Aug 11: fun with Ildi

she starts out so angelic... (and looks how big she's gotten!)


then the fun starts!


and she just keeps going if you start laughing - she likes to make you laugh!

Aug 10: clipping Ildi's nails.

Ildi is usually pretty good when you have to do something to her - clean a wound, etc... and she's not so bad when I clip her nails, though I often do it when she's half asleep. I've decided that I shouldn't have to wait for those circumstances, so I've been working with her to let me clip her nails when she's fully awake. This position has been quite handy! lucky for me she likes this position!
I try to clip her nails weekly.



Clipping Ildi's nails...


all done!

July: Ildi has puppy warts

I wish I had taken a picture of her warts so that other could know - she had 3 warts. One on the outside of her mouth, basically on top of her whisker hair follicles. Then 2 inside above her teeth, along her gums. The one on the outside got to as big a corn kernal and was pretty gross to look at! The ones on the inside were white and like little cauliflower clumps.
We were away for 2 weeks in those two weeks, the warts reached full size. So when we got back to her we weren't sure what to do -do we take her to the vet? can they be removed? Chad did lots of research and it seems like there was no point in taking her to the vet, but there were some more natural remedies - like giving her 500mg of L-Lysine everyday. and that seemed to work quickly - within a week the wart on the outside was dying (turning black). Then within 2 weeks the outside wart was mostly black and while playing it must have gotten caught on something and the wart came off (there was a little blood). The inside warts were now turning grey with black flecks and now by 3 weeks, they have gone down completely.

They say puppy warts are pretty common as their immune system hasn't fully developed to its strongest, but like chicken pox and kids - she shouldn't get them again!

Here's a pic of Chad and Ildi's usual nap time - only Ildi's getting pretty big! :)

June in Coeur d'Alene: too hot for Ildi!

We took Ildi with us on a trip to Coeur d'Alene where Chad had an ironman race. It was actually a great experience with her because of the crowds - she actually settles down a bit and doesn't try to jump on everyone (which she would do if there was just one or two people around). It was also interesting as we discovered this crowd (of super athletic people) know her breed very well. And several couples came up to us to get their Vizsla fill as they had left their Vizsla at home. She was the star of the event!

Though it was also her first time in hot weather - with temps around 30C every day. While we tried to always keep her with us - not stuck in the car, we noticed that by the end of 2nd day she was drooling uncontrollably. One the 3rd day in CDA (2nd day of drooling), we were extremely concerned and started googling and emailing friends for advice. One site suggested it could be puppy warts and with a thorough check of her mouth we did discover some (they looked like canker sores as they were just beginning to form). But I actually think the problem was the heat (though it was good to discover the warts too). I kept her in the AC'ed hotel room on the 4th day in CDA (race day) and that stopped her drooling finally. It was scary to learn that just being outside (and usually in the shade) with only short car trips was having such an affect on her. We know for future we have to be super careful with her on our road trips! (the 2nd picture is of her hiding under the bed - heat exhausted)

Also of note, she was legendary on this trip for not coming when called! by the end (30min of trying to get a hold of her!) I was furious!! She would just turn and run in the opposite direction if I tried to get close to her and there was no way she was coming when I physically called her. I tried every tactic I could of - being super fun and cheerful as I called her, being very firm (but calm), running away from her, poking in the grass (so that it looked I discovered something interesting) and even trying to be very zen like and sitting on the ground sending positive thoughts for her to come. NOTHING worked!! Finally, I tried poking around in the dirt more (as that's what she kept returning to a certain sport for) - and had to lift this enormous log - so that it created a fresh spot of earth for her sniff.
I think this is beginning of her rebellious stage...

June pictures

June: Ildi tries to swim!

I wish I had a picture or video to go along with this post!
Ildi has only been near open water (that's not a rushing river) twice now. On her first time, she was with a fellow vizsla who loves to jump around in the water. Ildi eventually walked into the water (up to the top of her legs) and was splashing about - bopping the bubbles each leg lift would make!

Then on her second time near water - to a place we call Shangri-La (an off leash park in Canmore), she came into the company of a GSP and a Chocolate Lab - who were fetching and frolicking in the water. She loved trying to play with these guys so much that she would walk into the water here too - with lots of praise from us! Then out of nowhere she bounded in deeper and found herself not being able to touch - it took her a second to try and figure out how to get out of this predicament, but she did. She swam! though not the most efficient swimmer yet - you should have seen all the splashing! :) You could tell she still wasn't sure of the whole swimming thing yet as she was still only comfortable going in up to her legs. She did start dunking her entire head under though - I think she was trying to pick up rocks under the water. too funny - she looked like a duck with her head under water and her body above! But then, out of the blue - with no dogs to chase or toy to fetch she bounded into deeper water and tried swimming again!

needless to say, now that we have found a couple of safe swimming spots, we're going to give Ildi lots of opportunities to master swimming.

