Hi there!
I would like to invite you to share your Dog story – be it based on your real experience or someone else’s experience with Dogs. Each story will be considered an entry to a contest entitled, DR. CHRIS’ PET OF THE WEEK. You may send your entries by writing in the comment box below. Submission of entries will be from October 3, 2011 to October 7, 2011. The winner will win for himself a bottle of GlycanAid, a health supplement designed for pets suffering from moderate to severe Dog arthritis and is also recommended for Dogs who have just undergone orthopedic surgery. See video http://topdoghealth.com/case-
I will announce the winner on October 11, 2011 here and in my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/
In this contest, our furry friend is the STAR! Dogs deserve it for the loyalty & love they have bestowed us over the years. Join me in my desire to reward our best friend…
Sincerely,
Dr. Christopher Durin
Tags: dog arthritis, dog arthritis challenge, glycanaid, pet health supplement
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I would like to congratulate Story Entry No. 5 from Marcia Murray-Stoof for winning Dr. Chris’ PET of the WEEK Contest! I will be needing your shipping details for the prize. Please email me at support@dogarthritisblog.info
To those who joined this fun & simple contest, thank you very much! I enjoyed reading your stories; those were very precious moments with our furriends. I salute you all for being animal lovers!
I hope you’ll join me again for another round of game soon
ESP
As much as Jasmine can fool anybody she wants, fooling her is an impossible task.
She knows which days are work days and which days are fun days.
At the first sight it would seem clear how she does that, as each have their own routine.
In the morning on the work day Jasmine goes on a morning patrol around a block, then she gets her breakfast, and the hubby takes a shower and goes to work. On the fun day there is no patrol, no breakfast and no shower. Hubby packs up breakfast into a lunch box and off the the farm they go.
Seems simple to distinguish between the two routines, right? Except …
Every once in a while hubby needs to do something that prevents him from taking the guys along. It hurts Jasmine’s feelings if she gets left behind. So we tried to fool her. We carefully recalled every detail of the work day routine in order to follow exactly the same steps, including the shower. (at first hubby tried just faking the shower, but that didn’t work.)
It doesn’t matter how hard we try, she knows that it is not a work day and that she is being left behind! How? Beats me! And it’s not the time of the day either, as sometimes hubby goes to work earlier and sometimes at the same time as when they go to the farm. I swear she’s reading hubby’s mental picture of where he’s truly going!
Couple times she even tried to control the situation by refusing to have her breakfast! “If I don’t have breakfast now, we’ll certainly go to the farm then!”
In a way her efforts work anyway though. She makes hubby feel so bad for not taking her with him that he tries his hardest not to do that. And when he can’t help it, then he quickly comes up with a way to make it up to her!
Funny how we can’t outwit our dogs sometimes. She really knows how to get her way Jana. Jasmine rules! If I keep hearing stories about her, I think I’ll fall in love with her too. Right now, I like her already
Thank you Jana for another story of Jasmine’s bright ideas! This is entry No. 7
I want that bully stick
Jasmine was about two years old when we took in a 7 years old male, Bruin. He was old and big a nobody wanted him—we were his last chance.
Jasmine took it like a lady and allowed him in her home. They both enjoyed chewing on bully sticks, but Jasmine quickly found out that the stick Bruin was chewing on was soft and gooey and much more fun than her own. Few times she carefully stole it from him, but quickly realized that it was not a very safe way of doing things.
At that time, when I got really busy and she wanted attention she learned to come up and ask for some. Since she asked nicely—she knew that asking nicely is what works—I would take a break, pay attention to her, and give out some bisquits for tricks.
Bruin, of course, would drop everything and rush over as well.
One day she came as usually but when I pulled out the bisquits she didn’t want any. Bruin did though. And then Jasmine walked away to now abandoned stick. “Finders, keepers!”
Only then I realized that that was the purpose all along! “I go over for bisquits, he drops the stick and the stick is mine!”
