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?