May 23: Ildi is spayed

wow - it's been too long since I wrote and actually there has been a fair amount going on for little Ildi.
The biggest news is that she got spayed last week. It was probably harder on the humans than her! I hated that she was staying overnight at the vet; imagining her all by herself in a kennel for the evening. She's so used to our laps on the couch - how would she survive?! But when we picked her up the next morning she seemed her usual self and all the staff seemed to have loved her - she so social!

We weren't sure what to expect after her surgery; would she be groggy, low energy, etc... she seemed like herself though. Though she didn't get any walks for 2 days and she wasn't bouncing off the walls, so I guess she was lower energy than usual.
We took it easy on her and walked her for only short ones for the next 3 days, but you could tell she wanted more. It was amazing that she had all her usual energy and seemed to be in no pain.
It's been a week since surgery and we have her back to normal walks (2x/ day at 45min each), but always on the leash and never in the dog park. I can just picture her getting rolled by another dog and her stitches coming out. She seems to be in a little more pain now though, we notice that sometimes she when she's lying down, she'll whine and then try to changes positions - even a standing-up-sleep (leaning against the couch). The incision site itself is starting to look much worse too - I might call the vet on Monday in fact. While it doesn't seem infected (warm or pussy), it has gotten hard and raised (like from beneath the skin) and only now is starting to lick it.

Other than that, we have been using this time to really practice our walks with her. We have a new harness (the Gentle Leader Easy Walk harness) that has been working out really well and we've been practicing 'heel' by turning direction 180 degrees when she pulls and some positive reinforcement with her favourite Buddy Biscuits when she looks at us while walking.

May 1: a dog's life

this made me laugh! I taught Ildi that she could look out over the front balcony and she loves it! she checks the world out, wags her tail when she sees people walking by, she looks so human when looking out :)
then she played with a rock and napped in the sun.

I now understand the saying 'it's a dogs life'...

April 25: another snowstorm

Ildi loves the snow - so she doesn't seem to mind as much as us when it snows :)

April 23: Back to basics

Well, after a couple incidents in a row of Ildi not coming when called while off-leash - which resulted in her getting dangerously close to Sarcee Trail. So Ildi is back to getting very little off-leash time and we're doing lots of recall training. We're back to do doing some research and reading on how to improve her recall. Some of the new games and training are:
- hide and seek in the house (she stays in one room in a stay and we go into another room and call her). She comes charging full speed to try and find what room we're in - sometimes, she has to climb the stairs or make tight corners - it's always fun to hear her running with all her enthusiasm to find us! it's undoubtedly helping that we started to using chunks of kraft cheese slices as her treat. (maybe I should list out that as a separate 'trick' :) We joke that we should change the command to 'cheese'!
- recall while on the extendable leash in the park - that way we can give her a tug if she doesn't immediately come. We try to keep doing this when she's especially engaged in some scent.
- using the Come command for the things she likes and will come typically come for - dinner, walk time.

and things we make sure we never do:
- don't use the Come command unless we're sure she will come (so she will never learn that it's ok to not come when called.
- never have anything negative happen when she does come when called, for example, don't put her leash on her when you call her and definitely don't discipline her for anything when she's come when called.

today's pictures of her enjoying a warm, sunny afternoon in the yard - Ildi enjoying one her favourite activities - chewing on a big stick.

April 22: Ildi in the mountains

We've started taking last minute drives to the mountains and take Ildi on a walk out there - she loves the new scents and pathways! her nose never leaves the ground as she's scenting all the wildlife and plants. oh - to know what goes through her head as she's smelling new ground.
of course she's on leash the whole time. I can't wait until we know she's more reliable to be off-leash.

April 17: Ildi and her friends

so one of the ladies from the dog park brought her camera out the other day and shared with me the pictures. You can see Ildi's usual afternoon walk 'crowd' and the great exercise she gets from an hour of play with them!

Other than play - Ildi is doing well. Though her weight gain has slowed, she's only up to 29.5lbs. She's starting to get pretty rebellious though and doing everything she can to do the things she's not supposed to - like this morning barking from her kennel just because she was bored.