And that’s how it was from then on. I thought that all that effort deserved a reward so I’d play along. I would then give Bruin a brand new stick. He didn’t care, he got his share of bisquits.
If there was a beauty contest for dogs, I’m sure Jasmine would have a great chance as she is both beauty & brains. Brilliant girl! Thank you for this amusing story Jana. You are entry No. 6
Last Summer, I was at the beach with my kids and dogs. My Daughter was snorkling with her big brother and they went over a deep drop off, she got scared and called for him to wait. Of course being a big brother, he did not. Her yelling at her brother caught my Male Dogue De Bordeaux’s attention, whom was at the time tied off to the park bench I was sitting on watching them. He (Tarkas) obviously thought she was in trouble, and jumped up to race to save her, snapping his leash, and sending me flying off the bench. I watched with a smile, as my beautiful 147 pound DDB, went swimming out to save her. How proud I was of his instincts to rescue his little girl. Of course my Daughter was not happy about being Rescued and dragged back to shore by her life jacket. So now the yelling was at Tarkas to let her go. Laughing I looked up the shore line as in the corner of my eye I saw a man running full pelt down the beach. I was wondering what his hurry was, when I looked back out at Tarkas doing his best to save his little mistress, whom was not happy about being rescued. It suddenly dawned on me what it would look like to a stranger. Some Big Monster of a Dog attacking a young child in the water. When the would be human rescuer got with-in ear shot, I yell, she’s fine he’s just rescuing her. He slowed to a jog, up to me and I explained the whole thing to him. It made my day to know a complete stranger would, act so fast when he thought a child in trouble and made my day to know my beautiful big brute Tarkas, would brave the water, to rescue his little girl.
Thank you Marcia for a funny story. Sounds like the bloopers
I enjoyed that!
It also tells us that a Good samaritan can be in any form… You are entry No. 5
Hi Chris,
I have three dogs: Charlie the whippet (13 years old this November!), Fargo the labradoodle (8 years old) and Billy the whippet (2 years old).
Last summer, Charlie collapsed and lost the use of all his legs. It turned out that he had a compressed spinal cord due to a ruptured disc and some longer-term bone issues that we hadn’t known about. He had a big operation to remove the tops of some vertebrae in his neck and then he had to learn to walk again. I gave up my office job to work freelance from home and look after him.
It was a huge learning curve. Charlie had gone on hunger strike in the animal hospital and he’d lost about three kilos (not a good look on a whippet), so they sent him home early. I’m glad to say his appetite returned immediately but he couldn’t even stand up at first, and for the first day or so I even had to drain his bladder with a catheter. I’m not a nurse of any kind so this was a new skill for me! Eventually, after months of hard work in which Charlie showed massive patience, courage and tenacity, we got him on his feet again. His left foreleg was weak and he tended to drag the foot a bit, but he was able to enjoy his walks again and I thought that was the best we could hope for.
Then, this summer, Fargo the labradoodle ruptured his cruciate ligament and had to have TPLO surgery followed by physio/hydrotherapy (thankfully, all my dogs are insured!). During one of Fargo’s sessions I happened to mention Charlie to the physiotherapist, who told me to bring him along and he’d see if there was anything he could do for him. It turned out there was. It seems that Charlie has been compensating for his weaker limbs as he recovered from his operation, and this has caused them to become weaker still. Just one dip in the hydrotherapy pool seemed to work wonders, and five weeks later I can’t believe the difference in him.
Both Charlie and Fargo now go to hydrotherapy every week and I do stretches and other exercises with them at home. Fargo is getting steadily stronger as he recovers from his TPLO and I hope that we’re strengthening him up enough to protect the cruciate ligament in his other leg. It seems to be working so far. Charlie has made amazing progress. He’s building muscle, standing much more squarely and he hardly drags his foot at all now. And the best part of it is that he’s still improving.
