Mike’s Doghouse

Like we learned in class last night, there are three stages to training. I can’t remember the first two (and I’m too lazy to get up and find the notes) but the third is the “proofing”. This is answering “will Mike do this behavior outside the normal area”.

Today I had to take the truck back to the transmission place for its 14 day check up and to have them check on a problem with it. The repair place had a “no pets allowed” sign on the door so Mike and I stayed outside. This was good for him because he was exposed to a lot of different things. We were just a few feet away from a busy side road and just beyond it was a major 6 lane highway. Cars and trucks and motorcycles were whizzing passed us. There were people coming and going from the repair place, there were employees doing their thing, and then there was Mike.

He did fairly well. We worked on SIT and WAIT/STAY. He got better at it the longer we were there. It was cool to watch him process all the stimulus in addition to me asking him to sit and stay there. The longer we were there, the better he got. He was excited when he saw the truck come to park near us. He was really weirded out earlier when some guy got in it and drove it away!

I had to push down on Mike’s butt a lot. Probably, in the beginning, I was putting him in a sit over half of the times I asked him to sit. That percentage changed and was much lower by the time the truck was repaired and we could go. I didn’t have the clicker with me nor did I have treats. I think it would have gone better if I had grabbed my bag when I got Mike out of the truck. We’ll have to try it again somewhere else.

Lorna has tomorrow off and we will be taking him and Sam to the dog park. We’ll also be taking my chair to see how much of it (getting into and out of the enclosed spaces) I can do on my own. If all goes well, it will be a place Mike and I will go often.

Lorna and I went to the first class for the Basic Manners at A Good Dog’s Life dog training. Lorna will be taking Sam and I will be taking Mike. The first class was w/out the dogs. We discussed a lot of stuff we’d already covered in the puppy class but I think me and Mike are the only ones in this class that had taken their puppy class. Mike will be the youngest there, I think, at 6 mos (cannot believe he is that old already!). Sam will not be the oldest, though. In the class Lorna started to do earlier, I think he would have been the oldest by far at only 3 yrs. The teacher for this class will not be Gail (the Puppy Class instructor) but Susan Wilson. They have very different teaching styles. Lorna “got” what Susan was saying but didn’t really follow Gail. It is what works for each of us, just the same as the dog.

We have homework as usual. Most of it Mike and I already know or do so I will just work on distractions. This is when you have the dog do what it knows outside of the normal place it knows it. So since Mike and I train inside the house, we will be going outside some and, perhaps, going somewhere else such as Home Depot again. The idea is for the dog to do what you want him to do no matter where you are and no matter what is going on around you. If a dog will do a sit without reservation while in the middle of a busy pet store or hardware store, then chances are that dog is truly trained. This is especially important for Service Dogs. The safety and health of the handler is at stake, not just being embarrassed at misbehaving Fido.

Part of our homework is to list what behaviors we do not want or want to stop and what behaviors we do want or want to continue. I’ll post my list here when I get around to making it.

In an earlier post, I said I was working on setting up the photo gallery in another location. That is (was) going smoothly. Until today when I found I could no longer sign into the admin section. Sigh.

Anyway, I have some new pics of Mike. Click the images for a larger version.

That ear stands up when he is paying attention or very intent on something. I was eating a banana, one of his fave snacks. Yeah, he’s weird.

Mike almost fills the recliner now!

We call this his “suicide pose”.

At least, we think we have a diagnosis.

Mike’s vet, Dr. Knepshield, called Tuesday. His urine culture results were negative so no weird infection going on. Combined that news with the well-within-norm blood work up, the cause of Mike’s urinary problem narrowed down significantly.

The vet thinks Mike has what is called “urge incontinence”. It is more common in female dogs but can happen in males. In her research, she came across another male pup with almost exactly the same symptoms. That pup was helped via a human medication. Basically, Mike doesn’t mess his crate at night because he’s not moving around and he doesn’t have access to water. But, once he drinks water (and he drinks a lot of it), his brain and bladder don’t communicate very well. He can empty it easily enough, but he can’t KEEP from emptying it. His bladder doesn’t let the brain know it is full, resulting in leaking and flooding upon standing. Add to it that he can’t seem to hold it long enough to even finish standing up, he probably has “bladder sphincter” issues.

