Annie: Day Three

This girl has figured out how to open her crate. She did great overnight. I thought I had fixed the problem with the zip ties. Nope. I took Cosmo (my board and train) to the park to get some work. I was gone for about 45 minutes. When I walked through the front door, Annie was standing there looking at me.

I went back to the dog room and looked at the crate, and the door was standing wide open. I checked the house. There were no potty accidents, nothing had been destroyed or gotten into. I have no idea how she got out. I don’t even know when she got out. Had she been out for a while? Did she decided she wanted out when she heard me pull up to the house? This happened around noon.

I took Annie potty, did a little work with her, and put her back in her crate. I continued with my day. Around dinner time, my daughter was making dinner, and I just walked back into the living room from the back of the house (my own potty break). I looked towards the dog room, and Faith turned around at the same time, and there stood Annie.

How is she doing that?! She’s not even breaking out – she is just simply opening the door. You guys, I have trouble opening that door! In order to open the door, it has to be lifted and pulled (pushed in her case), and the door sticks. It does not lift easily at all. (You can tell in the training video below.) I have no idea how she’s doing it, but I now have the camera set up and focused on her hoping to catch her in the act. I just want to see her do it. πŸ™‚

I did just a small amount of work with Annie today to get her to respond to her new name. This is going to take a while. She also urinated while on the leash – progress. Now if I can just get her to poop.

Annie: Day Two

I woke up at 4:21 this morning to a single bark. I seriously thought about lying in bed and waiting to see if I heard it again, but I knew I should get up and investigate. Very quietly, so that the barking dog would not hear me, I opened the bedroom door. At that point I heard the clicking of toenails on the living room. Either that was a very large mouse, or it was a dog. It was very unlikely that it could be Cosmo (my board and train). He has been doing an excellent job in his crate day and night for over a week now. As soon as she heard me, she growled and took off.

I turned on the light and found two turds on the floor just in front of the baby gate (a gate we keep up to keep dogs from going into the back of the house). I went back into the dog room and found Annie sitting in the farthest corner of the couch just waiting to see what would happen. I looked at the crate to see what damage had been done.

There was no damage done to the crate itself. She had somehow managed to get the front panel to fall down inward as is intended when folded up. This amazes me only because her previous owner had told me how things above her head seemed to frighten her. When told that, my thought was of how something falling on her could frighten her. Apparently it didn’t bother her too much.

I put the crate back together, grabbed the leash and attached it to her collar, and took her to her crate. Annie hesitated, so I bent over and pushed her bottom until she was back in the crate. No real struggle – just hesitation. I was honestly too tired to think or care about her reaction to this, but she didn’t offer to cause any trouble.

As I passed the kitchen to pick up the turds, I noticed a little puddle in the floor. And as I went by to clean that up, I found a larger puddle by the front door. (At least the place she chose to potty wasn’t carpeted.) I couldn’t hardly blame her. Each time I took her out to potty yesterday had been on-leash, and she had refused to potty. I’m sure a lot of it had to do with the pressure of being on leash. After cleaning it all up, I went back to bed.

By the time I had made it back into the room to feed Annie (6:00 a.m.), she already had one corner of the crate pulled in again. I took the time to reinforce it with zip ties, and fed her.

After breakfast, Annie started making a little bit of a ruckus. There was whining and I could hear the crate rattling a little bit. I quickly grabbed my bonker and very quietly sneaked closer to the room. I waited for her to get wound up again, firmly said no as I entered the room, and threw the bonker at her crate. There was really no reaction. I gave her a quick spray with the pet convincer just to make sure she understood, and walked away. (Video below)

After her breakfast this morning, I did a clicker conditioning lesson with Annie. I wasn’t sure what to expect. She hadn’t accepted the best treats I had yesterday, and I wasn’t sure what she would think of the clicker. The lesson went wonderfully! I was able to lure into both a sit and a down, and by the end of it, I was rewarding her for making eye contact. (Video below)

We have continued working on thresholds as I take her in and out to potty. She is catching on. She finally pottied on-leash. (whew!) Since the correction this morning, Annie has also gone back to being quiet and calm in her crate.

Annie: Day One

When Annie arrived, I met her and her owner in the driveway. She was barking and nervous about everything. Already knowing that she had high anxiety and fear levels I did my best to avoid eye contact. I had her owners stop short so that Annie could not reach me. I stood with my side towards her to relieve any pressure. She did bark and lunge.

As she began calming down, she was allowed to come closer, and finally began ignoring me. When she was to the point that she was ignoring me, I took the leash and her owners and I parted ways. She followed me towards the house without a problem. When I opened the door, Marvel started barking. She hesitated and decided she was not coming in. I told Marvel to cut it out and went back to the driveway with Annie, leaving the front door open. We walked back towards the house, and instead of going in, we walked past the door and onto the porch, walked a little ways and turned around. This time as we came to the door, I did not have to open the door, there was no pause, so we came right in.

Annie was cautious of everything. She went back to the front door several times wanting to go outside. She had been doing a lot of pulling on the leash, so I decided to go ahead and put a prong collar on her. Why not start teaching her communication? Her attention was on the door, so she was quick to allow me to put the collar on. Once I got it on, I began to do some conditioning. She accepted it initially, but as it began interfering with what she wanted she decided attack the leash. I attached my long leash to the shorter one she had on so I wouldn’t get bitten and worked a little more. She finally began understanding the directional information she was receiving.