April 16: Ildi has worms

Chad discovered this week that Ildi has Roundworm - gross! He saw the worm in her poop - looked like a rubber band - a few inches long! so we got her medication asap, but it will take a few weeks for it do it's job in killing everything. poor girl!

On other health news, the vet confirmed this week that all her puppy teeth have come out, so she now just needs to her adult teeth to all come in - she still has a few blank spots. And I have to say that she seems to be handling teething fairly well. From all the books we've read we were expecting a horrible time with her chewing everything in site, but I would say her chewing has decreased - as she gets older and older. You hear the odd moan from her when she's just sitting around (guessing her teeth are hurting) and that's the really the only indication that she's teething.

we've had an interesting week too - we've been walking another dog on both of our daily walks (as they're out of town) so Ildi has had a constant companion. Luckily they get along great and Gretta (a type of collie maybe?) loves to play and puts up with Ildi grabbing at her neck fur the whole time. It tires them both out though which is great! though last night we took Ildi on a short night time walk - thinking we would try to play some fetch with her and when we let her off in our usual field she wasn't coming back. Even running in the opposite direction as us and heading towards Sarcee Trail (a busy 4 lane road). Perhaps this misbehaving is a result of not having structured walks for a week? or maybe she's going through a rebellious phase (though I think she might be a little young for that phase). Needless to say she won't be getting any off leash time once Gretta's not on our walks with us.

new Ildi pics

I've gotten behind in posting pictures of our little Ildi - so here are a few random snaps!

Ildi's weight tracker

we've been keeping track of how Ildi's put on weight over the last (almost) 3 months.

April 5: Ildi's 5 months old!

Ildi is 5 months old now and it seems like she's really grown! we were away for a week, and she had the excellent care of her 'grandparents' - who have 2 dogs of their own. When we came by to pick her up, I couldn't believe how much she had grown!
As a birthday gift, we've now tried to give her more free reign of the house - though we constantly check on her to see what she is chewing on in the living room; usually the plants or the shag rug or sitting on the couch. though yesterday she did find the mirror to okay with (see video) :)

March 22: Ildi's a digger and answers from the vet

we sometimes let Ildi into the backyard unsupervised - but peak through the window every few minutes to ensure she's not wreaking havoc on the bushes. This time we couldn't see her from the kitchen window for some time, which means she's sitting behind the patio wall. The only thing behind the patio wall is grass so we just assumed she was chewing on a branch, as she usually does. Not this time, this time I discovered she had dug a little hole in the middle of the lawn! It was a few inches deep and absolutely no grass left - geez! that was the end of unsupervised play in the backyard :(

Since the last post, Ildi had her last set of shots at the vet - yay!! with parvo going around in the city right now we can finally rest easy that she has full immunity. and she now weighs 24.5lbs - a slow but steady increase.

She's pretty much gone off of breakfast - having just a few bites and then burying the rest in her kennel blankets. But she eats her dinner! the vet said some dogs are just not morning eaters, but give her whatever she didn't eat, plus her usual dinner portion for dinner. You should have seen how full her dinner bowl was last night - but she ate it all!

I also asked the vet about when we could start running with her and should we be worried that she runs at full speed when she's at the dog park (off-leash). Dr. Boone said she could start running (start with short distance) at 1yr. and that it's no problem if she runs at the dog park. It's the controlled running on a leash that is not good for her bone development.

Also, the vet said to not worry about the plants in the backyard (iris' and lilies) - she said that they are more toxic to cats - unless the dog starts eating the bulbs.

Imaginary bone burying

Lest we worry that she is too smart...

Ildi's new trick is to "bury" her chew bone in the house rather than actually, say, chew it. Problem is, our kitchen hasn't really got any good hole-digging spots or burying materials, so her solution is imaginary bone burying.

This involves placing the bone in a suitable corner and then proceeding to use her nose to bury it with imaginary leaves and dirt. She then carefully stamps down the burying materials (air) and walks away satisfied that the thing is good and hidden.

The one advantage is that it's easy for her to remember where it is and find it again, unlike chew bone #1 that is permanently lost somewhere in the backyard.

Horse poop, yum!

Much to our disgust, Ildi has a new favorite food. She gobbles it like I do tiramisu, huge gulping mouthfuls, dripping off her chin.

