corgiranch

Posts by corgiranch

throw back Thursday…

Our boy Mic and his brother Mick almost 13 years ago…

mic - basket

Update on our old boy, Mic. He is doing pretty well. Still has his doggy Parkinson’s, still a little stiff – especially when he first wakes up – but mobility-wise is hanging in there. Acupuncture and Chinese herbs are keeping the spondylosis under control (he has never dragged his feet since starting those) but we have had other challenges.

Late this summer he developed this habit – or we thought it was a habit – of obsessively licking his feet. Then they got infected – red, swollen, ugly. We tried Chinese herbs, antibiotics, steroids, special shampoos, antimicrobial foot washes, Prozac, and so on and so on. He would get better for a bit but symptoms would return – red, swollen feet and licking. Plus his coat had changed (kind of greasy) and he had some black-head like things on his belly which we had chalked up to aging – and at least two different vets thought so too. Because his feet kept turning into hamburger, though, we asked for a dermatology referral. We saw Dr Miller the week of Thanksgiving and after scraping the hell out of Mic’s feet and belly she found demodicosis. Or red mange. Apparently the mite that causes this is a normal element of the biosphere of a dog and does not cause problems unless the immune system is compromised. So somewhere Mic is immunocompromised. We did a battery of blood work which was all normal. Undoubtedly there is a cause, but finding it is the challenge and 50% of the time, no cause can be found. That leaves management. Which is a very nasty tasting liquid medicine (Ivermectin) and TWICE WEEKLY baths with prescription shampoo. You can imagine how much fun that is with our prissy boy who HATES getting his feet wet. At any rate, we are a month into treatment and he is markedly better. Feet are not red or swollen. Licking is almost non existent. One little success. Actually it a HUGE success because our boy is obviously not having discomfort anymore. And for the first time in months, I can do his nails.

His dementia seems to be progressing. Not dramatically – just little things like seeming to forget where he is when he wakes up. Starting about 4 weeks ago, he started this thing where no later than 7-7:30, or within 15 minutes of realizing we are awake (some days we are up at 5 for Sue to go to surgery), he makes the most unusual, tragic vocalizations – kind of a cross between a hound baying, a wolf howling and a whimper – until we go and get him up. The other kids have gotten to the point where they just ignore him (and us) when we come to get him. He then comes and hangs with us in bed while we have our coffee and then we all go walking. We used to think he needed to pee, but when we would take him outside, he would just sit and look at us. So now we just bring him into bed and he is HAPPY!

He sleeps a lot. He LOVES his food and cookies. Which he gets without restraint – anything to keep his weight up. He offers his favorite tricks if he thinks you have food. And he still loves to cuddle in front of the fireplace. If he even blinks funny, we give him a pain pill. We will not let him be in pain. But for the most part, if the nasty girls are out of his hair, he is a happy boy.

The snow picture is bad – I am not good with a camera and snowshoes – but you can see he still wants to go frolic in the snow. And you gotta love those ears! Will we still have him in a year? Probably not – but until then, we are going to try to make every minute count. Don’t tell him I told you his nickname is LoveMuffin….

Corpedos Away!!

Corpedo Mk I, Mod I

Corpedo Mk II, Mod I

Corpedo Mk III, Mod 0

Corpedo Mk III, Mod I

Full right rudder…

Two running hot and straight

Scenes from the Hatu’s Angels Family Reunion Summer 2015

For you Jill!

State of the Mic-ster…

My husband and I have known for quite a while that we have a senior dog. But it is the rapidity with which it happened that still amazes us. I mean, I know I am a bit oblivious but it seemed like we were seeing no signs of aging at all and then one morning we had an old dog. A year and a half ago we began noticing Mic having some tremors – mostly in his back end. Soon enough however he was having tremors head to tail, or bunny butt as it were. Not continuously but intermittently and with varying degrees of severity. He never seemed to mind. I describe it as his Katherine Hepburn impression or Doggy Parkinson’s.

He started having a great deal of difficulty going up and down stairs. He also had developed foot drop in his left front paw. We would come home from even short walks and he would have bloody knuckles. We found a great product called ‘Pawz’ which look like balloons and are semi disposable booties for dogs (avail at Petco). This fixed the bloody knuckles but not the underlying problem.

