Happy Bones

The big excitement this week?  The bones my Dad brought back from the 2 deer he shot.  He was up north visiting my uncle.  He also brought back some antlers, but I think they may be a little too hard for my pups to chew on.  He cut up the bones and antlers into smaller pieces for me, but I think if he could split the antlers the dogs might like them better.  

I keep the bones in the freezer and the dogs get to chew on them when they are in their crates.  I have started making them go into their crates when I eat dinner or have people come over.  Tibby is such a beggar with other people.  With me she knows it doesn't work, BUT Dhali is a super big beggar to me, so into the crates with raw, meaty bones.  I haven't heard too many complaints.  Except Dhali who, at first, whines and paces around his crate with the bone in his mouth.  Then he settles down and chews it.

Right now Dhali is sleeping on the back of the couch, with his head on my shoulder, breathing onto my neck. Sweet puppy!

I feed them both dinner in their crates too.  Dhali tends to steal Tibby's food.  He has a funny habit where he with 'bury' his food.  If there are toys or bedding in the crate he will pile them on top of his bowl, until the bowl is covered.  It's very cute and funny to watch.  I'm not sure if he is saving it for later or telling me that he is done eating?  But it's cute.

Tibby stayed in her crate (her's is actually the one on the right) for FOUR hours while I was AT WORK.  WOW!  That's the longest she has ever stayed in a crate.  It was on Wed.  I came home from work for lunch and after going potty she went into her crate, so I gave her a frozen bone to chew on.  When it was time for me to go back to work, she wouldn't get out of the crate or trade me for the bone, so I had to leave her in the crate.  I couldn't let her walk around the house with a big raw bone.  She likes to sleep in my bed - eww.

When I came home I parked in the driveway and listened to see if I could hear any barking.  Nope.  All was quiet.  She was a little stressed when she got out of the crate, but not too bad.  I wish I could watch a video of it to see what she did. 

Dhali lost another tooth - woohoo!  Now it will only cost me $50 to get the other 2 removed!  We were playing and he was tugging on a toy, running through the tunnel, etc.  I noticed some blood smeared on the tunnel's tag and some on his foot.  Checked his mouth - yup, tooth on the bottom was gone.  The next day I found the tooth - white carpet, white tooth - really hard to find it!  It was jagged, like it had snapped off, but the hole in his mouth where it used to be looks ok, so I guess it came out the right way.

This above picture is what happens when you say you don't want to eat a frozen chicken wing, but your little brother loves chomping on frozen chicken wings.  You get to watch him eat his chicken wing.

This week I have been playing phone tag with the Veterinary Behavioral Science dept. at the U of M.  Tibby got a referral and  I wanted to make an appt.  The first message they left me said they were booked until the end of Feb.  When I finally got someone to call me back again, because they were either busy or it wasn't their business hours (I even got up early and called them once at 7am, because a receptionist told me that was a good time to find them) they had booked all of Feb. and the first appt. was March 13th.  Lucky 13?  

So I filled out and emailed back all the paper work.  I had to pick Tibby's 3 issues.  Barking/screaming/lunging at people and dogs is #1.  Tibby now has the reputation as the 'mean dog' in the neighborhood.  Fear of new things and men was #2 and restlessness at night was #3.

 The hardest part to write was the what are your goals for this visit: What questions would you liked answered - How can I make Tibby happy?

Possibly because we finally got our appt. time Tibby decided that she wanted to play today and do agility.  See below for proof (also cute Dhali)