The old guy, Beamish, has me a little down lately. After consulting with a veterinary ophthalmologist, we have decided that enucleation will be the best for him. We have a consult scheduled with a veterinary surgeon this week, but I don't expect the outcome to be any different.
What's that?
We hired a dog behaviorist. She said our dogs had too much freedom and were acting like they own the place, and that they were also a tad overweight.
She suggested cutting back their food and using some of their regular kibble for positive reinforcement.
They also have to do something when they want to go out to the back yard. Now we have them sit and stay before we open the door, sit and stay before we open the front door for a walk, and sit and stay before we feed them. We also crate them about 1/3 of the time.
Our dogs have never had aggression issues with each other, but we've also had similar discussions with trainers. Loki was actually refusing to finish his kibble for a long time, and I kept trying to encourage him - only a month or so ago did I realize that he was clearly informing me that I was over feeding him. Now I'm feeding him a bit less. And yes, he's much more attentive, and motivated by treats, than he was before.
I've also used kibble as treats before, and it seems to work fine! But I like a variety of treats for training purposes, too.
Our one ironclad rule is that the dogs have to sit outside the kitchen, in a very particular location, until we release them to eat their meal. At times, they've waited for five or more minutes when we got distracted and forgot to release them. I really think this helps to establish who's boss. Loki's biggest rebellion is to put his feet forward off the mat a little bit. He's not allowed to eat until he gets all his body parts completely on the mat.
We were also told that for a couple of weeks, we shouldn't allow them to initiate contact. So if Loki came up and put his head on a lap, or if Cooper came up and put a paw up - ignore completely. All contact initiated at human's whim, not dog's. This was harder to do.
I also like to make the dogs sit and "wait" before letting them run out the back door, although I don't do it all the time. The more they've misbehaved in recent memory, the more likely they are to get that treatment.
Someone - don't know which one - barfed twice, huge piles, on the back door mat last night. Sigh.
Loki goes in for surgery Tuesday. Two growths need to be removed from the base of his tail. The vet isn't concerned that they're harmful, per se, but they're big enough that if they grew any more and then had to be removed, it would be hard to close up the incision. There's just not much loose skin on the tail. So she wants to remove them while she can close them easily. Should be a "fun" week with Loki having a shaved butt and no doubt unhappy and uncomfortable.