We discovered this on a country walk at her "grandparents" when she suddenly caught a whiff of that delicious smell on the breeze, froze in her tracks then bolted for the nearest steaming pile of crap.

Amazingly, though, after eating a pound or 2 of the delicacy, no diarrhea, no puking, just up a couple of times in the night for extra "business trips".

Apparently, at least according to random-Google research this is totally normal behavior for dogs, and not toxic (though perhaps parasitic).

We just need to figure out how we can use her new treat for agility class...cheaper than the organic Zukes' treats, just a little grosser.

March 9: Ildi's new habits

We've noticed that Ildi is getting confident and curious and we've discovered that with that comes more 'bad' habits (read habits that we need to figure out how to stop or curb).

Perhaps it's timed with the relief of a warm week so all the snow has melted everywhere and in the fields we always walk in she seems to have a new wealth of smells available to her. In areas we once let her off-leash to explore and she would come when called, there is now no way she will return to you; she wanders off further in the opposite direction and I can actually believe that she can't hear you at all when she's in scent tracking mode. Like the Dog Whisperer says, '60% of her brain is controlled by smell' so that means that more than half of her brain is turned off to us humans. But it's getting worse and we fear we're ruining the recall command when we call her and she doesn't come. A few times she's even popped her head up, looked right at us, we call her and she runs in the other direction - still scent tracking of course. So we're going back to basics in some ways. We're only going to let her off-leash if we're certain she will come back to us and when she's playing with other dogs in the off-leash park. And we're going to be practicing our recall command under heavy distraction. I'm curious what this experience was like for other hunting dogs as puppies. I'll have to ask my friend who has two adult Vizslas.

Another one is that with the warm weather, the glacier in our backyard has melted so she can finally go and explore. Except we've learned that in her mind that means chew off branches or pull them out from the ground and eat the decorative grass (that once stood 5 ft tall) and any other periennal. I suppose we then shouldn't let her into the backyard unless we can supervise her at all times, but she was just moments away from figuring out how to get past our barriers so she would have gotten to the backyard on her own anyways. and she loves the backyard! whenever she's bored in the house she asks to go out and just sits in the yard - then starts to chew and eat my plants. I'm curious if dogs grow out of this behaviour?
oh - and here's a link to a site that lists all the indoor and outdoor plants that are poisonous to dogs; looks like I have some pulling to do :(
http://www.dogpack.com/health/poisonplants.htm

And suddenly she's started barking more. She now barks when she's playing with other dogs - as if to invite them to keep playing. and she started barking yesterday at something in the backyard that freaked her out (I think it was the wind), but she continued barking from inside the house still - at whatever was freaking her out. Then again last night when we were seeing friends and their puppy to the door (after a puppy play session). She stood behind her gate barking - obviously upset that she was left alone in the kitchen and she could see us all standing just a few feet away, but she never would have started barking in that situation before. Someone once told that as she gets more confident, she'll bark more. hmmm - how to curb this, fast!

but thankfully, at the end of the day, she still loves a good cuddle and nap in our laps! that always help to melt away the frustrations of the day :)

March 6: learnings

so I realize that I don't stop and think about the things that Ildi doesn't do anymore or rather has grown out of. And they're all things that drove us nuts and we wished she would stop doing -turns out that with many of those things, she did stop doing. So there is hope! and that hope gets me through the days when she's picked up new bad habits and I wonder if (eating the plants in my backyard, for example) will ever stop.

The 'not good things' she's stopped doing:
- chewing our hands, fingers, arms constantly. She still does it every once in awhile; usually when she's tired - she's like a little kid, she gets to be a real nuisance when she's due for a nap. We call it "going moray eel" as she looks like one the way she swings her open jaws everywhere :)
- she's stopped chewing on chair legs
- she's stopped chewing up the rug. We actually don't even normally have a rug in the kitchen (still the only room she's allowed in loose), but she was running around and sliding so much that we were worried it would cause hip displaysia so we bought a cheap area rug to prevent her from sliding into walls. She used to just chew on it and try to take it apart thread by thread. I think it been a few weeks since she's done that!
- no more bathroom trips outside in the middle of the night!
- dare I say she's house trained - we haven't had any accidents in the house for about a month and she regularly 'rings the bell' when she wants to go out.

but thankfully she still likes to nap with us! :) here's a picture of her and Chad napping.




