Darlagility

Darla- 6 year old shepherd mix. Born ~11/10/12 and brought into my life on 2/10/13! Agility and therapy work :)

[darlagility]

I kind of want a cat?????

[darlagility]

So I think it's safe to say that Darla absolutely crushed her new year's resolution. The 2k19 Lose 5 lbs Initiative became The 2k19 Lose 12.2 lbs and Get Super Fit and Active Initiative.

[darlagility]

Been MIA for awhile but Darla and I are both doing fine, I've just been busy :) Agility has been going really well, we're starting to run mini courses and Dar has been so great at them!

[darlagility]

Our hike yesterday was so fun. It was just a huge boulder scramble the top third of the mountain and Darla was a pro at it, better than me. Some guys even said to me "looks like you have an expert rock climber with you" 😂 We almost reached the very tippy top (just GIANT rocks the size of houses in a pile) but getting up there required opposable thumbs!

[darlagility]

look at this friendly forest spirit I found

[darlagility]

Everyone please congratulate Darla on her weight loss so far. She is down 7 lbs, 14% of her starting body weight!

[darlagility]

Anti-tethering laws *with no exceptions/time limits* make no sense to me. I don’t have a fenced in yard, so when I’m outside reading or gardening or something and Darla wants to come out too (which she always does), I’ll clip her to a ~30 ft line on her little screw-in anchor so she can sniff around and sunbathe without me having to constantly have eyes on her. As I understand it, THAT is illegal in some places. I know I’m not gonna have the ASPCA knocking on my door, but still.

[darlagility]

Agility Week 32

So Darla is an EXTREMELY handler-focused dog, I'm learning. To the point that she will crash into bars because she's staring at me, not the obstacles. That was an asset for our first activity, and a detriment to the second.

First was learning about tunnel brakes. Basically, Darla just does this automatically, no matter what I do 😂 We had a long straight tunnel set up with a jump right after the end. Goal was to get the dog NOT to take the jump, but instead to make a 180 degree turn back to the handler after the tunnel. My instructor first had me just cue the tunnel like normal to demonstrate that dogs will automatically take that jump if not cued otherwise...... and Darla didn't hahahha. Oh well! At least she's great at tunnel brakes!

Next we had a sequence set up with a curved tunnel, jump, A-frame, jump (this is the first sequence we've done that isn't in a straight line!). This is where Darla's super glue to me did NOT come in handy. I had to set her up in front of the tunnel then stand myself around the midpoint, since I wouldn't be able to beat her to the end of the tunnel otherwise. Well... that was simply too much distance for little Darla and she just ran to me without taking the tunnel every time but the last! The good news is that the rest of the sequence was perfect! Even the contact. So funny that I was so worried about getting her to learn contacts and now she's doing great with them.

My instructor told me I have to work on making her less handler-focused... as she was telling me this, Darla was sitting right in front of me, unprompted, staring at me with her big brown eyes. My instructor said "she's basically been doing THIS for the last 6 years" and I couldn't help but laugh because that was exactly right. My homework is to work on this... she said I should set her up with a toy nearby and click everytime she looks at the toy, not at me.

Also! My instructor told me Darla should be jumping at a 16" height probably, just to make it easier on her not-old-but-not-young joints. She went on to tell me that, I think it was UKI (I was wrangling Darla at the time lol), that's the best venue for us probably, something about Darla having very tight turns! It was the first time she said anything about Darla being able to actually compete and it just kind of warmed my heart 😊

[fbwzoo]

Imagine thinking you should toss your cat outside to get hit by a car or eaten by a coyote because there's just

No

Possible

Way

To

Give

Them

Enrichment

Inside.

[darlagility]

[darlagility]

Bladder update

So Darla went back to the vet for her 2 week checkup. They took an ultrasound of her bladder and there was a fuzzy grey area that the vet believes is just her colon pressing up against it. She wasn’t too worried, but she said it would be a good thing to check on at her annual exam in December. I’m just glad she didn’t come in and say “Darla has a bladder tumor” which is what I’ve been dreading for 2 weeks.

WELL, I thought that was all good and settled, but I just got another call about her urine sample results. She has very high levels of bacteria, meaning either the sample was contaminated from her lower urinary tract or she still has an asymptomatic UTI. So we are going in to collect a sterile sample and get that cultured. The vet said that will tell us whether it was contamination or an actual UTI, and what antibiotics to use.

I just want her bladder back to normal :(

[darlagility]

Good news! Her sterile sample came back clean! So she is officially UTI-free!

[darlagility]

Bladder update

So Darla went back to the vet for her 2 week checkup. They took an ultrasound of her bladder and there was a fuzzy grey area that the vet believes is just her colon pressing up against it. She wasn’t too worried, but she said it would be a good thing to check on at her annual exam in December. I’m just glad she didn’t come in and say “Darla has a bladder tumor” which is what I’ve been dreading for 2 weeks.