Due to their different exercise requirements, I walk all three of my dogs separately at the moment. It takes some time but we all really enjoy it and I can’t think of much I’d rather be doing. I love giving each of the dogs some one-to-one time. Billy gets a proper run while I make sure that Charlie and Fargo enjoy their shorter, slower-paced walks. That said, their walks are getting longer now and I’m also looking forward to the day when I can take them all out for a good walk together again!
Sounds like a happy ending Jacqui
I love happy endings. Sacrificing your career to spend lots of time with your dogs isn’t an easy decision but you did it anyway. I salute you! You’re like a mother to your three lovely babies. No doubt you’re a certified Dog mama. Thank you for another wonderful story. You are entry No. 3
Chris, we have two dogs, both adopted rescues. Suzee is pretty much a Pointer who we found at an adoption day 3 years ago. We quickly realized Suzee was quite an athlete so we enrolled her into Agility Training to focus all her energy. One of the instructors saw her potential as well. Suzee went through Advanced Training and showed no fear of the different obstacles. She especially loves to jump!
Well this past winter (Jan or Feb), we were out for a walk and I noticed her urine was quite dark but otherwise she seemed fine. That evening though, Suzee wouldn’t even get up to eat she was so lethargic. We knew something was wrong and called her vet the next morning. After test after test, they weren’t sure what the problem was, but her blood test showed a Red Blood count dangerously low-21%. The conclusion was that Suzee had IMHA. Now was the tough part. Suzee was put on a high dose of Predisone and later Azathioprine. Although her appetite came back big time, she was losing muscle mass due to the Predisone. Her head became bony and her spine became very pronounced. She had to be helped into the car. No more jumping.
She was going back to her doctor every couple of weeks and she was responding to the treatment. Her blood counts were improving, but she still looked awful. But she ate everything! One day I forgot to put her food away and she got into it. Well when I discovered it she was all bloated from the food she ate. The next day was her regular recheck and we found out she gained 4-5 pounds overnight! But her blood count was getting better.
Because of the Azathioprine though Suzee was also susceptible to various infections though. On one hand she was getting better, but on the other…
Early this summer her doctor said Suzee was in remission. In August all meds were stopped as they had been gradually reduced over the previous months. In September she had her last recheck since being off the Predisone for a month. The message from her doctor was, “replace all medication with 2 cookies a day. See you in 6 months. Suzee’s blood count is perflectly normal.”
Yesterday we out for a walk and we walked by a 3-4 foot retaining wall. Suzee sensed something was up there and in one quick leap she was up at the top of the wall with no running start. Yes, Suzee is back to normal, jumping on the wall, onto the bed, up on furniture….
The 8 months were long, but we had a great vet who was always available with advice and to answer questions. It was all worth it to get our Suzee back!
Mark, I admire you for supporting Suzee all the way. She’s a lucky dog! So nice of you to share this wonderful story with us, thank you. You are entry No. 2
Yuki, my unknown mixed breed pup, back when he was still 2 months old, was very hyperactive. He would chew on a lot of stuff even if I bought on dog toys. I gave him a a huge white teddy bear (well, bigger than him) to play with and ever since, it was his favorite.
He would usually sleep in my room. One time, my sister asked if he could sleep on her room. So I took his teddy bear and lured him to the other room and left him there. I rushed back to my room and closed the door.
My sister yelled, “Louise, you’re puppy dragged his stuff out!” and when I opened my door, I saw him sitting in front of my door beside his teddy. So I took the teddy and threw it back to my sister’s room, then I ran back to my room while he tried to drag the teddy back to my room too. He was already in front of my door I suddenly closed it.
When I opened my door to check on him again, he tried to drag the teddy back in… so I shut the door before he could.
Then fourth time I opened the door, he left the teddy and rushed into my room by himself. Talk about saving yourself. XD
Thank you for that very cute story Louise. He’s a baby
You are entry No. 1.