dogs in the squirrel patrol

Penny is now a member of Rusty's squirrel patrol. She's been waiting for weeks for her human to show off the lovely certificate that proves she's a member but a little 'technical problem' has held up the works - how to turn the certificate the right way round. And then, today, in a stroke of brilliance, her human noticed a little arrowy thingy that looked as if it might do the trick, and it did!

Hmm... then there was the new technical difficulty of finding where the turned graphic had hidden itself. Let's think... could it be in the folder called 'downloads'? Yep, there it was.



Oh, no! It had turned itself around again!

Okay, never say die - import it into iPhoto, export it out to the desktop and, hey presto! there it is.



But one important thing - Penny will be practising on possums for now, until squirrels arrive in Australia.

should dogs go to heaven if they won't 'give' to their humans?

Right after I blogged about Penny being in disgrace for refusing to give up her smelly stocking, I came across a funny spoof debate on Bark Blog about whether dogs can go to heaven if they've been naughty - actually, it's about whether they can go to heaven at all.

The church-sign generator looks like fun. Here's mine:

dogs learning to 'leave it' or 'give' it to their humans

Our neighbours might have wondered what was going on in our backyard tonight, because they probably heard my increasingly desperate commands to Penny to 'leave' a delicious tidbit she had found, or to 'give' it to me.

I got so worried I shouted for someone in the house to come and help me wrench it from Penny's mouth. But no-one heard - a lesson that our houses are so soundproof that shouts for help might not be heard. Scary thought.

She was recently on a course of antibiotics for a week because the vet thought she had a bowel inflammation. It was only after I came home from that vet appointment that I had a horrible thought, too scary to even write about here. I remembered that in mid-August, I had lost a nylon stocking whose toe was stuffed with cabana, cheese and other smelly treats.

Why would I have such a strange thing? It was used to lay a great-smelling track for Penny to follow.

Why would I forget where I had put an object so dangerously tempting to a dog? I don't know.

I've had a niggling worry for weeks as to whether she had found it and eaten it. My friends must have got tired of me asking them whether they think a dog would eat something like that; whether it would go through her digestive system; whether it would show up on an x-ray; whether I should ask the vet; whether she would be still pooing if she had a nylon stocking in her gut.

You get the picture? I've been driving everyone crazy by mentioning it every time I start to worry.

Well, tonight I learned the answer: yes, a dog WOULD eat it if she happened to find it, even if it were so old that it had turned into a disgusting slimy mass.




Yes, she would absolutely refuse to give it back and would try to swallow it as quickly as possible if she thought her human was trying to steal it.

Yes, the stocking would start to tear apart if the human tried to pull it back out of her dog's oesophagus.

When I look at the photo and see how far into her mouth the stocking had gone - you can tell the part that is damp - I thank heaven that some intuition made me leave my dinner and go outside to investigate what she was doing outside at a time when she's usually keeping an eye on her humans while they eat.

Top of my to-do list is to be shown once again how to force a dog's jaw open. The vet did show me but in the dark and in the stress of the moment I couldn't do it.

One great result of tonight's fright is that now I can stop worrying about where the stocking is. It's in the rubbish bin and out in the street for collection.

poisonous plants and dogs

Penny was watching from inside the front door as I weeded the front garden this afternoon; she doesn't get out the front because we don't have a fence along the street. I was pulling out a plant that looked like choko and I wanted to make sure I wasn't discarding a useful plant, so I took a well-earned break and searched on the internet 'plant with milky sap looks like choko'.

I'm glad I did, because this plant definitely has to go. It is poisonous to animals and harmful to people. A Weed Fact Sheet from the New South Wales Government says,

It is suspected to be poisonous to cattle, poultry and dogs. The sap can cause skin irritation and severe allergic reactions in susceptible people.

I guess I'm not a susceptible person, because I've pulled out heaps of these plants, in our own garden and on weeding sessions in Darebin Parklands. Confession time - I'm really, really silly, because I sometimes garden without gloves.

After I read the scary stuff I washed the sticky gooey stuff off my arms and hands and donned gloves. The Fact Sheet says to dispose of the seed pods by bagging them and 'disposing of them safely', so I thought I shouldn't put the plant in the green waste bin. I put the whole thing in the rubbish bin.

Now, it may be a weed, but what's a weed after all, except a plant that we don't want to see growing where it does? I know Peter, the Ranger in Darebin Parklands, hates this particular weed and the Fact Sheet certainly shows what a pest it would be in our lovely bushland oasis.

