Do You See What I See? Trusting Your Intuition with Dogs

---

by admin • January 20th • 4 comments

I am later than I intended to be with getting this blog up. I have written it three times so far and have such mixed feelings with what I am writing. The reason for this is Kera. She has been in kidney failure since sometime during Merlin’s cancer treatment so it’s been at least four months. But it was not diagnosed right away so her treatment (fluids, a different diet, etc.) has only been going on since right after he passed away. She had been stable and actually had even showed some signs of rallying. Her stamina had increased as had her attention and appetite. Not any more, at least for the last week or so.

My plan was to urge you to pay attention to your intuition. It had helped me both behaviorally and medically, with both my dogs and client’s dogs. But especially with my own dogs, I have paid attention to my “gut” and have been persistent with what I felt, to the benefit of my dog’s health. Merlin lived longer than I was told he did, Kera is on Anipryl and getting fluids, etc, and was much more stable than she started out to be. But now my instincts are telling me things I don’t want to hear. But that can wait for a moment.

For now, back to the original subject at hand: intuition. It can be a controversial subject. It shouldn’t be. Everyone has it but some of us are more tuned into it than others. But there is no mystery to surrounding what it actually is. It’s observation at it’s finest. Your brain tells you that you are seeing something that you should pay attention to. It’s figuring out the something that you saw that can be the hard part.

The something can be very minor but it may trigger a thought in your brain that nags at you. It can be easy to dismiss it because you often have no immediate connection between the nagging thought and what you saw. Don’t dismiss it. Examine it more closely. Let it float to your consciousness. Ask yourself what connection this nagging thought may have with what you know about your dog or the situation you are thinking about. Sometimes it’s easy to connect the dots. Sometimes you have to dig deeper.

Trusting and listening to your “gut” can save you a lot of trouble sometimes. What’s important is to learn to connect what you think, to what you see. Body language is super important when it comes to dogs. Learn about it. Watch your own dogs and if you are not sure what you are seeing, then take notes on what you see and what you think about what you see. Don’t think about the latter too much. Just write what you think. Compare the two. Connect more dots.

Learning to connect what you see to what you think is vital to life with multiple dogs or any dog for that matter. Dogs are “English as a second language” students. The better that we are at listening to what they say, the closer the connection will be. Communicating effectively with them is important and helps to solidly build trust is built. Dogs love being understood. So do humans, for that matter!

Let intuition help with preventing and managing problematic behavior as well as earlier detection of some medical concern. If you feel “off” about anything, listen to what your intuition is telling you. I am a big fan of better safe than sorry. My intuition has served me well and I am always sorry when I chose to ignore it.

Now back to Kera. My intuition is telling me that she may not be with me much longer. Things have been declining for the last week or so, despite getting her treated for a UTI that I rightly detected via observation/intuition. Improvement has been very minor. I badly want to be wrong. I am taking it day by day.

This is harder to know what to do about than with Merlin. Cancer, especially the kind that Merlin had, is merciless. The effects of kidney failure appear to change daily. I don’t want her to hurt but I don’t want to say goodbye for now before I need to. So I spend each day hoping that my intuition will be strong enough that I will not ignore it because I am biased. I love her very much and I don’t wish to lose her or have two such large losses in such a small period of time. So for now, day by day it is. Wish me clarity.

In the meantime, please share with me how you use intuition with your own crew. I need to hear it.

New Year’s Resolutions: Exercise is Good for Body and Soul

---

by admin • January 8th • has one comment already!

Exercise: it’s addictive and a serotonin increaser. So why is it one of the first things that we cut back on when stress rears its ugly head? Go figure. This is exactly when we should make sure that we stay on the exercise track. Maintaining sanity has its benefits, both for people and dogs.

When it became clear that my last foster dog was also going to be my longest in residence foster dog (a year and a half total!), I gradually stopped my strength training routine. Oh, I said it was from lack of time, but it was really from the additional unresolved stress of having a dog in a house with four other dogs, that would be much happier as an only dog.

Then Merlin was diagnosed with cancer and the roller coaster ride of treatments began. And while I definitely continued with daily outdoor exercise for all of my dogs and myself during this hectic time frame, (including my foster dog, now in the best home ever I am happy to add!), Merlin had chemo complications periodically so we walked shorter distances and more slowly than in the past. Add to the afore mentioned complications, the fact that this past summer was one of the most hot and humid summers in much of the country, so we were actually forced to cut exercise shorter or slower on many days.

