Chili's Magic Wand

Chili was born a magician with her own magic wand. She didn’t have to go to school to learn how to use it, she just knew. She knew she had the power. She has all the moves that mystify, enchant, make you smile and laugh until it hurts. When she has you in her sights, she has the focus and patience that captivates. You are under her spell, and she knows it.

I have spoken in past posts about people being nasty to us, calling her vicious, gathering their dogs and kids as we walk by, or simply avoiding us by crossing the street. This is one end of the Chili spectrum, where people give her a quick look, and a quick judge. The other end holds all those people that tried to ignore her, but couldn’t. Those who found themselves laughing and smiling and giving her all the attention she demands. These are the ones who have fallen under the Chili spell.

I shouldn’t be surprised by it, that’s how we ended up adopting her. She used her magic wand on us. As I was walking along the rows of cages at the SPCA, I could hear a light thumping. As I kept walking, it got louder and louder until I was standing in front of her cage. She started to cast her spell. I walked away but could still hear the light beating, beckoning me to return. I couldn’t ignore it. As before, it got louder and stronger as I approached. That was it, she had me.

I now get to sit back and watch her cast her spell on others. My favourite place is at the vets office. Most people there could use a smile. I take a seat and have Chili sit in front of me. Chili then singles out her target. She begins by staring and lightly thumping her tail. Usually the target will give her a quick look. That’s all Chili needs. She then sits a little taller and thumps her tail a little harder. The target will look again and smile. Then Chili sits as straight as she can, thumping her tail as hard as she can while intently staring. The target can’t help but look, but this time they can’t look away. They start smiling and Chili starts vibrating with excitement. Then the target always comes over to say hello and Chili is rewarded with the attention she wanted, and the target gets a lot of wiggles, licks and love in return all the while being beaten by Chili’s tail. The magic wand in action. She’s just added some happiness to someones day.

I’m proud of my girl and how she uses her powers for good, mostly. She seems to have a special place in her heart for elderly people, especially men. She pays special attention to them when they walk by and most times, she uses her powers to draw them right to her. She knows not to jump and snuggles up to them, licking and licking, and thumping her tail. Showering them with Chili love. There’s usually lots of laughter and talk about how wonderful she is and once again, Chili has left someone smiling. She’s really good at picking out the elderly men with cookies too. She hasn’t been denied yet.

She has a lot of followers who have gotten used to seeing us and immediately come over to say hello. Not to me, I’m just the tagalong. Chili and her magical powers at work. Spreading mostly good around the world but even when she’s being bad, she still makes people smile.

I can’t imagine Chili without her wand. She’s lucky that she still has it and it wasn’t taken away from her. She is a Boxer/Rottweiler cross and we all know that most of them have their wands/tails taken away from them when they’re young. I guess those that take them away don’t realize just how special they are. I believe the true standard is nurturing the magic they were born with. That should be the standard.

The Legendary Bagfoot

I can be a bit of a nut-job when it comes to the dog, especially when it comes to her health and welfare. I’m getting better though. I don’t have a choice. I don’t have an easy going, laid back, demure, ladylike little girl. Well, she is easy going in that she lets almost everything just roll off her back. On the flip side, she’s an extremist. She doesn’t do anything half-way. In her book, there’s no such thing. How do you have the absolute most fun when you take it easy? When she plays, she plays hard. When she decides to be bratty and stubborn, she puts everything she’s got into that too.

With this great zest for life, comes injury. Punctures, scratches, sprains, strains, missing tufts of fur, a sprained tail, chunks missing from her pads, a cracked tooth, and badly sliced carpal pads (this is the pad that lies a few inches up the back of her front legs). She sliced one running through the water at the beach, this took forever to heal and was nasty to look at, then just when we thought it was healed, she tore it open playing. Again, it seemed to take forever to heal. Then after that one was healed she sliced the other one open running through a stream. All of these injuries were of varying degrees. There were a number of vet visits, most weren’t necessary, but at least it was an education for me. Better safe than sorry.

When I’m caring for an injury, you’ll usually hear Brad warning Chili that she’s in for it now. Or you might hear something like, “What are you doing to the dog now?” Yes, there is typically a degree of embarrassment for her. Sometimes it’s because I’ve taped a sport sock around a leg or two to keep her from licking. Or, it could be that I’ve taped a fluorescent poo bag around her leg so she won’t get the sock wet when she goes outside to pee. No, Chili is never impressed but she does indulge me, most times. However, she also does her best drama queen act and makes a big deal out of it. I mean really, it’s just a sock, or a crinkly bag taped to her leg, no big deal. But there she goes, hobbling around, kicking her legs out trying to shake off the socks or the poo bag. Looking like the world is about to end. Funny how once the shows over, she walks perfectly to her bed and drops herself down huffing and puffing the whole time. Oh yeah, as she’s shooting me dirty looks.

Yes, the thankless job of the dogmom. OK, so it’s not so thankless. I know she appreciates it. Especially when she’s sick and she looks to me for help. She puts up with my antics and trusts me even when I leave her at the vets. How is it that they seem to know how to make us feel better, when they are the ones who are hurt? They look at you with those all knowing eyes as if they’re saying, “It’s OK, don’t worry about it.” Then, you catch them at an off moment, and you see their vulnerability. You see how much they need you. That’s the moment that drives you to be the crazy dog-mom or dad. That’s the moment that validates every little thing that you do to protect them. No matter what, they need you, just as much as you need them.

Mild Pancreatitis: Really?