We had him in to the vet and Dr Wachtel discovered on exam that he did seem to be having pain. Spine and hip x-rays later, he has spondylosis and arthritis, especially in his left shoulder. So we started on a round of treatments to see if that would help. We also had him tested for DM just in case and he did come back at risk but his symptoms don’t really follow the natural progression of DM. We did anti-inflammatories, tramadol , prednisone. All of which seemed to help with his energy level so clearly he was in pain; none made any difference in his tremors or foot drop.

After a couple of months of suboptimal response and concerns about chronic medication use, we saw our vet again and asked about acupuncture. She was enthusiastic and recommended a holistic vet who not only could do acupuncture, but was a practitioner of Chinese medicine and would, she hoped, have other meds for Mic’s ailments. Her top choice was Dr Dennis Thomas ( http://www.drdennisthomas.com ) – a doc others had recommended as well. I won’t go into detail about his practice because you can just go to his website or Facebook page (Heart to Heart – Holistic Health Care for Pets) and get much better info than I could possibly summarize. Long story short, 4 acupuncture treatments and no more foot drop! Now Mic and Moli go monthly for a treatment and are on Chinese herbs as well as a raw, home made diet. So from first hint of aging to acupuncture maintenance was about 9 months. Which is 3 month longer than we even thought he was going to live.

When Mic started deteriorating before our very eyes, we thought we would not have him for six months. But we have been given a great gift of renewed health and vigor for him. He is still a little old man, but he is doing well. He does have some doggy dementia and that has brought out some challenges that I will go into some other time but we are just grateful for all the time we have had with him and hopeful that we still have some quality time ahead of us. Thanks, Dennis.

Regarding the diet – I was reluctant for a whole bunch of reasons, not the least of which was Mic’s propensity to bloody diarrhea with diet changes or indiscretions. BUT it has been great and really is not that much more effort to prepare. Moli is on it too. We tried to convince Megwyn that it was a great improvement but she is having NONE of it. Maybe when she is out of adolescence and doesn’t want to eat doggy junk food any more. Ha!

Now off to feed the mutts and hit the sack. Hugs and slobbery kisses from the Rat Pack and the Brat pack. (Keep watching for explanation….)

Mic’s perspective on his fellow Celt’s idea of fun.

Every year for the last eight years we have hosted a little party at our humble abode in honor of St Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland. We could try to argue that we pick St Andrew because his feast day is the same as a birthday in this house but that would be a wee bit of untruth. We really picked Andrew as our feast’s patron saint because of his ties to Scotland, and therefore, our favorite libation – scotch. We used to try to have our celebration on the day of the great saint himself, but that conflicted with Thanksgiving so consistently that we moved our party to October. This year in October we were not sure our bathroom remodel was going to be done, so this year’s party was a last minute, late notice affair two Saturdays ago.

The St Andrew’s day party might seem to be about drinking scotch, but that is a wild misconception. First of all, one does not drink scotch, one sips scotch. There is ritual, there is attention. One of these days, I am going to record Mike giving his lecture on the history of and proper steps for drinking scotch. Sip, breathe, savor, swallow, exhale. Repeat. In short. While centering around the shared love of scotch, it is really about hospitality. It is a chance to share tastes of many different scotches, have some hearty food and tell lies. I mean stories. We usually have a new guest or two as well as those hardy souls who keep coming back with a new find for all to try.

This year, we put Mic in charge of recording the festivities for posterity. Please enjoy a Welshdog’s perspective on his fellow Celts’ idea of fun.

Our soundtrack is Dancin’ is Dancin’ from In Without Knocking by Mission Mountain Wood Band – one of my all time favorite albums. If you can listen to Dancin’ is Dancin’ and not want to grab the first person within arm’s length and waltz, there is something wrong with you. If you can listen to Sweet Maria and not want to close all the windows so you can sing along at the top of your lungs, you need medication.

Special thanks to Rob Quist for permission to use Dancin’ is Dancin’. Enjoy.

Oops! Forgot to post that clip!!

Sorry – mentioned a clip of Meg and Sam playing but did not attach the video. Well, here it is! Filmed on my iPhone so quality is kind of poor… oh well.

