The 43T Ass Dog Report

My obviously genius poodle has learned two new tricks in the past week. She picks them up very fast, and I’m running out of ideas of things to teach her. Or, more specifically, things she can poke. ;) She doesn’t like being told to pick anything up or hold anything in her mouth, it seems to scare her more than anything, which limits the kind of tricks she can learn. However, she adores anything that involves poking things with her nose. Sometimes she just walks around poking furniture for no apprent reason.
So, she has now learnt to poke books that are pulled halway out of the bookshelf, to push them bak in line with the other books. Very useful in a messy household. ;) She can also poke rolled up carpets to roll them out, and close cabinet doors by poking them. I thought about teaching her to turn lights on and off, but the light switches are up on the wall, and with her back problems I don’t want to ask her to stand on her hind legs.

So, does anyone have other ideas for things my curly genius can poke? ;)

For poor Cora tomorrow. Please keep her in your thoughts!

life really is unfair, she’s had way more than her fair share of pain, injuries and diseases. New issue now. The specialist at the animal hospital discovered that a part of her spine is unstable. Which means her body has tried to compensate for that by building tissue around the area, and that tissue is probably now putting pressure on her nerves, causing constant pain. And the muscles in the area have been constantly working to stabilize the area, which increases the pain.
The good news is, 50% of all dogs with this problem get better if they are kept completely calm and inactive for 4 weeks and take medication. The bad news is, she has to be completely calm and inactive for 4 weeks. No play, not even practising tricks like sit and stay, no movement whatsoever except very short walks on a leash. That’s going to be a nightmare. She’s not even supposed to jump up on the couch. I told the vet that I don’t see how that can be prevented, she has slept on the couch ever single night since she was 8 weeks old, and also sleeps there a lot during the day. And the couch is right there, if I say no when I’m at home, she’ll be shocked and offended, but she’ll listen. But she’ll certainly jump up once I go to work or when I’m asleep. He said ok, ideally she shouldn’t but maybe it can’t be prevented.

We’ll just have to do our very best with this. If she’s not better in 4 weeks, she has to have surgery. He said that as far as neurosurgery goes, it’s a relatively simple operation with few risks. But it’s surgery, it’s always risky. Plus, that would mean 4 more weeks of no activity whatsoever, and then gradually rebuilding her strength.

Poor Cora. All paws crossed that she won’t need surgery please!

about how Cora thinks. I’ve been fascinated by the fact that Cora gets extremely excited when she hears magpies (at least I think that’s what the bird is called in English, their latin name is pica pica). The more noisy the magpies are, the more excited she gets. But, she’s not interested in the birds themselves, she very rarely bothers to chase them or even notice them. It’s just the sound she likes. I’ve been thinking maybe she hasn’t connected the sound to the bird.
Of course, I should have known better, Cora is far more clever than that. And suddenly, I realized what it is. Cora has discovered that magpies love teasing cats. They’ll sit on brances in trees and bushes right above cats, being super noisy to get the cats irritated. Cora clearly understands that that’s what they’re doing. So when she hears magpies being noisy, she knows there’s a good chance there’s a cat around. Clever Cora. Dogs are fascinating!

Also, I find the idea of magpies teasing cats fascinating. It is a dangerous thing to do, one wrong move and the cat could catch them. They’re deliberately taking a risk, just for the fun of it. It goes to show they are very advanced birds, with a sense of humor or need for entertainment somehow. Although the cats probably don’t agree.

sigh, poor baby, it feels like she’s sick so often poor thing.
She had a stomack problem today when we were in the park. It didn’t seem that bad though. A couple of hours later I had plans with a friend. I arranged to meet in the park so Cora could come, since she was unwell. But we’re having an incredible heatwave, and heat really bothers Cora. When I was leaving she seemed relaxed, so I thought it would be better for her to stay home, the appartment is cooler than outside. But when I got back home, she had been throwing up all over the appartment. She was standing right behind the door, rushing past me as soon as I opened it, running down all the stairs to get out. Poor Cora, I felt so guilty for leaving her! I thought it would be the best thing for her though, but clearly I was very wrong.
It might be that she’s reacting to the medicines she’s on, so I didn’t give her any tonight.
So, tomoroow, yet another expensive trip to the vet, to get medicine, special diet food and some advice on what to do next.

