I said goodbye to stitches...not for long though!

On Wednesday, Dad took me to the vet to get my stitches from the terrier bite out. They said it had healed very nicely, and that eventually the scab would fall off and it would be fine. But...Thursday morning when Mom and Dad woke up they noticed that it was wide open again. I must have scratched at it in the middle of the night and it opened up again. I already had an appointment with the vet to get my first allergy shot that afternoon, so she looked at the bite when I was there. She agreed that it wouldn't heal like that, and that it needed to be re-stitched again. She said that they could put me under and do it, or if Mom thought she could keep me distracted, they would just give me local lidocaine to numb the area and then clean it out and stitch it up. Mom asked if they had treats, and the vet tech returned with a bag of Bil Jac. I LOVE that stinky stuff. Sure enough, I sat very still and ate Bil Jac out of Mom's hand while the vet and vet tech re-shaved the area a bit, cleaned it out, cut new edges on the wound (because the edges had already healed and won't heal together unless there is a fresh blood supply), and sewed it together with four stitches. The vet was pretty quick, but I got a LOT of Bil Jac and praises from Mommy too!

Here's to hoping that these stitches do their job!

One thing after another...

It was a long Easter Sunday for our family. Mom and Dad woke up and Mom noticed Dad had a funny rash on his forehead. They went to church and then to PromptCare because Mom was pretty sure it looked like shingles. Sure enough, after waiting an hour, they found out Dad has shingles. It is very odd for someone his age to have shingles, and it isn't very pleasant. He is okay, but it is pretty painful.

Then Mom decided to take us to the big dog park at the lake. Herky and I had a great time and got all muddy. When I was getting a bath at home, Mom noticed I had a pretty big hole on my left side behind my shoulder. She's not 100% sure, but she thinks a terrier accidentally got his tooth caught and ripped my skin. She remembers a terrier chasing me and jumping up on me, and then I yelped. But I didn't whine anymore and Mom didn't notice any blood (probably because I was swimming and dirty). But by the time I got to the emergency vet (which is about an hour away), I had blood all over my fur. I had to be sedated so the vet could clean the wound and give me three stitches. I am feeling fine, in fact Mom is not sure if I know that anything even happened to me. But I have a shaved patch on my side again... :(

The motto of this story...be aware of the little pups - they can be dangerous too :)

Update

Sorry it's been so long since I've written! A lot has happened lately! I went to Florida with Mom and Dad on vacation, but more about that later.

Many of you know that I have been having problems with allergies. My vet wanted me to try a food trial to see if it was a food allergy. That means that I only ate one kind of food (no other scraps or treats at all) for almost three whole months! Unfortunately, this didn't seem to help. Mom did notice that I seemed to be less itchy in Florida and at Dad's parents house in Iowa. Both of these houses are much newer than our townhouse and have a lot of hardwood floors (we have a lot of carpet at our house). This mad her think that it might be some kind of allergy like dust mites. The vet agreed, and she drew some of my blood a few weeks ago for an allergy test. We got the results back this week and here is what I am allergic to:

Three kinds of dust mites (including storage mites)
Flea saliva
Four kinds of grasses (two of which are the most common yard grasses in Indiana)
A weed called Yellow Dock

The vet gave lots of recommendations to reduce my allergy symptoms, but I am also going to start getting allergy shots. Luckily our pet insurance will help pay for the shots. Mom said she is also going to vacuum twice a week, and wash my bedding (and theirs too since I sometimes sleep in their bed) once a week. Our dog food bag is now in a rubbermaid storage container, because storage mites can live in open bags of dog food. Mom also ordered two air purifiers (one for the living room and one for the bedroom) which have HEPA filters to reduce dust mites and other allergens in the air. She says this will help her too since she has allergies.

The Mouse!

Oh my goodness, Mom was not happy with me the other day! We are in Iowa visiting Mom and Dad's families, and we have had sooo much fun running and playing off our leashes because they both live on big farms. We were out at Mom's parents farm, and we saw a mouse! Herky killed it and was playing with it, but Mom didn't care as long as we didn't eat it. Then Herky got bored of it, and Mom thought I was going to go sniff it and maybe carry it around for a bit. Instead, I sniffed it and I layed down right on top of it and started rolling around!! Mom said it was like slow motion and she yelled "Kinnick, NOOOOOOOOOOO!" I don't know why she was so upset, I just wanted to smell wonderful, like that dead mousie! She said something about being stinky, but everypup knows that I smelled great! But she insisted on spraying me with the waterless bath stuff, rubbing me all over with a towel and then spraying me with doggie cologne! I couldn't even smell that lovely mouse anymore...

My Christmas!

Herky and I had a wonderful Christmas! All of Mom and Dad's family got us toys! We got eight toys all together I think. One of them is a tire with a rope attached, another is a tug of war toy, a rope with a Santa, a stretchy elastic rope attached to a tennis ball, and some other cool stuff too!

Mom went to Petco the day after Christmas and bought us jingle collars for next year's Christmas. They were on sale for $3 each! I have a blue one and Herky has red. She also got us new tags for our collars, and they have the Iowa Hawkeye symbol on them!

We are very spoiled pups and we are having a great time in Iowa. Mom said the weather has been horrible. She says that there has been snow, ice, rain, sleet, fog, and very strong winds. But we don't mind, we will play outside in any of it! Dad's parents have three labs, and we just love running around the farm and playing with them. (Except the oldest Maddie, she gets kind of mad at me and growls a little, but so far we just ignore her).

Hope you all had as great of a Christmas as we did!

