December 31, 2007

Year End Odds'n Ends

First up, a little video of putting the chickens back in their coop...sorry for the shaky-cam!

And then let's see some of Ben goofing around at the holiday dinner table:

Finally, a couple of Ben and Maddie in front of their Christmas tree, holding objects they chose on impulse...Ben, a gift he received, and Maddie a toy chicken that they gave to Laika. They're funny kids and I love having the chance to be around them. I can only imagine what goofy things Lilly and Erica might do!

Happy New Year!

Posted by terrie at 05:42 PM

August 27, 2007

Quite the weekend

I've been reading about chickens and half-way planning to get two or three laying hens for the yard...something I've always wanted to do, but always made up reasons for why I couldn't. On Saturday, I went to Western Farm in Santa Rosa to pick up some other pet supplies, and also see what they had in the way of backyard chicken equipment.

I found a whole little room full of racks of chicks and posters of what the various breeds would look like when they were full grown. More importantly, I found a man working in the room who was happy to tell me all about the different breeds and what I would need to take care of them. He also told me that the chick season was ending and they wouldn't have them much longer, which I conveniently decided was reason enough to get them now.

He agreed that the Barred Plymouth Rocks were good laying hens, but he recommended the Light Brahmas as extremely good "pet" chickens that would also produce eggs nicely. Since mortality is so high among baby chicks, he suggested getting five now...if all five live, he'll buy the extras back from me and pay a premium price for them (that includes any that turn out to be roosters...they're all supposed to be hens, and they're usually about 90% sure of that).

So we've got two Plymouth Rock and three Light Brahmas. Already I've decided that the Plymouth Rocks are smarter (they spend less time pecking the sides and floors of the box to see if that tastes good) and the Light Brahmas are sturdier. All of them survived lots of handling over the weekend and we hope they're on their way (three of them, anyhow) to a long happy life in our yard!

We also had lots of fun with Ben and Maddie over the weekend, including setting off Uncle Steve's rocket ship!

Posted by terrie at 10:43 AM

April 10, 2007

Year of the Dog

Easter Sunday was the anniversary of our adoption of Laika. It's hard to believe we've had her for a year now, and hard to believe we ever didn't have her. I still don't know how we got so lucky to get such a great dog (and one that stars in her own book, no less!

I got an email from PBS a couple weeks ago. They'd seen my Critter Geek site and invite me to write something for their Remotely Connected feature, where bloggers write something about a PBS show they've seen. It's totally unpaid, but it could be fun (they're send me a DVD of a program in advance, "Dogs That Changed the World"). They needed a photo, so I asked Steve if he would help me get one of me and Laika together. He agreed and we had a little photo shoot. Click on the photo below to see more!

Posted by terrie at 06:10 AM

August 21, 2006

Laika's Birthday

Yes, the rumors are true. We had a birthday party for our dog. It was a lot of fun. Click for more photos!

Also see this post from a friend!

Posted by terrie at 09:13 PM

June 27, 2006

The Real Dog Whisperer

Michael Ossenbeck, who teaches the dog training classes we take with Laika, is featured in this article from Fetch. We're planning to take the intermediate class that starts up in July. Laika loves it and it's been great for us, too.

Posted by terrie at 04:57 PM

May 13, 2006

Mighty, not Mite-y, Dog

Romping in the grass, a favorite pasttime (all photos here by Uncle Steve, with more here!

Today was Laika's one-month checkup to see how she's fairing against the Demodex mite. Demodex is a hair follicle mite that appears on most dogs, but usually they fend it off. Laika's immune system was compromised and she was unable to fight the mite, so she began losing patches of hair.

We were warned early on that it would probably be a long hard battle. What started out a month ago as two nearly invisible spots in her pretty coat rapidly progressed to lots of little bald patches on her neck and forequarters. Our vet was so serious-sounding about this that I've really been prepared for the worst.

Our vet chose a treatment that's fairly new; instead of the mildly toxic dips that used to be the prevalent treatment, Laika gets a dose of large-animal wormer every other day and a special bath every week. We also do what we can to be generally good dog owners and keep her stress level down so her immune system can bounce back. The medicine makes her susceptible to sun burn, so we have to protect her from that and sometimes she has to wear a child's t-shirt for extra coverage.

First trip to the beach at Point Reyes

When the vet came back from checking her skin scraping today, she looked very serious. "So tell me now specifically, have you seen new patches of hair loss this week?" I pointed out a spot that I knew was very recent, and she took another skin scraping from that. When she returned, she confirmed what she had started to think the first time. I was surprised and delighted.

Laika is completely free of Demodex mites. They couldn't find any, dead or alive, in her skin scrapings. It's possible that we've already beaten a problem that they expected to take months to overcome. If that's true, she'll probably stop losing hair now and start growing it back.

We have another appointment in two weeks to check. And we'll keep a guarded optimism until then.

Heading home, tired and plagued by a tiny mite, but happy (we like to think!)

Kudos to our vets for being up-to-date on state-of-the-art treatments!

