Poisonous Water Hemlock! Beware When Hiking!

Phoenix poses next to the Water Hemlock

I'm in a bunch dog facebook groups and recently there was a post about a dog who went hiking and accidentally ate Water Hemlock. The dog unfortunately passed away about an hour after ingesting it because the plant is highly toxic! This really concerned me because my dogs are big grass eaters and we are out hiking a lot.

After doing some research, I found that Water Hemlock is extremely common in the Pacific Northwest, although it can grow wherever the ground is moist. It's often found by water but not always. It's pretty much everywhere! I've found it all over our neighborhood and at all of the parks we go to. It was shocking to me that I've lived here for a while and never heard about this before.

Since I have not seen this topic come up, I decided that I should let everyone else know about it! If you're hiking be on the look out for this plant and don't let your dogs eat it! We will definitely be more cautious! The girls love grass so much but this is too scary to ignore!

Have you ever seen this plant before?

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Why Owning A Reactive Dog is Like Grieving

I'm beginning to really loathe March. This past month has not been the best of months, it's been nonstop raining for most of the month. Endless days of rain is never good for anyone who struggles with depression and I'm not any different. Trigger Warning. I'm learning that having a reactive dog is a lot like constantly going through the 5+ stages of grieving. There's denial, bargaining, anger, depression and finally acceptance. It's not linear and the past couple of days I've been going through pretty much all of them and feeling them all at the same time.

From being so upset that I didn't want to get out of bed and even look at a dog, to being completely angry and upset with her previous owners that I hoped they never get another dog, being angry at myself for all my stupid mistakes back in the early days of having her (I'm never angry at her and I know her issues are not her fault), to even bargaining: Oh if only I had just done this differently... or I wish I could go back in time, I wish I had gotten her as a puppy, or maybe if I just try harder or try something else... To just really mourning the life we could of had if she had been socialized properly and not gone through her previous traumas.

I don't regret adopting her, she's taught me so many things and it's because of her that I am the trainer I am. She's my heart dog, my freaking ray of sunshine (which only a select few get to see), the reason I get out of bed every morning, the only dog I've ever had that wanted to be with me and play my stupid games, which makes it so much worse when things go wrong. It's hard to not get emotional when something goes wrong with a being you love more than anything else in the world. I don't have any family other than my husband but I have these dogs and they mean more to me than I have words to describe it.

I promised you guys a while ago that I would always be honest with you and tell things how it is. We are all human, we all make mistakes and the past two weeks have just been awful screw ups and errors in judgement on both my husband and myself.

From the stupid hypothermia incident at the river, to getting charged by two shepherds and having a snarky incident, we are having a rough two weeks. I didn't really go public about the incident with the two German Shepherds but literally the day after the river incident we got charged by two huge shepherds. The owner had no control over them and they pummeled both of my dogs. None of us saw them coming and it was a big snark fest. Phoenix ended up bleeding from a tooth getting knocked. Once the owner got control over his dogs, things were okay, there were no other wounds or anything. We ended up leaving the park.

From there we had our 3rd Treibball class, this was Phoenix's second time going. The first class she missed. I got to work super early and ended up walking her around the neighborhood. After our walk they ended up letting me into the building so we could hang out and not be out in the rain. I had about 20 minutes before I was "on the clock" so I spent the entire time playing with Phoenix in the large play room where we teach our classes. I want her to have a great association with the place. I want her to feel like when we go to training it's just us doing more silly games and to keep stress low.  While we taught our first class, Phoenix was in the lobby/office hanging out. She was so good and didn't bark at all. 

A video posted by Lauren Miller (@zoepheedogs) on Mar 22, 2016 at 12:20am PDT

There are only 3 other students in her Treibball class and she's been doing great in class. She's been playing the games that are being taught, she's been tugging with me and she has been pretty good about being around other dogs that she does not know. I've been able to keep her attention and I've been happy with her progress and hopeful that I was on the right track with her.

Sorry for the cell phone pics, I can't drag my DSLR to class.

On Monday during her class, she had a couple of freezes when the dogs would run by. Sometimes she would stop and stare at them but I was able to just feed it and get her attention back on me. Easy peasy.. no real outburst or huge reactions, she did at one point have a very "nervous tail" where she watched a dog and was wagging really hard. Her tail wagging like that is not a sign of happiness, it's a sign of arousal and one of the signs she is going to react. I worked hard on keeping her arousal sort of medium-ish and on the game we were playing. She did really well and class was not a big deal. She gave me some amazing focus. After class she even met our trainer's sheltie and they wandered around together while we cleaned up. Things were going really well.

Checking out the 45cm ball, Phoenix will need a 55cm!

By the time it was time to go home, things were going so well that I made the mistake of asking for more. Knowing when to quit when you're ahead is important and I messed up. I asked our trainer if she thought we could intro Phoenix to her other dog as well. I figured we'd be working together and we might as well try to get the dogs used to each other.