to check Cora’s wound. He said the wound is healing nicely, which is good news. The bad news is, it will take weeks for the skin to grow back so she can get back to normal excercise. And poor Cora is already going nuts from lack of exercise. We practice tricks every night to get her a little bit tired. But she doesn’t play with toys, so I have to reward her with treats. And there’s just a limit to how many treats I can feed to a dog who gets very little exercise, she’ll gain too much weight.
We’re going to visit my parents soon, and she’ll be expecting her usual, lovely walks in the forest there, which will not happen. But at least my mother has made Cora’s all time favorite treat: homemade burgers made from only the very best ingredients. ;) She’s a very spoiled grand-dog!
The vet said she doesn’t really need to come back if the wound keeps healing, which is good news. Cora hates vets. The vet couldn’t stop smiling and laughing at Cora though, he found her totally adorable. She was hiding in a corner, trying to look like an almost invisible miniature poodle, rather than the proud, big King poodle she really is (which is what standard poodles are called in Norway). It’s impressive how small Cora can become when she wants to. ;) When asked though, she jumped up on the table voluntarily, and then stood there quietly with her head down, being patient at always, but making it very clear that the whole thing was totally unfair. Poor, cute Cora.

Cora finally decided to eat the youghurt I served her. Excellent! Cora is a dog with principles, and when she’s decided to refuse something, she rarely changes her mind. But when she didn’t want it, I just put it down and made sure not to try to make her eat it. And now, she’s decided she likes youghurt. I’m not happy about all the antibiotics she has to take, due to the complications with her wound. And youghurt (without sugar or anything else added) is good for building up healthy bacteria again.

Just came in from the evening walk with Cora. We always practice tricks after our evening walk, Cora loves that. But today, she suddenly refused the treats. Which means something is wrong. So I checked her paw, she’s still wearing a sock to protect it. It has been healing nicely lately. But now, more of the stitches have come out. She now has a new, big open wound. It doesn’t seem to be bleeding much, but it’s clearly painful. I had to give Cora painkillers again, poor pup. And this means we’ll have to keep taking just very short walks for a long time still. It’s already been over two weeks, and poor Cora is so frustrated that I’m not giving her any proper exercise all of a sudden.
Not sure what happened, maybe I’ve overdone it with the walks, even though we have only taken really short walks. Or maybe it’s the fact that we’ve met about 10 or 12 cats today. With the exeption of the friendly one, she goes mad when a cat is around, using all her strength to try to pull me along or keep me from pulling her away from the cat. Which is of course really bad for an injured paw. But it’s unavoidable, no matter how short we walk, there are always cats.
Sigh, sigh, sigh.

How on earth can my tiny, curly puppy be 7 already?
Cora is of course still injured, and had to go to the vet on her birthday. Very unfair. But at least it was a short visit this time. And all was forgotten when she got to unwrap her presents! She got grandma’s homemade burgers, her all time super-favourite, wrapped separately in small pieces for extra fun. Our living room is now filled with tiny pieces of paper and one happy 7-year old. ;)

Cora has done really well so far, she hasn’t tried to pull the bandades off her injured paw. Last night though, she apparently decided enough is enough. I had put one of my socks on her paw and fastened it with sports tape, but she managed to get it off and pulled some of the stitches out. Which means there’s now some open wound again, and it will take longer for her to get back to normal activity. Sigh. I don’t think the stitches can be redone, the vet said there’s a window of about 24 hours after the injury when the wound can be stitched together, after that, it just has to heal on it’s own. So now I just have to hope there won’t be any infections or further complications.