Next it was time to get her into a place where she would calm down. She is not crate trained and I wasn’t sure how she would respond to it. She wanted nothing to do with it. I tried using the leash and threading it through the crate to guide her in. She wasn’t having anything to do with that. I tried building a type of shoot to guide her into the crate. She got to the gate, but wouldn’t go through. Since I had her to that point, I opened the side door, threaded the leash through that and called her into the crate. This time it worked like a dream.

I left the room for a couple of hours to give her time to relax. During that time, she only made a noise twice. I expect that to increase as she becomes more comfortable here. When I came back, she was back to growling and barking at me from behind the bars. She was reacting out of fear, without a doubt. As long as that continued, I did not move away. I gave her a quick shot with the pet convincer and stopped immediately. She certainly was not comfortable with me being close to her crate, but she wasn’t acting aggressively toward me. As soon as the barking and growling stopped, I moved away to reward her. As I was training one of the board and trains, I would stop periodically ad approach Annie’s crate. She never offered to growl or bark again, and she actually took a moment to sniff me. (videos below)

When my daughter came home Annie immediately began barking and growling. I had Faith run through the same process I did. She was able to sit beside, but at a distance from her crate but she never made eye contact.

When it was time for me to take Annie potty, she allowed me to open the door and did not offer to bite as I put the leash on her. When it was time for her to return to her crate, she went right in without hesitation.

Although she spent most of her day in the crate, I did have to let her in and out to potty a few times throughout the day. I used those opportunities to begin teaching her the Kennel command and to work on crossing thresholds with permission. With the issues she has, working on permission is going to be huge.

She was also very quiet in her crate, but I expect that to change as she becomes more comfortable here.

Annie

Annie needed a new home. She had been a great dog for three years, but after her owner had a baby Annie started showing some very concerning behavior. Things like showing her teeth when being corrected. Her owner wouldn’t have been too concerned if it was just herself, but with small children this is just too dangerous.

There was a time when her owner was in a better situation financially that she had trainers come for a consultation. Both trainers told her they could not work with her. Now things are not so great and Annie is not getting any better.

Her owner also knew that if she took her to a shelter she would be marked too dangerous to rehome and probably sentenced to death. She was desperate to find a good home at the least for her.

The behaviors that Annie shows include:

-aggression when she is being corrected
-stealing food/objects/trash
-threatening strangers
-fear of anything that may not be in its place or that she has never encountered
-excessive attention seeking
-threatening/growling at other animals
-anxious when alone
-threatening family members
-she has gotten into a couple of fights with the other dog that was in her family

Lexi’s (Lucy) Story: Day 297 (Final Entry)

Yesterday I wasn’t ready to make the decision that Aaron and I came to this morning. When we got up this morning Lucy had not gotten better. On the contrary, she had gotten worse. She was unable to bring herself to the sitting position and unable to drag herself from her bed. She couldn’t even get herself turned around. The extent of her movement was to go from lying on her side to lying on her chest.

Last night she did have a bowel movement, but it was done as she was lying down. She still hadn’t urinated as of this morning though (48 hours). Aaron and I decided to slide her out to the porch and try to put a little pressure on her bladder to help her. Once again, we used towels to try getting her up. Not only was there no strength in her back end, there was none in her front. My husband grabbed her back foot to move it (a no, no yesterday), and there was no response at all. And still, she had not urinated. We believe that there was some loss of feeling somewhere, somehow.

After losing Roxie almost a year ago, Aaron and I knew we had to make a few guidelines about the final days of our future pets. One of those had to do with mobility. If any of our dogs got to the point that they could not use the bathroom on their own, that, for us, is a a huge sign that a dog shouldn’t have to suffer any longer. Of course, that alone did not determine today’s decision. Through tears, we discussed all the possibilities of what could be wrong with Lucy – an injury, cancer, arthritis, tumors, a stroke, etc. Should we wait to find out exactly what is causing the problems? How would that be determined? What would treatment look like if it was x, y, or z? What it boiled down to is this: Lucy is 7 years old. That is an old age for a Great Dane (life expectancy is 8-10 years). Most of the problems above would require an operation of one kind or another, on a dog with a heart murmur. If she survived the operation, and it extended her life, it would probably only be for another year, a year that would be spent recovering from the surgery. If it is something like arthritis, it is doubtful that we could return her to a life of full independent motion. In the end, we felt that the best option for Lucy was to give her rest.

We called a vet out to the house, and was able to provide Lucy with a calm, relaxing, stress-free passing with her family cradling her head and giving her all the love we could as she passed. Of all the dogs we have lost, we feel that Lucy was at peace more than any of them, and that gives us peace. Our house feels empty without her, but with the love she gave and all she has taught us, her memory will forever be a blessing.

Thank you all for your prayers, your words of encouragement, and for sharing your experiences with us. We are touched that you would reach out to us in this time.

Lexi’s (Lucy) Story: Day 296

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.

Lexi’s (Lucy) Story: Day 48

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. πŸ™‚ 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.Β  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.

Lexi’s (Lucy) Story: Day 33

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. πŸ™‚

Lexi’s (Lucy) Story: Day 29

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.)

Lexi’s (Lucy) Story: Day 27

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.