Banished Upstairs

First of all, I want to apologize to all the different dogs/people who have given us awards over the last few weeks.  I have been so busy and consumed by this whole Chloe thing and life in general that I have been neglecting to do the award posts.  I have all the awards flagged in my inbox and I promise, I WILL do a post about them!  We are VERY appreciative of each one of them and I don’t want people to think they’ve gone unnoticed and that we aren’t grateful for them!

Riley and I are on house arrest during this whole Chloe confinement ordeal.  Well, Chloe is on house arrest too, just to be fair.  She is in the crate right now barking and whining away.  Riley and I are upstairs with the door shut and the TV turned up pretty loud.  When Grandma and Grandpa are home, Chloe gets to stay on the couch while Riley stays in the crate or I stay with her upstairs or outside.  Unfortunately, it’s raining today…boo…so we’re stuck upstairs.  Riley doesn’t really mind though, it’s just me that is complaining.  We only have 6 more days of this–we can do it!!

Riley lying up on my stomach, taking some snuggle time!  I opened up the blinds of the window so she could look out at the cul-de-sac and she seems to be enjoying that.

I think the Xanax was actually making Chloe more anxious in the crate.  On Monday we had run out of the Xanax and had to get it refilled at the pharmacy, so Chloe didn’t get any in the morning.  She actually slept some of the day and took breaks from the barking and whining.  Then on Tuesday, we gave her the Xanax and she barked and whined all day long.  So yesterday and today, we didn’t give her the Xanax (we only gave her the Phenobarbital) and she slept about 40% of the day.  I know it seems weird that an anti-anxiety medication would make our dog more anxious, but I took a migraine medicine one time for my headache and one of the side effects listed on the label was headache!

Chloe is not enjoying the crate today.  She has taken the black finish off of some of the bars of the door to the crate and she’s actually bent the crate door in a little bit pulling on it with her teeth.  I also think she might have chipped a little bit off of one of her bottom canine teeth, but she wouldn’t be still long enough for me to get a good look.  I’m beginning to think we need to rent out a padded room for her!

Riley and I may make it up to class in Williamsburg tonight if it stops raining and the roads aren’t too wet.  I had a very scary high speed spin off the road on the interstate in Georgia a few years ago in the rain, so now I have a bit of a phobia driving on the interstate in the rain/wet.  I especially don’t want to have a wreck with Riley in the car…I’d never be able to forgive myself if something happened to her.  Maybe I’m just being silly, but it’s just not worth risking our lives to go to obedience school when they have it every week and we can go on a nicer day.

New Bed and Perch Work

Riley’s new orthopedic dog bed (yes, I know, VERY fancy…I got it on a REALLY good sale, trust me!) came yesterday.  It was in a box the size of my living room (well, not quite, but a huge box), so I was a little worried before I opened it that they had sent me a bigger bed than I ordered.  Luckily, that’s just Amazon for you, sending a way too big box.  I was relieved to see when I opened it that it was indeed the 24″ x 36″ bed that I had ordered.  It fits perfectly into her crate.  I was even able to get her to go in there to lie on it.  She never goes in her crate…I used to put her in there when she was a puppy when we were gone off somewhere but when she turned about 10 months old we decided she was safe to leave out in the house without bothering anything.  I have it mainly for when she’s on crate rest for her hips or knees.

She seems to like it.  She would like it better if it weren’t in her crate, I’m sure…!

Nice and plush.

Here’s a picture of our side yard after we got done raking yesterday.  We have had a windy day today so now it looks like we didn’t rake at all.

Riley and I have been doing some perch work as homework from this new training class.  Basically, I have to get Riley to put her front two feet on something on the ground.  We’re using a box lid.  It’s been going okay, but just today I saw Riley has had a breakthrough.  She doesn’t have it down 100%, but we’re getting there.  I think I’m going to have to buy or borrow (from my sister) a clicker to start doing clicker training with her.  A lot of people at class use clickers and I think Riley would respond well to one.

All Tired Out

Riley and I went to class last night.  We had gone to the advanced finishing school class twice, but I felt like we didn’t know some of the stuff they were doing in that class, so we went to the Canine Good Citizen prep class last night.  Even though Riley already has her CGC and her Therapy Dogs International certification, we still learned some good things and it was good to have a refresher.  There were only two other dogs there, so that was good.  One of the dogs that was there was a reactive male and he had his own half of the training room sectioned off, so that was nice.  The other dog that was there got away from her owner once during class and rushed right up into Riley’s face.  Riley did not like that…so she told her to back off in no uncertain terms.  It was all good, I was able to get the two apart before anything escalated.

Riley got to play fetch with her Chuckit launcher outside in the backyard today because it was 75 degrees outside!  She definitely enjoyed that.  Then after I ate dinner I played fetch with her in the living room and she played until she finally pooped out on me…