Puppy Teeth

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that Reyna had a puncture wound on her side, near the base of her rib cage. It didn’t seem to be bothering her much, I didn’t think a lot of it. I figured that Duncan had done it during one of their play fights, and that it would heal up on its own. As the days passed, I noticed it didn’t seem to be healing, but it still wasn’t bothering Reyna very much. When I got home from work yesterday, though, I saw that she had ripped out all the fur around that area – about the size of a quarter – and that the area was red and ugly-looking. Even more significant was the fact that she did not like me messing with it. So, I called the vet and scheduled an appointment for this morning. The vet wasn’t too concerned at first, until he realized the wound had been there for more than two weeks.

My brother, John, had dinner with me last night, and shortly before he left, he noticed Reyna was playing with something. His first thought was that it looked like a dog’s toenail, but when he showed it to me, I thought it looked like a tooth. I checked both dogs, but didn’t see any holes that suggested a tooth was missing. I put it in my bag to take to the vet’s, to see what he thought.

This morning, when we got to the vet’s office, he said the thing was definitely a tooth, and looked like a puppy canine that had been pulled out by the roots. He checked Reyna’s mouth, and then looked at her wound. He then went outside and checked Duncan’s mouth. There’s a small red spot behind the new adult canine that shows where the puppy tooth used to be. The vet said that, the way the tooth looked, there would be a distinct hole where it had been pulled out, but Duncan’s mouth was fine. He also said a hole like that would take a couple of weeks to fully heal.

So, Duncan gave Reyna a puncture wound when they were playing a few weeks ago, and an upper puppy canine tooth was ripped out near the roots during the incident. The tooth stayed in Reyna’s side until last night. The vet figures it had started working its way out, and that’s why she went nuts with the area yesterday. The tooth either popped out, or she managed to finally work it out on her own. This is not something that I would ever have thought could happen. Of course, I also didn’t think my dog would manage to nearly slice her tail off on some random thing out in the yard, either.

Duncan

He started the cutest thing night before last. He’s discovered that if he puts his front feet on the ottoman, he can walk around the living room on his back legs. He looks so pleased with himself when he finishes a lap around the room. I have *got* to get a picture of him doing that….

Drill Team

Its official – Reyna and I will not be on the canine drill team next year. After talking for over an hour, Sylvie finally came out and admitted that she didn’t want Reyna on the team. She had several reasons, of course…..
1 – Reyna didn’t seem to be having fun. Well, of course, she isn’t having fun. Any well-trained dog is going to get bored when she has to hold a sit/stay for 20 minutes because the other dogs keep breaking.
2 – I didn’t seem to be having fun. Of course not. My dog and I were being picked on every practice. And the group practiced every week starting in January, and we did a whopping 3 demos all year.
3 – She’s concerned about the liability if Reyna snaps and attacks another dog. Reyna’s never physically gone after another dog without provocation, so maybe we should *all* consider exercising more control over our animals.
4 – She’s sure that I would be stressed because I would be worrying about her nerves if she felt the need to say something to me about Reyna. Her nerves are soooo far down my list of concerns…

We also discussed the fact that she thinks I make excuses for Reyna’s behavior, while I look at it as more pointing out the actual circumstances of the incident. For example, if Reyna barks at Rosie, I’m making excuses for Reyna when I say that Rosie growled at Reyna first. I hate to hurt her feelings, but I’m not going to correct Reyna for barking at a dog that growls at her.

She kept telling me that she can’t control the team members, and that the team should be fun. I agree the team should be fun, but I don’t agree with the control issue. She’s the team leader. If people aren’t doing what she wants them to, she needs to say something immediately. Not let it go for 4 months. And she kept talking about how she loses money at every practice and demo….if that’s the case, why is she doing it?

Several other issues were brought up, and I’m not sure about Sylvie, but I wasn’t exactly happy with how things ended. I felt (and still feel) that an apology is due us, but she didn’t seem to think she should apologize for anything. She also said she wants me on the team, so if I want to bring Duncan, we’d be welcome. That won’t happen. We did agree that Reyna and I would come out to the 4 demos she’s planning this year, and do a Search and Rescue demo for them. Duncan will finish his class with her (we only have two sessions left), and Reyna and I will participate in next year’s SAR class (Donny runs it, not Sylvie), and after that, we really won’t have much contact with her, aside from the SAR demos. I see no reason to stress myself and my dog out because of her concerns.

Christmas pictures

Duncan and Reyna had their pictures taken as part of the SPCA’s “Santa Paws” event. They were SOOO good. The pictures are just insanely, freakishly cute. And (almost) more importantly, both dogs were definitely wearing their public manners that day. They were a huge hit with everyone that came into the room. Duncan was kissing everyone he could get his mouth on, and Reyna was sitting oh-so-prettily, in her "yes, I am a gorgeous Shepherd, thank you ever so much for noticing” pose. She even showed off a couple of tricks for her admiring audience. And after the pictures and the kissing, while Mommy was talking with the nice people, Duncan curled up, fell asleep, and immediately started snoring. This, of course, resulted in a chorus of “Awwwww!”

Why?

Why do people pull out in front of traffic and not go?

Why do people feel the need to come to a complete stop before making a right turn?

Why do people drive slower than the speed limit, with no flashing emergency blinkers?