Special Needs Poodle

Jackson and Lucy are 11 and 13 years old now. They both used to be much more energetic and robust (me, too!), but now they spend most of the day sleeping, and our walks are slow and short.

Lucy has always been a bit of a willful princess, and picky about her food, but (knock on wood) she's always been reasonably healthy.

Jackson, however, has become our special-needs dog. A few years ago we discovered he has sebaceous adenitis, an autoimmune disorder that destroys the oil glands in the hair follicles and makes the hair fall out. Luckily I knew another poodle with the same problem and recognized the symptoms early on.

Conventional treatment involves regular oiling with mineral oil, baby oil or propylene glycol. Yuck. A soap-making friend suggested I try coconut oil instead, and gave me some to try. It worked! Jackson's hair grew back in the spots where it had fallen out, and his skin looked healthier.

So now he gets a regular coconut-oil massage every couple of months, or more often if he's having a flare-up.

I have a 50-pound bucket of oil from a soap-making supply company; this kind of oil is solid up to 76 degrees, so it's easy to handle. It takes about 2 pounds of oil and two hours to get Jackson all covered and allow for soak-in time. Dogs have a lot of surface area. Then I wash the excess oil off again with Dawn. (It takes grease out of your way!)

More disturbingly, and for unknown reasons, Jackson has also gone blind. His vision was always a bit poor (he could rarely catch a ball, for example), but one day we realized he was not seeing anything at all. He got tested for a bunch of possible causes (SARDS, Cushing's disease), but nothing quite matched. We're guessing it's something neurological.

But we're not willing to have an MRI done to see if he has a brain tumor. I mean, what do you do with that knowledge, then? His only real symptom is the blindness, and his quality of life is still good.

He knows his way around the house and yard (except when it snows; that gets him a bit disoriented). And he still likes to go for walks (with a leash that has "BLIND DOG" embroidered on it). He loves to cuddle, he loves to meet people. He'll lean on someone he just met, if they pet him; he'll essentially fall asleep standing up. It's very endearing.

So we'll just keep loving on him, and steering him away from obstacles. He's so good-natured, he just takes it all in stride.

Hot dog!

Jackson is a good sport when it comes to modeling knitwear.

I knit this last weekend with one skein of Tahki Yarns' Boulder, a super-chunky wool and nylon mix. I knit it flat with a provisional cast-on, then grafted the ends together.

I was nominally following a pattern that would result in a woven-cable appearance, but I wasn't paying close attention and ended up with waves instead. That's OK. If you want the pattern, it's quite easy. Knits up in a couple of hours on size 19 needles. (You can use even larger ones, but that was the largest I had.)

I might try making another, but I'll do it as a buttoned cowl instead so it will be more snug. I like a cozy neck when it's chilly outside.

Moo

It's Stock Show time again, which means we've survived the holidays and can think about eating again. The Stock Show is mostly about meat, after all. We went to the rodeo on Friday, then wandered around the barns looking at cattle and sheep. That's a Hereford bull above, and a Jacob ram below. They're an heirloom breed (even biblical – hence the name) and can have up to six horns.
The sheep is standing on a grooming table with his head secured on a chin rest. Dog groomers use something similar, and I was tempted to tell the sheep groomers that I'd be back with poodles in tow.
I bathed both dogs and shaved Jackson's face a couple of weeks ago. He's cute with a fuzzy face, but it gets grungy-looking fast. He's much easier to clip than Sophie was and doesn't struggle or stick his tongue out.

Lucy gets a pass on the face-shaving because the dirt doesn't show on her. And she's super-cute with a curly snoot.

Here they are at the dog park yesterday. It was 65 degrees and sunny. The dogs got a good romp in.
When we got home, the Sergeant worked on garage projects and I filled the garden cart twice with detritus from the front garden. In another month the crocuses will be up!

Vittles Vault keeps critters at bay

I love well-designed products that fill a need perfectly and make life a little easier. The gate we had made for the bottom of the stairs, the cling wrap with a sliding cutter, the tube wringer for the toothpaste. Small things, but they make me happy.

The Vittles Vaults are another such product. They might seem little pricey at $37, but they are super-sturdy, stack tidily and are easy to clean. These large ones hold up to 40 pounds of dog food apiece. They live in the broom closet and are impervious to mice and to marauding poodles ... as long as the lid is on.

(Photos from my crummy cellphone.)

Poodles on parade

A few years ago, Sophie and I were out walking when a woman stopped her car and told me about her standard poodle group on meetup.com. The group gets together a few times a year for poodle parties and walks, the most recent of which was this last Sunday at Washington Park.
The weather was perfect: sunny and mid-60s. Close to 40 people showed up, with about 25 poodles. It was quite a sight!
We walked briskly around the park; it's about a two-mile loop. Along the way we chatted with other owners about their poodles, training and grooming, while the dogs kept their eyes peeled for squirrels.