This is a long way of saying that we need to get back into shape. Merlin lost his battle to cancer in late September but for the approximate six weeks after his last bad chemo reaction prior to that, I credit gradually increased walking durations to getting him into his best feeling condition of this whole ordeal. Sadly, hemangiosarcoma doesn’t get cured by exercise alone but it sure got a run for its money.

Now that we are a three dog household with more time on our hands than in the past, I am resolved that we will be fitter, both mentally and physically, in this New Year. Exercise not only nourishes the body, it fills the soul as well, if you are an outdoor exerciser as we are. Stimulation of both the body and the brain does more for you than pretty much anything else I can think of.

So we are on a mission. Even Kera, who can sometimes only go short distances slowly, has increased her stamina enough so that she can walk at close to normal pace for what used to be a normal distance, at least several days a week! Kidney failure, be damned! We will show this silly thing called aging that we will be the winner! Every day we can, either pace or distance is increased, even if only slightly. We are happy with small victories. Even an extra five minutes a day or a twenty second run that we did not do the day before is something to celebrate.

My dogs and I love to be outside, no matter what the weather may be. Well, we can live without the heat and humidity but even then, we need the outdoors. We just choose locales with water they can lay in then. The wooded areas in particular make us very happy. And I am happy to add that strength training has been resumed, which is a big help with to sanity maintenance.

I want to know what sort of exercise you and your crew prefers and if you have any activity based New Year’s resolutions for yourself and your crew. Use the spaces below to share your thoughts. And get outside. Your dogs will pay you lavishly with happiness.

Out With the Old, In With the New? Not in This House!

---

by admin • January 1st • 6 comments

Old dogs, that is. Yes, I have old dogs. Well, older at least. There, I have said it. It’s a hard thing to admit. It forces one to confront mortality. We convince ourselves that ten is the new seven. In a way, it’s true. Dogs are living much longer these days than in the past. Part of that is because, in most cases, dogs don’t freely roam the streets like they did in our Grandmother’s day, facing dangers such as cars, angry neighbors, defensive wildlife and a host of other life shortening occurrences. Other reasons include better veterinary care, better nutrition and all around better care. Thank doG for this!

But older is still older and older is scary when you love someone. It’s especially frightening when one already has a recent loss of an older dog, such as with my Merlin. Yes, here I go, mentioning my dearly beloved boy again. Thanks, dear readers, for your patience with me on this subject. Merlin will forever be sorely missed, though I do try very hard to not mention him as often as I think of him. In any case, Merlin was about to turn thirteen years old when he left this world for the next one in late September.

So it was with some terror that I watched (and rejoiced) as Kera turned thirteen in late November. And then again when Siri turned ten a couple of weeks ago. Trent turned seven in August. That event solidly placed him in the senior category. Technically, all of my dogs qualify for the dog equivalent of Social Security. I am running an assisted living center for senior dogs!

But you know what? Other than Kera’s kidney failure, which is successfully being managed for the moment, my crew act years younger than their chronological years. They hike or walk daily for forty to sixty minutes most days, they eat healthy foods, they play (well, Trent and Siri do) and they are engaged in this world. Kera’s engagement is aided by the wonderful medicine for senior dogs called Anipryl. I cannot thank the universe enough for this drug. It has given me Kera back. Without it, she is in a fog of confusion. Too bad this stuff doesn’t work for Alzheimer’s patients.

Older dogs are underrated. They are usually “done cooking”. In most cases, they get mellower. Take Siri, for example. She has delighted in scaring shier visitors for most of her life with her fearsome Rottie bark. New people in her life had to be bold. She caves to bold. She is a big baby at heart. But these days, she welcomes anyone I welcome. I like it.

Trent? Well Trent still has some opinions about some other dogs he may see while on leash, but he has definitely mellowed with the years. And what is more important, he has learned to trust that I will keep him safe.

Kera views walks as one of the most important things in her world. Pre-Anipryl, a walk was the only time I got to see her smile. With Anipryl, she still thinks she can chase squirrels and deer. And thinking she can is half the battle.

So while puppies may get most of the attention at this time of year, I think I will keep my “old dogs”. They make me happy. They make me smile. They teach me patience and one can never have enough patience.

So in honor of all the “old dogs” in your life, take a moment to tell me about them in the spaces below.

May your 2012 be filled with happiness, peace, prosperity and love, especially love of the furriest and purest kind.