oh - and today I think she may have eaten a dead mouse. I can't be certain as she has her mouth in everything when we're out for a walk. But for some reason, this time, I thought 'oh god, that's a mouse'. I don't know if I'm more scared about what eating a mouse could do to her or that if she's throw it up and there would be a mouse in my house!
and that reminds me - will there be a time when she won't put EVERYTHING in her mouth that she finds outside?

next posting will be about all the new habits she's started in on! :)

March 4: Ildi meets another Vizsla pup

Just as we were pulling into the parking lot for this week's Agility Class we spot another Vizsla pup outside the door! This doesn't happen often - that we see another Vizsla, never mind a pup so we rushed to park and get Ildi out and run over to meet the pup and her owner.
Ellie is the vizsla pup's name and she's just 2.5 weeks younger than Ildi. She looks and acts so much like Ildi - it was going back in time and we got to re-live some of Ildi's puppy looks and behaviours!
And strangely enough the two dogs instantly got along and even seem to bypass the usual smell and greet and go straight into play. Super cool to see! They played hard for 10min - interesting to see that they both play the same way.
I tried to take some pictures but it was impossible to get the two of them to stay still. So as crazy as the picture I've uploaded seems, it's exactly what we saw! I also took some video.

In other Ildi development news, her new tooth seems to have grown in already, she is shedding like mad - must be her adult coat coming in and she was once again a superstar in agility class. She hasn't gained any weight in the last week though - so still at 19.5lbs and she's now 17 weeks old.
and right she's asleep on her bed - which is a first! as usually as tired as she is, she won't fall asleep outside of her crate unless she's on a lap; so we're quite happy at this development as it can buy us (and her!) some more freedom.

March 1: another photo comparison

here's another side by side picture of Ildi and how she's growing up so fast! plus I added a photo that shows how long she's is - and she's still a lap dog!

She's had a busy couple days of socialization and lots of off-leash time. Though with the weather warming so much all the snow is melting and there are tons of fresh scents suddenly available! She's not such a good listener when she's fully engaged in hounding scents. But she's finding lots of mice dens and even flushing grouse.

on a development point, she's lost a tooth! though I would have thought she might be a bit young to loose her puppy teeth, but she seems to also be shedding suddenly. Could be the warmer weather or it could be that she's maturing early. Our vet had warned us that when pups are born in winter and not spring, the onset of spring can cause a pup to mature faster and actually go into their first heat cycle early. I wonder if this is starting happen?

Feb. 26: our little Ildi is growing up!

so Chad took some pictures the other day with Ildi in the same position as pictures as we took of her when we first got her - it was shocking to see how big she's gotten. You don't notice it so much when you see everyday. Makes me a little sad that we maybe didn't take enough pictures when she had all her wrinkles and cuteness!
Check out this before and after comparison - the two pictures are just 4 weeks apart.

Feb. 24: 4months old today!

Ildi turned 4 months old today and as a treat we've had a big week already. Ildi's experienced a new dog park (Edworthy Park) AND we let her off leash for the first time! We're still a little nervous about it - mostly because she just runs up to every dog and tries to play and we're the ones who are unsure of whether it's a friendly dog we're meeting for the first time.
The 2nd big adventure was that she started a new dog class - Agility Foundations through the Super Dogs. We had checked ahead of time to ensure she wasn't too young and they said she wasn't; yet when we walked in it was clear she was the youngest and dare I say the ONLY puppy in the class! There is a border collie, a sheepdog, a retriever, a weimaraner and I'm not sure what the other is - maybe some kind of spaniel or duck-tolling retriever. Most of them are about 1.5 years old; you should have seen how little she looked next to all the full grown dogs! You could even tell that the instructor wasn't sure she would be old enough to handle it all - but she earned all of their respect by being pretty much the best at all the exercises. You can only imagine how proud Chad and I were! She's so eager to please and so happy being active and having a task to do. Can't wait till next week!

Feb. 22: new photo shoot

The weather has been getting warmer so Chad got his camera out and took some new pictures in the green space in front of our house (with her cute jacket on!)

Feb. 19: Ildi's scent game

We wanted to try and challenge the hunter in Ildi - we had noticed on walks that when she gets 'play time', all she wants to do is put her nose to the ground and sniff, especially in clumps of long grass. Guess that's the hunter in her!
so we took small pieces of cooked chicken and chicken skin and would hide them one at a time in a cup - along with 2 empty cups. Her job is sniff out which one has the chicken in it. She loved this game! Today's pictures show her waiting while we put the cups down - she's so eager and on her best behaviour - look at how perfect her sit and down are!