Afterward, a bunch of pups were rewarded with a little off-leash romping in a secluded field, including some enthusiastic ball-fetching.
Go, poodles!

Puppy love

We love it when Jackson the Big White Poodle finds friends who like to play as roughly as he does. He's muscular and rambunctious, and he tends to intimidate small or meek dogs.
Argus the labradoodle is about a year and a half old. He is not intimidated by Jackson and has boundless energy. He plays like a poodle, with lots of bowing and spinning and body-slamming.

He and Jackson worked off a little energy in the back yard yesterday before we took them to the dog park. It helps to get the howdys out of the way before they're confined together in the back of the Subaru.
At the park, they all ran around like crazy. Even Lucy did a little romping, though she is usually less interested in such shenanigans. She used to beat up on Jackson when he was a puppy, but now that he outweighs her by 20 pounds, she thinks it's not fair that he pushes her around.
While we were there, we checked out the beaver tree, whose downed limbs have been removed. A bit of wire fencing protects what's left.
We do like having some shade by the water, so I'm glad the powers that be opted to protect the remaining trunk.

After a couple hours of rigorous play, the dogs piled back into the car wet, dirty, tired and happy. We hope Argus can come play again soon!

Something to chew on

When you've spent as much time at the dog park as I have, you notice when things have changed. Just like the bee tree that fell, another broken limb caught my eye yesterday.
This tree is next to a popular "swimming beach" close to one of the parking lots, so it sees a lot of traffic. At first I thought some dumb-ass of a dog owner had broken the limb trying to get sticks to throw. (I've seen that happen.)

But then we took a closer look:
Hey, someone tried to cut it down! Wait, no, someone tried to chew it down!

Yes, there's an industrious beaver living at the dog park. Which is a section of a quite large state park, so I shouldn't be that surprised. But I have never seen beaver sign in the park before. I didn't know we had them there.

I had to read up, of course, to find out that beavers do most of their gnawing at night, and they will fell trees for food, not just for building. They eat the tender underbark.
That must be the case here, since there's no running water nearby to dam, unless you count the South Platte River. Which would would make it a very delusional beaver indeed. But I guess it probably lives in the pond and got hungry for bark. Next time I'm there I'll go look for its lodge.

(P.S. I found an article about a very interesting woman who crusades to save beavers in Colorado. To read it, click here.)

Savor the sunbeams

Autumn is upon us. As the sun sinks lower and the days grow cooler, take the time to appreciate those precious rays.

Snoozy poodles

The Sergeant is still working on refining his time-lapse set-up.



Sleepy poodles are a willing subject.

(Warning: The music's a little loud, so you might want to turn your speakers down a notch.)

Then the sun came out.

It figures.

As soon as we got to the dog park, it started to rain.

Getting the hang of it

After an inauspicious beginning at the dog park today (bitten on the ear by a mean dog), Jackson did some actual swimming – for the very first time. It wasn't graceful, but he was determined to Get. That. Ball.

We were very excited for him, and he seemed quite pleased with himself. Lucy celebrated by going in up to her ankles.

Fuzzy wuzzy

Furry Scurry!

THANK DOG. The staircase gymnastics are OVER.

Custom oak pet gate on spring-loaded hinges installed today.

Cone zone

Long-suffering Lucy is on the DL again.

This is the life

Whoops. Schmutz on the lens!

LOLdog needs a caption.

Cold war

We really had hoped that the dogs and the cats could reach some sort of detente. So many people told us, "Oh, they'll work things out!" But at least one friend reassured us from bitter (and deadly) experience that they don't always.

So here's how the animals spend much of the day. The dogs watch cat TV and the cats watch dog TV.
I'm now talking to woodworkers to get a permanent, attractive gate built at the bottom of the stairs so we don't have to step over something every frigging time we go up or down.

On the bright side, it confines the cat hair to the upstairs, so people with allergies can still come visit.

Wanna go for a ride in the car?

Sophie never thought anything good could come of a ride in the car. But Jackson and Lucy are enthusiastic commuters. We make them wait on the sidewalk until the coast is clear.
When I say, "OK!" they rush to hop in.
I am very glad for my Subaru Outback, with enough room to hold two poodles comfortably, plus passengers and gear as needed.
Most often when the dogs get in the car, they're going to go for a walk around Washington Park, or even better, to the off-leash park. Jackson gets very excited and lets us know it.

We are bad to encourage him but that's how it is.

The dog park

Sent this from my cellphone. The landscape looks all devastated because it was clearcut by the Army Corps of Engineers. That section of river valley is just below Chatfield Dam. If the dam breaks, the water is supposed to spread out and not carry a bunch of trees and such downstream.

When it was all trees and bushes, it was nice habitat for kingfishers and other river birds, and pleasant to walk through. It'll grow back eventually. They only clear it every 10 years or so.