About a month ago, Chili had her blood taken before she had some dental work done. A couple of days later I come home to a message from the vet asking if I could call her to discuss the results. “Aw hell”, was the first thought that came to my mind. I was right. Her blood tests showed that she had mild pancreatitis. The vet explained that I should change her food as soon as possible to a low fat gastro. She recommended MediCal Moderate Calorie Gastro. You know, the stuff that all the vets sell. I was skeptical. I’ve never really thought much of the vet brand foods. No, I’m not a nutritionist nor a professional, but I do know that I should question things. What I do know is, if it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. It didn’t feel right. It was time to do some research.

What I found out, I didn’t like. Pancreatitis comes in two forms, acute or chronic and it can be mild or life-threatening. Great. The vet just said Chili had mild pancreatitis, she didn’t mention anything about acute or chronic. To get it in hand, it seems that the best thing to do is first give the pancreas a rest and fast the dog for at least 48 hours. Chili was not impressed by this. A change in diet is also required. I was not impressed by this. It took me forever to find a brand of dog food that was high quality and Chili liked, and can you believe I just spent $80 on a bag of food not 2 weeks earlier. Figures. The new food should be high quality, low fat (about 10%), low carb, and grain free. Many sites recommend feeding raw. AND the final nail; we had to stop sharing our food with her. None of us were impressed by this. We all enjoyed the ritual of sharing.

Honestly, I don’t really want to believe. I don’t want her to be sick. After throwing my own little tantrum, I face the facts. Not that it was going to go any other way, but I just had to protest a little bit. I gather my food notes, take one long look at that almost full bag of food, shake my head and go directly to the pet store. For something like this, I have to go to a place where I trust, Your Pet Pals. From experience I know they are very knowledgeable and they only sell food that they have thoroughly researched and trust. When I tell them about Chili, everything they said about the food requirements was almost exactly the same as what I had researched. Right away I rule out raw. I’ve never fed her raw before and I really wanted to stay as simple as possible. I wanted to get her on the right diet, then get her blood rechecked in a couple of months, then take it from there.

The girl starts checking out the different foods. All the bags that she looked at said senior and weight management. What? Then she finally settled on one brand; Amicus, Small and Mini Breed Dog Food, Senior and Weight Management. Everything about this was anti-Chili. She’s not small (80lbs), she’s not mini (she’s a truck), she’s not a senior (she’s only 3 ½) and she’s not overweight (she’s very athletic and solid). It didn’t matter. The food met the criteria.

So, there it sits. This little bag of food (it doesn’t come in the large bags because it’s meant for small dogs), next to the large and full bag of Fromm (that still chokes me). Chili seems to be happy enough with it so that’s something at least. I don’t really know if it’s doing anything though since Chili didn’t really have any signs that I could gage it by. Or did she? Every now and again she would throw up, seemingly out of nowhere; or have diarrhea, out of nowhere; when she drinks, she really tanks up; she was very fussy about her food; just around the time when we had her blood taken, she had stopped eating, starting throwing up, and had diarrhea. I don’t know if all of that is relevant, but I do know that some of it is.

Now, we wait. Wait to see if this food change makes a difference and wait to see the next step. I really hope this works or at least is taking us in the right direction. I’m uncomfortable being at the mercy of the vet and their recommendations. I know I can do internet research, but that doesn’t make me a vet. Add to that, I just want my girl to be healthy. She deserves to be healthy. I don’t like the pressure of making these health decisions, what if I make the wrong choice. Obviously this won’t be my last post on this topic. I’ll let you know how it goes when it comes time to get her blood taken again.

Back to Obedience

I almost forget to write about our second trip to obedience class. The first one went well but I had a lot of stress in my life so I lacked focus and it really came across in our performance. Chili knew I wasn’t myself, and took advantage whenever she could. Not this time, this time, I was ready. My head was on straight and I was ready to have fun. That’s right, have fun. Obedience doesn’t have to be about ‘showing the dog whose boss’ or ‘taking control’. Once your head goes in that direction, I think you’re starting in the negative. Start from fun, and go from there. You’ll both get more out of it.

We had a lot going for us in this class. We were focused; it stayed light out till late so we could work outside; Connective Training is located by a school where there are obstacles, things to jump on, and a field; and best of all, we had a great trainer and a great group of people and dogs. The trainers’ style is key to a great class. Michele has a calm way of dealing with incidents and challenges immediately, without any negativity. She makes every experience a learning experience for everyone. She also realizes that we’re all different so she doesn’t try to apply the same set of rules to everyone.

Chili loves to perform. She realized ‘it was on’ and she gave it her all. I forget sometimes just how trained she is overall. I find when I’m working so closely with her, I don’t see her focus and sharpness anymore. I think she’s being good but I’m missing just how good she is. One of the evenings Michele used her as a demo dog to demonstrate what she was about to teach us. I was in awe watching them. I didn’t want the demo to stop. You could see how much fun Chili was having. She was tuned into everything Michele did and everything she asked. The sharpness of her body movements was beautiful. I was so proud of her.

On another night, we switched dogs. I took a moment to watch the other owner working with Chili. At first the owner was a little tentative. Having 80lbs of Boxweiler enthusiasm running towards you can be intimidating. However, once she saw that it was all positive, again, it was great to watch them. I really do love working with Chili and I really do love watching other people working with her. You get to see things from a whole other perspective and it’s so rewarding. I think it’s great that she can happily work with other people and not just me. She should be comfortable with others.

I hope I don’t ever forget the value of working with my dog. Life and routines sometimes get in the way and somehow there doesn’t seem to be time for anything else. Although going to training, any kind of training, is great, even 5 or 10 minutes just working on obedience in the driveway will do. One thing I can count on is Chili. She’ll always remind me that we’re not working together enough and pull out The Bratty Dog when life starts to distract me.