Iowa

Mom said that in one week we are packing up, getting in the car, and leaving for Iowa. I have been there before, and I like it. There are lots of people that know my name in Iowa, Mom and Dad say they are family. Before when I have been to Iowa, I can see lots and lots of places to play and run, but only Herky got to play without a leash on. Mom made me use my long Flexi leash, and she kept saying something about running away...whatever that is. This year she says that since we have done training - was that the fun stuff when we got to play with that guy at the park? I can run and play in all the space without my leash on! I can't wait to chase birds, bunnies, and cats (but I might get in trouble for that last one...)

Allergies?

I has been itching my face (including eyes and muzzle area) since early summer. The vet said it was likely an environmental allergy since Mom didn't notice it last winter. She recommended monitoring it and using benadryl if needed. Mom is hesitant to give me benadryl since it generally makes me hyperactive (including excessive panting). The vet said she would happily write me a prescription for an antihistamine if Mom thought it didn't resolve itself. But Mom doesn't want to just treat the symptoms if we don't know the cause. Mom assumed once it got cold this winter, my itching would get better. In fact, I think it has gotten worse. My eyes are also very watery. Since it has been cold (around freezing) for at least a month now, Mom assumes there aren't too many environmental allergens left outdoors! This makes her think the allergy could be food related.

After visiting the vet yesterday, I am starting a new diet. They talked about allergy testing, but apparently a blood test for food allergies is only about 50% accurate. Even though our pet insurance would cover it, it is probably a waste of time and money to do a test that probably won't tell us a lot. Instead, a food elimination diet is the best way to identify food allergies. This means that for 4-6 weeks (at minimum), I only get to eat one type of food. The vet said she recommended Royal Canin prescription diet, but she was okay with it if Mom wanted to pick a different food. She said it should either be duck or fish for protein and potato for carbohydrate. She also said that many of the allergy foods have treats and canned food with the same ingredients, so I could eat those for treats as well.

After visiting our favorite local pet store (and with some input from Sedona and others in the Food & Nutrition forum), Mom decided to go with Natural Balance Fish & Sweet Potato Limited Ingredient Diet food. She also bought me the matching treats and canned food. No more peanut butter in my Kong - only canned food!! No more pig ears, or bites from Mom's food, or crusty ends of the bread loaf :(

My doggy friend Kip

This week is Thanksgiving week! We stayed in Indiana because Dad wanted to save his vacation time for Christmas instead of going back to Iowa twice in a month. But luckily we have some great friends as neighbors who didn't leave to visit their families either. So we had Thanksgiving dinner with them. They have two dogs, my pals Molly and Zelly. Also our other neighbor has two dogs, Monday and Kip. Those neighbors had flew away for the week, and Monday had to go to the boarding place (because she doesn't always get along with other dogs). But Kip gets along great, so she stayed with Molly and Zelly starting Monday morning until Thursday evening. Now she has been staying with us Thursday evening until late tonight.

Thanksgiving day was lots of fun, because we got to go with Mom and Dad to Molly and Zelly's house. That means there were four people and five dogs at their place for Thanksgiving! It was a full house, but lots of fun. Us doggies even got some of the turkey!

Kip has been fun to wrestle and play with while she is here, but she is also kind of whiny. Mom said its because she wants attention and misses her dogsis Monday and her pawrents. She says we have to be nice to her, but it seems like if she isn't eating, sleeping, or playing she is whining! She even tried to take my place in the bed Friday night and she stepped on me! So of course I growled at her a little bit and I was the one that got yelled at! I love to play with Kip at the dog park, but I am secretly a little glad that she is going back to her house to stay tonight.

Update again

Mom says she's sorry that it's been so long since she's had time to write for me. I am doing wonderful! It has been two and a half months since my surgery and I can walk, run and play for a really long time now! My hair has grown back a lot, but Mom can still tell where it was shaved. She says it will probably be all grown in before Christmas.

I have also been going to training sessions with just me and my brother Herky. We learned so much during training! I can walk much nicer on a leash now! I also know what "Kinnick, come!" means and I listen 95% of the time. Our trainer even threw a tennis ball and told Mom to call for me when I was halfway to the ball. Believe it or not, I turned around!! Mom was sooo amazed. I didn't turn around as fast as my brother Herky, but I am much more ball crazy than he is.

The only bad thing I did happened last weekend at our last training session. Our trainer brought his two dogs, a bulldog and a german shepherd with him, and we went for a walk in the woods off our leashes. I did good and stayed on the path at first. When Mom would call me, I would come back to her. We even went to this open field area and practiced heeling off my leash! Then when we were walking back from the field, I saw a deer in the forest!! ZOOM! I was gone. The trainer said not to worry, I would be back. But of course Mom is a worrier...she could only picture herself walking the forest for hours, searching for me and having to give up when it got dark (jeez she's pessimistic...) Our trainer walked a ways out into the forest and started calling for me. Just a few minutes after I had disappeared, I came right back. Mom said that means that I have a chance to run and play off leash in Iowa at my grandparents' farm in December! It is wide open farmland so you can see forever, and Mom knows she won't lose me there. She has also learned what I look like when I am about to run (ears perk up, tail goes stiff, etc.) and she knows that she should immediately call me to her when I start to act this way so that I will not run again. I'm so excited to go back to Iowa in less than a month!

Fun Walk Today!

Today I got to go on an extra special walk with my Mom. She participated in a 5K benefit walk for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. One of the mother's of an employee at her grad school was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, so they organized a benefit walk on her behalf. Since my surgery two months ago, Herky has gotten to go to all the fun stuff with Mom and Dad like tailgate parties and special walks. Mom decided it was my turn! I did very well with all the people, and I even wore a purple ribbon pinned to my leash. At the end of the walk I got my picture taken because I was the first dog to finish (there were only two dogs there :) ). It was a ton of fun even though it was cold (only 38 degrees!)