It is also becoming more widespread in southern Victoria, particularly in and near Melbourne...
they reduce indigenous biodiversity. They do this by degrading the homes or habitat of indigenous plants and animals, thus
contributing to the extinction crisis both locally and globally.

BUT... it's so beautiful if you open the fruit.
I know I'm not the only one who thinks so, because I found a flickr member who took a picture of the beautiful seeds, one that captures the iridescence of the hairy tops, as I couldn't do.

home hairdressing for dogs

This evening I visited a friend who has a maltese with beautiful silky white hair. My friend showed me how she trims her dog's facial hair between grooming appointments. It seemed simple enough, so when I got home I recruited help to feed Penny treats and hold her steady while I took my first tentative steps towards trimming her at home.

We decided to give it a go because her hair is always across her eyes and we think it must be annoying her. Also, my vet said he doesn't like hair that can touch a dog's eyes.

Here's Penny before the big event. She wasn't feeling too good when this was taken, as it was last week after the annual vaccination that might (or might not) have made her sick.



And here she is after her amateurish haircut. We'll have another look at it tomorrow and trim a little more - maybe.
It was surprising to see how calm she was about having me wave scissors around her face. I guess that's the payoff for all the work we've put in since she was a baby to make her like being groomed - treats, treats, treats! The road to Penny's heart!

We did use blunt-ended dog grooming scissors, by the way, and held her muzzle gently as a mother dog would hold her puppy.



There's a good series of video clips on grooming dogs at Expert Village.

lumps, bowels and doggy illnesses

Penny's been keeping us on our toes lately. She had her annual vaccinations last week, one of which which should protect her from distemper, infectious hepatitus and parvovirus; the other from bordetella brontiseptica and canine parainfluenza.

Well, I think that's what they were - the teensy tiny stickers on her health record are hard to read, even with my glasses on!

That evening she threw up five times. I rang the local animal hospital and the vet said to keep an eye on her and gave me the phone number of a local all-night clinic. However, she slept through the night okay.

We didn't, though.

In the morning my own vet examined her and he thought she was more likely to have vomited because she had a bowel inflammation. (She had been having jelly-like material in her poos on and off over the last few weeks.)

He put her on antibiotics for a week, which are nearly finished now.

It's hard to know what to do for the best for our beloved animals. There are lots of internet sites with scary stories of pets' reactions to vaccinations, and I did check out lots of such sites when I posted last year about the concern that we over-vaccinate in Australia.

I thought Dog Owners' Guide seemed to have a reasonable overview of the question. Basically they referred to vomiting as a severe reaction, but said we should still have the vaccinations with the proviso that the dog might need to take antihistamines or the leptospirosis part could be omitted.

They discuss (but not in detail) recent research that suggests we should vaccinate less frequently.

As I write this, Penny is frantically licking her paws. She tends to have a problem with her paws, so it's not a new issue, but I feel sure she's doing it more these last couple of days. So I'm interested in a site that suggests paw licking can be a reaction to vaccinations.

And to top off our worries, when I got home from the vet after the vaccination, I noticed Penny had another lump - this time on the top of her head. It's not long since she had one removed from her chest.

The vet said it would be safer to remove it, but not to worry about rushing into it. I'm fairly sure it is getting smaller every day. At first it was as big as a pea, but I think it's only pin-head size now. Here's hoping!

dog owners work together as a community

It infuriates me to see dog poo lying around on our streets or in our parks. People who don't pick up after their dog are lazy or dirty as far as I'm concerned.

When I see someone who is ignoring their dog's defecation, I ask myself whether they haven't noticed or whether they just don't care. If they look approachable, I might say, 'Would you like a bag?' if I have a spare one with me. But mostly I don't say anything if I'm alone.

I'm wondering how I would go if I lived in the villages of Denny or Dunipace, in the UK. They've set up a Green Dog Walkers project, in which volunteers will approach pet owners to ask them to sign a pledge to clean up after their animals. If people join the campaign they'll wear an armband that says they are green dog walkers.

I can't really see it working here in Melbourne, but I ask myself why it shouldn't. I think it's because we are such a big city and there's a creeping sense of anonymity in my area. I used to know everyone in my street but now most people don't even make eye contact.

Yet dog walkers do.

Maybe it could work...

I read about this campaign at the blog of Dogs Life, our Australian dog magazine. I've been reading it for years but just now realised it has an online component.