WELL, I thought that was all good and settled, but I just got another call about her urine sample results. She has very high levels of bacteria, meaning either the sample was contaminated from her lower urinary tract or she still has an asymptomatic UTI. So we are going in to collect a sterile sample and get that cultured. The vet said that will tell us whether it was contamination or an actual UTI, and what antibiotics to use.

I just want her bladder back to normal :(

[darlagility]

Guess who just bought plane tickets to Spain but then forget to double check the dates til after the flight was booked then realized they were wrong and spent 40 min in a panic trying to cancel the flight??

[darlagility]

Darla weight update

She’s finally stopped plateauing. She’s now 54.2 lbs, a loss of about 3.2 lbs since a month ago. That’s a 5.6% loss, which is pretty high, but the vet didn’t seem concerned. She’s lost a total of 7.4 lbs, which is 12% of her body weight. Vet says she doesn’t want her to lose too much more, maybe 4 lbs max. Which is perfect because that would put her right at 50 lbs, which is where my agility instructor wants her to be. I’d love to have one official record of her weighing 49.9 lbs, to help us get apartments with a 50 lb weight limit hahah.

PS, the different colored points on the graph indicate different scales. So the ones of the same color (green) can most accurately be compared between each other.

[scoutsmoocrew]

tbh I never see the militant “adopt don’t shop” ppl addressing like... the rescues that import Asian street dogs. Are they not contributing to over population

[canisitsnotlupus]

there’s this local rescue here that regularly posts stuff about overpopulation, anti breeders, etc. but they import street dogs from turkey

[healingheartdogs]

"Overpopulated" but we import a million dogs every year and have to send dogs from the south all around the country to keep shelters filled enough to meet demands in other areas. Not to mention those rescues who go to auctions and buy mill dogs to "adopt" out at high prices with nonsense stories about them being bait dogs or meat dogs or super sad surrenders.

But nah, those evil breeders are the ones causing shelters and rescues to be full. Even the responsible breeders. (/s if that's not obvious.)

[aquestionablemutt]

How about instead of blaming breeders/rescues/imports we actually start to teach people about responsible dog ownership. Passing the blame to each other doesn’t help the dogs or teach people how to care for their chosen companion.

[allbarksomebite]

I don't see the problem with moving dogs from the south to areas where there's demand for them? If they're already in the US that's not going to affect the country's total dog population at all, so overpopulation isn't an issue. We sometimes transport dogs from Ireland - where there's more of a population problem and more pounds who will euth after 7 days - into the UK where there is demand. Those dogs still need homes, and we can find them homes without compromising on the dogs already here.

I'm still iffy about street dogs being imported en masse because they often need more experienced homes than people expect, and there's a higher biosecurity risk with foreign dogs (e.g. forged passports, I've seen it). Unfortunately I only get to see the negative side of overseas rescue, because they often end up in regular rescues when things go wrong.

Education is ALWAYS going to trump rescue-bashing. Responsible rescues do a hell of a lot more to educate the public than the people who shout the loudest about what they feel rescues are doing wrong.

[darlagility]

Hard agree with @allbarksomebite​. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with bringing dogs up from the south (that is exactly what happened with Darla). Because in some of those areas, there is an overpopulation issue and perfectly wonderful dogs are getting euthanized simply because there aren’t enough homes. BUT, I do think something that’s glossed over with adopt don’t shop (which I used to be a firm believer in) is that dog overpopulation just isn’t an issue everywhere in the world, or the country. There are no stray dogs where I live, hence why nearly every dog available for adoption in the county is brought up from the south, or the occasional owner surrender or accidental litter, etc. The fact that dogs are basically imported to be adopted means that there are more homes than homeless dogs in some areas, which is a great thing. The narrative that everywhere in the world there are millions of unwanted dogs and you’re evil if you buy from a breeder is just silly. But I don’t see how bringing dogs from the southern US to northern is bad or irresponsible. It doesn’t contribute to overpopulation (excluding the few “rescues” that buy from mills/auctions), it just helps even the distribution of strays.

[darlagility]

I accidentally smashed Darla's food bowl the other day but I fixed it with epoxy! I made this 5 years ago when I was missing my pup in college :(

[eroticcannibal]

"Don't give X to your pet" lists should always be divided into "OK they managed to snag a bit? It's fine they'll just have the shits" "uh maybe just give your vet a ring" and "HEAD TO THE VET IMMEDIATELY YOUR PET IS DYING" imo

[darlagility]

Everything is poisonous, and nothing is. It all depends on dosage.