Phoenix has always been fine with on leash greetings, she's been fine with dogs who are her size or smaller. She's been to Pet Expo and passed dogs on leash, she's done Doggie Dash and walked with hundreds of dogs on leash. She's been at some crazy events and done better than Zoe. Both of my dogs used to go to work with me every day at the vet clinic and hanging out at a vet clinic is extremely stressful. She was able to pass and greet dogs at the vet clinic. She's always been one to try and avoid conflict whenever she can. She would get nervous sometimes but not flip her shit. She's gotten defensive with dogs for rushing into her bubble when she didn't see it coming but never just for a quick on leash greeting to say hi with calm well trained dogs.

The greeting with both dogs on leash in the lobby didn't go well and Phoenix snapped at them and she scared the crap out of them. I am honestly not sure if she actually connected but I think she did.

The look on my trainer's dog's faces was so sad and it's not something that I've been easily able to let go. I cried the whole way home and most of Tuesday as well. I have never wanted to be that person with **that** dog, the one that traumatizes another person's dogs or makes someone else's dogs scared and upset. 

Nobody was hurt and she didn't draw blood but to say that I was shocked would be a complete understatement. She has never gone after dogs like that before in that context unless they were trying to eat her first. I guess there's a first for everything and that makes me the asshole owner who says, "OMG! She's never done that before!!!". We've all heard someone say it and we've all rolled our eyes. Great. I just joined the dumb ass dog owner club. Seriously, no one can beat me up more than I am already kicking myself.

My trainer, bless her, was really nice about the whole thing. She said that Phoenix is a great dog, that she's doing so well in class and that she's seen worse. It's not that big of a deal and to not apologize. (I kept apologizing... and couldn't stop). She told me that Phoenix is still welcome to come back to class. We worked out a plan to make sure that what happened wouldn't happen again and Phoenix will be going straight to the car after class. She also mentioned doing intros differently, parallel walking and circle walking, which I am familiar with and have done in the past. I don't know if we will try introducing them again, probably not.

So it just brings me back to why the heck I thought greeting two dogs on leash in a tiny lobby at 10 o'clock at night was a brilliant idea. It was not. We were all fried. We were all tired and obviously Phoenix was completely out of spoons and likely trigger stacked from the previous incidents that we've had in the past few days.

I'm so embarrassed and I feel so stupid for trying to intro the dogs and pretty much like such an inexperienced idiot. I put someone else's dogs in danger and I thoroughly regret it. I am really sad and disappointed in myself for setting my dog up for failure, too. Phoenix has come a really long way from the scared little dog who shivered in the corner and wouldn't let anyone touch her but apparently, she still has a few lessons up her sleeve for me.

Phoenix gets a home made bandana.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't tired of dealing with reactivity. It's exhausting and depressing. Having to constantly worry about her and keeping people and their dogs away from her. Having to peek out my door to make sure the coast is clear before I let them walk into the hallway, having to tell everyone my dogs are not friendly, even though Zoe really is and would like to say hi. Getting dirty looks from other dog owners because I've had to tell them to get their dogs because "mine aren't friendly". Being known as the grumpy lady with the "mean, skittish little dog" (even though she's never done anything to any of my neighbor's dogs) is frustrating. It just really wears me down.

I will never give up on Phoenix but sometimes I do wish we had a cabin in the woods somewhere away from everyone else. In the city there's a dog around every corner. I know that I'm lucky she's less reactive than most but I think I'm a bit unlucky in that she's "silent, but deadly". People think that both of my dogs are so cute and because she doesn't give traditional reactive warnings or outbursts that she's fine and we've had a lot of problems because of it. 

I guess I am lucky she's "a mostly functional" reactive dog.

In the end, I know it was only a bad moment, not even a bad day and certainly not a bad life. She is an amazing dog, a wonderful companion and she's so much fun. I totally see the good in her. I wish other people could, too. She will still be going to Treibball and she's going to Impulse Control classes, too. I always hope that with a little more work she might get better and more comfortable around other dogs. I'm not quite ready to just accept that this is the way things will always be.

What is your biggest struggle with your reactive dog? Does it feel like grieving to you, too?

The Problem With High Drive Dogs, Hypothermia Scare with Phoenix!

Phoenix loves to fetch sticks out of the water!

Do you remember your parents telling you "if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?" We learned that lesson on Saint Patrick's Day when we had a mild hypothermia scare with Phoenix. All the other dogs were swimming, having a good time and were fine...

The weather was finally sunny, my husband had the day off and we decided to go hiking out at our favorite park. The day started off pretty normal, except that everyone had the same idea we did. The parking lot was full and there was no parking. That was okay, though because there's another park about half a mile away with extra parking so we decided we'd park there and hike in. On our way into the park, we found a little off shoot trail and spent about an hour wandering around on some trails that bordered our favorite park. These sorts of trails are hardly ever used, some of them were flooded and we didn't see anyone or any dogs. When we finally made it into the park it was very, very crowded but we decided to continue on and use it as a training opportunity. Zoe had been getting frustrated with the lack of friendly dogs at our apartment complex and she really wanted to socialize. I had my husband take her down to the river to visit with the dogs while I played some counter conditioning games off to the side with Phoenix on leash.

