Bad Mama...

I find that I'm not very good at updating Leo's blog. Part of that right now is that we aren't in any classes. I haven't been able to find a single trainer whose schedule for the classes we need works for us. I'm starting to get worried as summer is nearly upon us and Zach and Kane won't be home as much to take him to class. Debating on whether I should enroll him and take him anyway...except I want him to work with the kids. It's a real catch-22 for sure and especially since Leo seems to be confused about "sit" versus "down." I'm not sure why but he wants to down more often than anything and getting him to sit is a real challenge. He instantly goes into a down. At first we struggled to get him to sit from a down and now the only time he seems to really just go into a sit without a down and stay that way is at feeding time and, in particular, when Big Sis is being told to sit and he copies her. Something which is really cute, by the way, if not annoying that he follows her instead of when we tell him to.

That said, that is where things are at right now. His healing and leash walking still needs work. He resists when I want him to walk close and tends to just want to pull out about 5 feet away, nearly at the end of his leash, but to the side. He also has a bad habit of going back and forth around you instead of staying put on one side and I discovered his concern over walking across grates and metal in the sidewalk.

Here are some pictures I've taken of the cute boy over the last couple of weeks. One thing is for sure - Leo is a complete joy and a wonderful addition to our family. It's like he's always been here. In fact, I was told in no uncertain terms that he now needs to come to work on Wednesday, too, or his PPL (paid personal leave) will be docked.

Hanging out with Big Sis....

Not concerned about her size i close confines. 

At work...sleeping on Simba whom he is often mistaken for when lying in the doorway to my office.

Leo with Godzilla...Godzilla, believe it or not, provides a great training opportunity for "leave it" because Leo would really like to play rough. 

Pre-Agility

This is some video I took last week while starting to work with Leo on pre-agility moves. I figured it was a good way to gain focus, burn some energy, and keep him relaxed by doing things at home. Very simple, nothing fancy, and as you can see, he's highly cooperative. This is just a short snippet from quite a bit of practice and footage we got.

Coughing, hacking wierdness

Leo has had an interesting week. It started earlier in the week with a strange hacking sound he was making. It wasn't a reverse sneeze. It wasn't a cough, per se. It was just a strange noise like something was stuck in his throat. He would stand with his hand hanging just so slightly and hack and snarfle and make these strange guttural noises and then be done with it. A little while he might do it again. The first night it happened, I was obviously concerned. It was just about bedtime and I was debating on taking him to the emergency room. I checked his color and it was fine. He kept breathing and, while he was hacking like something was wrong, he acted fine otherwise. He was playful, ornery, chewing on stuff, drinking, and happy. So, I ended up going to bed and just checked on him a couple times during the night (He sleeps on the bed so easy enough to do.). He was fine but this strange behavior continued. Finally yesterday I decided he should see the vet. I was becoming concerned about collapsing trachea, although nothing had happened to traumatize him and he's never worn a collar as long as I've known him.

Off to the vet we went around mid-morning. Fortunately they are a walk-in clinic and were able to get us in right away. The doctor examined Leo and, amidst comments and exclamations about how sweet, well-behaved and a-typical he is for a Pomeranian, she explained a bit more about collapsing trachea. It wasn't quite what I thought so it was good to learn more. She tried pressing on his trachea a bit and wasn't able to get a response and send him into a 'fit.' She said it was possible it was collapsing trachea but they really struggle to try to get dogs to exhibit the behavior at the clinic. Plus, she said even when they x-ray, unless the trachea is actively collapsing, they cannot definitely determine that's it. She said they would do the x-ray if I wanted though, but she said it might be a mild case of kennel cough. Based upon the discussion we were having and knowing Leo has not had a kennel cough vaccine yet, I decided it was worth trying the antibiotics and anti-inflammatory to see if we saw a change.

So far so good. Although when we walked out of the clinic Leo immediately went into a fit and then just a short while down the road when we got out at the outlet mall to walk a bit he had the same thing happen again, he went through all of today without a single fit. He's only three doses into the antibiotic but I have a feeling that was what he had going on. I hope Vegas stays well, and it looks like Leo is on his way to kicking this little bug that attacked him.