More baby pics

Finally! Some news and pics

Greetings Corgi fans. Sorry to be remiss in keeping all updated on the Cain Corgi chaos. I had big plans to blog about Megwyn, aka Baby Bug, weekly to document her growth and development. As it turns out, we have been so busy just playing, training and socializing her, I have not had a single minute to write about her. I really don’t have that minute now but that is why God made Pizza Hut, right?

We made the trek to Boise on September 20. Mic and Moli came with. We had always wanted Mic to get to see his brother, Mick, as a grown up but just never quite got around to doing it so figured this was our opportunity. And as Nan and Kim, Mick’s mom, are friends, all kinds of serendipitous things fell into place to make that happen. We arrived a little after 5 at our hotel – great place, Best Western Northwest Lodge – checked in and called Nan and Kim. Nan sent a whole cadre of Corgi lovers to meet us and we all convoyed out to Nan’s place, led by Myron, Melanie and Cowboy. Mic and Mick seemed to be old friends even though they hadn’t seen each other in 11 plus years. Cowboy the corgi was also a gem.

At Nan’s, chaos in the puppy pen reigned. When we arrived, all the pups were in the puppy play yard and boy were they interested in all the big dogs that suddenly showed up. I think all the pics are a bit blurred because I just could not persuade the babies to hold still. Mic was Joe Cool and kept to the edges of the action. Moli just wanted to play with the cats. She couldn’t care less about the pups or other dogs – she wanted to be with the cats. Soon everyone else took off for home and Nan, Mike and I headed out for dinner. We dropped Mic and Moli off at the hotel and Nan took us to her favorite Mexican place. She has great taste in Mexican food. Had a fabulous dinner, a cold cerveza, and great conversation.

Sunday morning, we got up, packed up and headed back to Nan’s to pick up our baby – and another baby coming to live in Coeur d’Alene. When we arrived, the 2 babies destined for a long car ride were in the puppy yard. Baby Bug and Lil Mollie. We left Nan’s about noon and headed for home. Boise to Baker City to Pendleton to Hermiston to the Tri Cities to Spokane. Got into Spokane about 8. We stopped at Mike’s parents unannounced and rang the doorbell, each of us holding a puppy. There was much squealing with delight at the sight of two tiny corgi pups. We then headed to our house where Haley and Jesse were coming to pick up their girl. We had a great but short visit with them and they headed for home. And we were alone with our new pack. Everyone was exhausted and so we just headed to bed.

I took Monday off to be with the new one on her first real day in her new home. We kept it pretty low key and did not allow too much mingling with the big dogs. We kept Meg Bug in the kitchen with the baby gates up so Mic and Moli could interact but safely. I did take her in to the office to show her off. She was a total rag doll – just lay in my arms like a …baby! We then went to Petco and got a few things like a shoulder travel bag that Mike calls her Kardashian bag. She goes lots of places in that bag. She will jump right in and bursts out like a stripper out of a cake.

Gradually she has had more and more free ranging in the house and with the big dogs. For the first few weeks we kept them pretty segregated by baby gates. She seems to really love the older two. She wants to play with Mic so badly. He is still holding back but will play a little tug of war with her. No wrestling yet. And he will put her in her place when she jumps on his head. Moli is still pretty growly but has been remarkably restrained. Now when the 3 of them are outside, Meg will take off running around the yard and the other 2 will run with her even if they won’t actually play with her. She still tries to engage Moli but Moli is having none of it. Even so, Moli is being so much better with her than we expected. Meg Bug does this thing where she puts her ears back, tucks her butt and runs as fast as she can – which is quite fast. One time, watching her, Mike burst out “she looks like a little shoat!” So now when she takes off running like a maniac, we call it ‘shoating’.

She is really good about going potty when we take her outside or going on her pads. She has only had 2 potty accidents. We are in 2 puppy classes. She is really good at sit, down and stand. She is getting better on leash. She has a boyfriend in the Tuesday class – Sam, the Great Dane. He is 2 weeks younger than her and almost four times her weight. The clip of them playing was just a fraction of the action and he was so delicate with her – it was lovely to watch. We have been taking her as many places as we can to get her socialized and she is very popular. So enough verbiage. Enjoy the pics. These first ones are in Boise at our motel and at Nan’s.