Trying Again

Apparently I’m terrible at this, given that it’s been almost a year (8 months) since I last posted. Part of that was laziness, and part feeling like a failure. Wilfred and I have had ups and downs, and every down felt like I was failing him. In the time I haven’t posted we’ve gone to a behavioral vet, Dr. Feltes at The Behavior Clinic http://thebehaviorclinic.com/index.php Wilfred has been placed on L-Theanine and Prozac. He’s doing much, much better now. He’s still his funny silly self, but is better able to focus and cope in situations that used to send him flying off the handle. We’ve made huge strides with his behavior modification program and managed to make a couple of new friends.

Some huge strides we’ve made in the last couple of weeks. We attended monthly sessions called Click-Ins at The Behavior Clinic that are run by Amanda the Vet Tech at the clinic. It’s a time for clients, all of whom have dogs with issues, to work their dogs in a friendly accepting environment. We’ve gone to 5 so far and for the first time this Saturday we made it into the building! We spent all the previous ones out in the parking lot looking in the big floor to ceiling windows at the people and dogs inside.

On Sunday Wilfred made friends with a trainer friend of mine who we’ve done a couple of sessions with, just counter conditioning. This last session, #3, Wilfred didn’t need any help from me and ended with him sitting in Mary Ann’s lap.

In July the hiking trail I’d been using to walk Wilfred was changed into a mountain bike only trail. We’ve been searching for another trail since without much luck. They all are either too crowded, making a pleasant non-working walk impossible, or frequented by folks with off-leash dogs, or are more than an hour drive away. Hoping to find something soon, because he’s getting way too good at catching the flirt pole we’ve been using for excercise in the interim.

Wilfred also had his first real vet appointment. We’ve been doing “fun” visits for months so that the vet is not a scary place. We had to do a blood draw so the vet and I decided that we were just going to sedate him from the get go and try to stress him as little as possible so as to not undo the work we’ve already done with him there. He had no problems, was given a clean bill on his physical, tested negative for HW, and a sample sent off for titers of everything except for Rabies which he got in order to stay legal.

We also drew enough to do a Mars Wisdom blood DNA panel. The results were very unexpected and may well fall into the  margin of error that Mars does not deny.

Wilfred came back as a Shar-Pei, Afghan, Miniature Bull Terrier, Lab mix. None of which were expected, but does answer where his lovely brindle comes from. We all, both vets included, thought he was a Rottweiler, Boxer mix.

I’m going to try to keep up with this a bit more. Though I’m sure that it’s not going to be regular in the least, but hopefully at least once a month. I’ll leave you with a pic of my Will at our favorite spot at the park before the trail usage changed.