Phee was doing really well, so I asked for more and moved her closer to the action. We had several very nice greetings with other dogs and it this point I decided we should end on a good note and continue hiking. Once we were away from the big group of dogs, I went ahead and let Phoenix back off leash. We came across several more dogs on the trails but she did great practicing avoidance behaviors, which I prefer over greetings. She definitely tries not to have conflict with other dogs and I'm pretty happy about that. She does great with dogs who are calm and we ran into a bunch who were perfect for her to visit with. I'm finding out that both of my dogs really likes pit bull type dogs. I wish they weren't such breedests but I'll take it.

The day was going pretty well and my husband happened to pick up a stick. As soon as Phoenix saw the stick she was immediately "in drive" and wanted to play fetch. She loves to fetch sticks out of water more than anything else. Everyone out there had their dogs playing in the water so we didn't really think about it too much. We were cautious, not throwing the sticks too far and making her take breaks in between fetching so she didn't get too cold. I told my husband to give her one more throw and then we needed to leave and I was thinking he'd just sort of drop it in the water for her... Well... I learned that I need to give better instructions because he really chucked it out there and she ended up loosing it to the current. This is the problem with high drive dogs, they will do the thing they love until they literally die if people are not careful and Phoenix is no different. She searched and searched for that stick. I told my husband to quickly throw her another one because we needed to get her out. He threw a stick right to her, she grabbed it and swam back to us.

When she came out of the water, she was frozen solid. She was limping on all four legs and was so cold she could barely move and she was screaming and freaked out. It was pretty bad and probably the scariest moment I've ever had as a dog mom. I immediate picked her up and hugged her to my chest trying to warm her up. My husband told me to wrap her in my sweatshirt and that's what we ended up doing. We wrapped her up and hugged her until she was warm, taking turns carrying her. We got her over the sun-warmed sand and set her down and started toweling her off with my sweatshirt and rubbing her to warm her up. As soon as we did that and she was more warm, she took off to play with Zoe like nothing had happened and we both let out a sigh of relief. She was okay.

She was able to run around and hike back out of the park on her own, although I kept calling her back and checking to make sure her gums were still pink and that she was okay and warm enough. We are very lucky that she listens to us and we were able to get her out of the water when we did.

We learned that just because everyone else is swimming their dogs doesn't mean we should and if I do swim her she needs short throws and long breaks between them. I also need to buy her a life jacket. I'm not sure I will put her back into the water until summer, though. This was way too scary and I do not want to repeat it. Lesson learned. Just because the weather is warmer and sunny, doesn't mean that the water is warm. I was so relieved that she was okay. She came home and was playful and happy, her usual self. Thank goodness.

Has your dog ever scared you before?

Phoenix's Ear Fiasco!

Shake it off!

Have you ever had one of those days where you wake up and everything sort of goes wrong? Tuesday was that day for me! I didn't sleep very well the night before and I was just very tired. So we get out to the park and the dogs are running around and very happy to be there and I'm sort of more awake than I was but I didn't have nearly enough caffeine on board.

So we get to the part of the trail with all the blackberries and the bunnies use them as their home. They are a great defense against predators because they are so pokey. Bunnies are so smart! The dogs immediately crawled through one of the bunny holes and went into the bushes. I called them out and it took them a while to figure out how to get back out and when they got out, Phoenix kept shaking off like she was wet.

I don't always chase bunnies, but when I do I hurt myself!

When I called her to me, her head and ears were covered in blood. In this photo, it's actually hard to tell but her right ear (left in the photo) is oozing blood. She cut the edge of her ear in the bushes. It was very freaky for me because I couldn't figure out where the blood was coming from at first! It's amazing how much one tiny boo boo can bleed! Darn dog ears!

After she was done shaking her head (and flinging blood drops everywhere) she seemed okay and it didn't seem to be bothering her too much. So I decided to finish our walk and just let her run.

It did throw her gait off a little bit, though! She's running sideways! Silly girl! 

When we got home I cleaned it out and she's doing okay. It took a long time to stop bleeding though! Phoenix has been having a lot of mis-adventures lately! I'm thinking I should really get her some pet insurance!

Has your dog done something silly like this before?  

There were some other very annoying things that happened to me personally on Tuesday, too! It was just not a good day for anyone! I'm so glad it's over!

Doggie Dash (Mis)Adventure!

On Saturday we attended Portland's largest dog event of the year! Doggie Dash! It's a "race" type of an event where the proceeds go towards helping homeless animals. It's either walk or run and it's not timed. Both of the girls were super excited and definitely ready to participate. If you haven't already, check out our Doggie Dash Throwback post for more pictures of the girls at past Doggie Dash events.