised conditions – off leash. She is doing a great job at avoiding Raina altogether. You can see how this is being done in today’s video. There is even a clip towards the end where Raina walks up to her and just won’t walk away. Lucy kept her head turned away and waited for her to walk away.  She will be getting more and more practice sitting in her place with Raina walking around the house.

In the next week or two, I would like to start taking this exercise outside. I plan to begin with Lucy in the down command allowing Raina to walk around. After she can prove that she can just exist with Raina, she can graduate to walking around freely in the yard too.

One of the big things that has been taken away from Lucy that is making a huge difference is her ability to boss the other dogs around. When the larger dogs are playing or arguing over a toy, Lucy has a tendency to want to get involved and steer the situation. Between this type of thing, her pushiness when it comes to being pet or getting attention, and the growling she used to practice from her crate, I can see her trying to be a controlling leader with the other dogs. I have taken this from her completely, and it is bringing a huge change in her attitude.

With Lucy’s new collar, she is able to more things, but under a very structured setting. Today we went back to the park. Due to the weather, it was empty so there was nothing to really correct. A few times she would perk her ears up, but that was quick and easy to correct. Also, when we first started out this time, there was no scanning and no apparent nervousness. Her next trip to the park will be Gully Park – a park with more people and dogs.

We had an interesting thing happen the other morning. I thought Raina was back in the bedroom with my daughter, so I let Lucy out to potty. When she came back in, she headed toward the mudroom to get a drink. (We have a pretty tiny mudroom. When Lucy is in there, it really is difficult to fit anybody or anything else in there with her. This is the place where we keep the dogs’ water and where we feed some of them – like Raina.) I had no idea that Raina was in there eating. As Lucy approached the mudroom, she stopped short (it was at this point that I realized what was going on), put her head down to smell what was going on, turned around, and walked away. Success!

Lucy is very particular about having her feet messed with. She will “shake” and give you a “five,” but when it comes to actually handling her feet, she isn’t too happy about it. I purchased a dremel for filing the dogs nails. I tested it out on Raina over the weekend, and am thrilled with how easy it is to use and with the job that it does. So, I tested Lucy with it. The great thing about this dremel is that as long as Lucy keeps her feet still, I really don’t even have to hold her paw to file her nails. It was a job.

I started just with the dremel beside her and turned on. That didn’t bother her at all. The only thing that really bothered her was my handling her feet. Her eyes would harden and she would curl her lip a little. I simply told her no, at which point she turned her head away from me. This is good. I worked on her toe nail for a few seconds, then rewarded her good behavior. I was only able to get about 1 1/2 toe nails worked on since I was going so slowly with her, but this is going to very easy to teach her.

No videos today. 🙂

I had a chance to talk to Lucy’s previous owner a little more about the attacks she made on her smaller dog. Each time, Lucy was in an already excited or aroused state of mind. The first two times, Lucy was playing with the other dog and just snapped. The last time, they were coming into the house when she attacked. While it is interesting that she has never acted this way towards medium to large dogs, it is very common for dog fights to occur during these same times.

There are “danger zones” for dogs – times and places where a dog fight is more likely. These danger zones are in places and at times when the dog may already be or be likely to become excited – whether it be playful excitement or aggressive excitement. The thing is, for a dog, playful and aggressive excitements both feel the same. That is why dog fights happen “out of the blue.” It really isn’t out of the blue. It is just one arousal skipping to the next.

One of the things that I do not allow to happen with any dogs that I board or train is rough playing. Any kind of playing that includes one dog jumping on or biting another is a big no no. Sometimes even running together isn’t a good idea. This is a danger zone. Other danger zones include thresholds, crates, feeding bowls, around toys, when a person is crouched low to the ground, when the owner is around, etc. All if it is dependant upon each individual dog.

It seems that Lucy’s danger zone includes any play time and at thresholds. Now that her more powerful e-collar is here, I will begin to introduce her to Raina and allowing her to spend more and more time with her, but all excitement will be kept at a minimum – even when Lucy is with the larger dogs.

(As the e-collar just came in late this afternoon, there are no videos for this update. Sorry.)

There has really been no “new” work done with Lucy since the last post. Her new e-collar is on it’s way. I am expecting it within the next 2-3 days. At that point, I will pick up walking at the park again as well as adding to her work with Raina.

There has been a couple of things develop. First, an older kitten/younger cat has seemingly been dumped close to our house, and has found us. It is now the inside/outside “farm” cat. Lucy wants to EAT it. When it walks past her crate, her reaction is 5 times worse than her reaction to Raina. As soon as we get that new e-collar, that will be a big correction and one of the things we will continue working on.

Second, due to Lucy’s limited freedom and affection, she is really beginning to balance herself out. She is not the same nervous dog she used to be. When she is given free time in the house, we are noticing more and more that she is demanding attention less and less. As a matter of fact, the last couple of days, she hasn’t asked for attention at all. She just finds a dog bed to lie on and calmly relaxes.

As soon as that e-collar arrives you will begin seeing more consistent updates again. In the meantime, enjoy this old video taken that shows just how Lucy is able to wiggle her way into a person’s heart.