Today was also the first day of obedience training. I'm pretty convinced that it's us that getting the training, because Laika catches on really fast if we do the right thing. Our instructor, Mike Ossenbeck, seems really great with the dogs and he's pretty good with us, too. Laika is doing really well with "sit" and "come". "Let's go", our version of "heel", is a little more difficult for us, but we're committed to plenty of practice. When we look at that wrinkled-forehead smile, we know we have to do the right thing by her!

Posted by terrie at 09:19 PM

April 13, 2006

More Laika

Laika is doing really well. At least three times a day I think, "how could we get so lucky to get such a great dog?"

Her biggest problem seems to be separation anxiety (or is that mine?). Sometimes she can come to work with me, but she's still learning, so sometime it's a better option for her to stay at home.

She has a boyfriend at work named Huck (his full name is Huckleberry Finn), a big chocolate lab who's about a month older. Yesterday they lay on the floor together kissing disgustingly. Today at the vet I learned that she might have a mite infestation which may or may not be contagious. It will be embarrassing if she has to notify Huck (not to mention her other friend, Gage) about it, but meanwhile she stays home. (Otherwise her vet checkup went great; officially she is a "black lab mix" and also officially "really cute!") (Later: no embarrassing notifications; Laika has Demodex mites and we just need to get her immune system up to the task of fighting them off.)

I'm getting the impression that someone tried training her before, but with a much too heavy hand. She picks up things very quickly but seems to expect punishment. With lots of encouragement, she blossoms and has the happiest, prettiest trot I've ever seen. That said, she can have a stubborn streak. We're both learning.

I've been reading two books that have been really helpful. One is an actual dog book, Good Owners, Great Dogs, by Brian Kilcommons, a protege of Barbara Woodhouse. I never realized how much dog training/care stuff is actually non-intuitive, and this book explains a lot. The other one, a book I happened to just pick up at random in the search for a good read, is the amazing Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior, by Temple Grandin. From a review in Scientific American, "An autistic woman who as a child was recommended for institutionalization, Grandin has managed not only to enter society’s mainstream but ultimately to become prominent in animal research. An associate professor at Colorado State University, she designs facilities used worldwide for humane handling of livestock." Because of this book, I'm able to understand things why Laika balks on the sidewalk at work just before we get under the sheltered area of the walkway...the contrast between light and dark makes her wary.

Posted by terrie at 09:36 PM

April 08, 2006

Meet Laika

Here's our new family member, Laika! This photo is from the shelter where we got her today:

We went to look at another dog I had seen online; we learned that he had just been adopted out and was much larger and active than I had imagined. We looked at another dog who on the surface looked a lot like a dog one of my co-workers at work has, but he was way too much dog for us; a very large chocolate lab mix who was quite rowdy and not really interested in us at all.

We let the shelter folks know that we wanted something larger than a lap dog, that could walk with me to work, but not huge, and that we were most interested in a female. They figured out that the dog they called "Roxy" might fit the bill, so we put the big rowdy lab back and got her. She was so frightened by all of the other dogs barking that they had to carry her to the meeting room.

There, she hung out on the couch and trembled a little.

I didn't think it would go well. She was so scared! But she warmed up to us quickly, and she was happy to stay snug up against Steve. She has a really soft short coat; her head feels like velvet!

We talked to the staff, and Mariah, a 14-year old volunteer who maintains her own web site for the shelter and works there with all of the dogs. We learned that Laika was thought to be a good dog with cats and probably with visiting nieces and nephews also; she is very submissive, almost to a fault, and that worried me. We couldn't even coax her off the couch for a treat, and had to lift her up. But she banged her tail at us and looked at us intently with her funny furrowed brow. She's estimated to be six or seven months old (her paperwork says seven).

Of course she went home with us. She rode on my lap from Ukiah to Rohnert Park, where we stopped for pet supplies, and then rode on Steve's lap the rest of the way home. She started perking up along the way.

The shelter called her a Sharpei/Lab mix, but something else is in there, too. They thought maybe some terrier. All day I've kept thinking that I've seen a furrowed brow like that somewhere else, and I finally realized that it's a bit Basenji-like. She is certainly very quiet so far, but she did give a couple of woofs to the neighbor dog a few minutes ago outside.

I hadn't quite finished the fence because of the rain yesterday, so I worked on that to finish it up this afternoon. I took Laika with me and attached her leash to a pole near where I was working, and let her play with her chew toy. I was happy that the bangning of fence posts didn't freak her out...she just took it in stride and watched and hung out. After maybe 15 mintues of this I looked down and noticed a piece of purple on the ground next to her... she had neatly chewed thru her leash and had been lying there next to it, content to stay in the yard while I worked! However, she was taken right back inside, and had potty breaks on somewhat shorter leash until the fence was finished.

She's done great today. She really perked up and even ran and played a little, though she's still very submissive acting. She spent a quiet ten minutes in her crate without any fuss, has managed to make me understand when she needs to go outside three times so far, and has shown a respectful interest in the cats (Scout is curious about her but growled just to be sure, Buddy swears he'll never forgive us, but we hope he will).

Laika is named after the first earth creature to go into orbit. You can read about that Laika here. We plan for our Laika to have much more pleasant travels, and to always come home.

It was a big, big day!

Posted by terrie at 08:44 PM