I have a question to pose to y’all today. In its simplest form… do you let your dog(s) sleep in the bed with you? Before you answer, let me give you background. When I was a kid, our family dog was primarily an outdoor dog. She slept in the garage with a dog bed, and when it was especially cold outside my parents let her sleep in my house. On those rare nights, she slept at the foot of my…
Last year I had puppy fever in the worst way. I needed another dog like a whole in my head… but I needed a puppy. We casually looked at a few for adoption, but decided it wasn’t a great time. I tried to put my puppy fever in a box and close it, but then my trainer put this photo on facebook. I melted. Even though I wanted this puppy, I knew I didn’t need a puppy so I told my…
This post could also be titled “I feel compelled to always jump at least one animal competitively over fences.” There’s only been one extended period of time in my adult life when I didn’t ride. I filled some of that time with model horses and the other bulk of it was spent learning agility with Eliot, my springer spaniel. When I first got Eliot, I wanted to do therapy dog work with him. Of course since that was the plan, Eliot…
As most of you know, I spent a large part of July trying to figure out why Simon was NQR. It has half gone away, and half improved by a mix of strategies we’re currently working through. Of course we can’t be drama free in the Mauldin household, and another creature is showing lameness signs… but it’s not a horse. Pascale has been NQR for the past few weeks, and I’m concerned she has signs of hip dysplasia. At the…
I haven’t talked much about BT lately, which is a travesty. Last time I left off with her story, we were having her damaged eye removed. That surgery went well despite her age and significant heart murmur, so we were pleased and thought the entire situation would be behind us. Then several weeks later, Eliot attacked her again with no warning. Her other (aka only) eye was damaged very slightly. It healed perfectly, we thanked our lucky stars and now Eliot…
There’s been a lot of dog drama in my house in the past year, and because of that my dog blogging has been pretty much focused on my ongoing spaniel drama. Today we’ve got to change that and give y’all and update on little miss Pascale, the puppy that got dropped off at my barn last September. I’m not sure if I ever mentioned this, but when we took her to the first vet appointment we were told that she would…
I’ve been talking a lot about my dogs here lately, and while I gave y’all a pretty thorough background of Eliot’s aggression and our recent issues.. I didn’t say what we’ve been working on to fix it. I realize this situation can’t continue without a serious intervention. We can’t risk our dogs getting hurt over and over again, and Eliot isn’t happy either. Faced with the possibility of re-homing him or euthanasia (worst case scenario, but let’s be honest… it…
On Sunday, I told ya’ll a bit about my heart dog. I didn’t mention how we used to joke about “Spaniel Rage” when he was this adorable fluffy puppy, even going so far as to call him “Rage” as a bit of a joke from time to time. Joke. Haha, so funny. When I had Eliot as a puppy, I knew that socialization was extremely important. Not to be cocky, but I’m pretty dog savvy. He got interaction from other dogs…