I picked up the medication today and he got his first dose at dinner. If this is indeed the problem, we should see a slow stopping of the piddling (aka artwork on the floor). If that happens, we’ll start reintroducing the water until he can consume and hold. We don’t know how long he will be on it. The vet’s office has never used this medication before. We’ll be learning together.

Here I get a pup to train as a Service Dog and we can’t get beyond house training!

Linkages:
urge incontinence
oxybutynin chloride (Ditropan) 5mg 1/2 tab 2x day

Oh, and a photo to appease the masses:

(click for larger image)

There are so many different acronyms out there for all sorts of things disability related: PWD, ADA, SD, SDIT, the list goes on and on.

Today I found a list of a lot of them. Fred Cisin is a funny man which is why I like him so much. The list on his site is huge-ish and includes some esoteric (read: weird) terms. Here’s a sample:

PWD = Person with a disability
PWD = Portuguese Water Dog
PWDWD = Person With a Disability With a Dog
PWDWSD = Person With a Disability With a Service Dog
PWDWPWD = Person With a Disability With a Portuguese Water Dog
PWDWABA = Person With a Disabilty With an Attitude

The full abbreviation/acronym list

Fred also has a DIY (do it yourself) certification plan.

You can check out all of Fred’s SD info on the DogEars section of the site.

Phew! We finished!

And we start the Basic Manners I class in a few weeks.

Lorna went with us to see the other puppies. It was enlightening for her to understand why I am so tired at the end of a class. And it also got her to see what class for her and Sam will be like.

It was sad to realize we’d most likely never see these other pups again, to see how they turn out. I wish them all well and health as they grow and live and love.

We got Mike a new crate the other day and today, while he was at the vet’s office keeping them entertained, we moved stuff around and decided where to put the monstrosity. It is the same width and depth as Sparky’s old crate but is about three inches taller. It is also one of those “folding” crates while Sparky’s crate is put together with large pins/poles. It has two doors so we can be more flexible about where to put it. It also has a divider to make the crate smaller as the pup grows. Mike’s current crate is not tall enough for him and he has to lay at an angle if he wants to fully stretch out. It is just like the bigger crate except it has only the one door and is made by a “generic” company. The larger one is by Midwest (Life Stages-Double Door 42″), a huge dog supply company and the smaller one is by Bargain Hound (the 30″ one).

Here’s Mike in his current, smaller crate:
12/24/08

2/6/09

The larger crate with the divider in place will be in the living room. This is where he will stay during the day when I am too distracted to watch him close enough. It will also be where he will stay whenever we are gone. The smaller one is still in the bedroom and will be for sleeping. At least for a while. We’ll eventually move the larger crate into the bedroom and store the smaller one.

Wednesday, Mike and I went back to the vet’s office. I took pictures this time of his “artwork” on the floor (see the bottom of this post). I also took in a urine sample again. After a brief discussion, it was decided to do another urinalysis and to do a blood work up. I would get a call the next day about the results.

Thursday, Dr. Knepshield called. The blood work up was normal. Kidney function, liver function, everything was normal. Good. But the urinalysis showed a lot of white blood cells. Not good. Some male dogs have raised white cell counts basically because, well, they like to play with their penises. This creates slight irritation that shows up in the urine samples. Gross, but, there you have it. What she wanted to do was have us bring Mike in the next morning and, after getting his bladder full, they’d remove urine directly from the bladder, bypassing the urethra. Ouch!

This morning, we took Mike in at about 10am. She said it would take only a few hours so we did some errands. Eventually, I was exhausted from a headache so we went home. We didn’t hear anything until after 2pm. Mike’s bladder was not co-operating. Dr. Knepshield felt his abdomen when he got there at 10. His bladder was very empty so they put him in a small crate and gave him a big bowl of water. She figured she’d check on him in two hours. At 11:30, she went to check on him and was told it was too late. They said they were watching him and he had simply stood up and peed a river. Refill the water bowl and try to catch him again. But he did it again. And again. They took him out of the crate hoping he’d show a little better sign he had to go but I think that failed, too. Finally, when they called at 2ish, they had him with a partially full bladder and an ultrasound. They needed permission to knock him out so they could do the delicate work of extracting urine from the bladder. It was several more hours before we heard back.

The sample they had was very diluted from all the water he had drank but had no white blood cells. So they sent off the remaining sample to get a culture grown from it. Not that she expects to find anything, but that the experts she will consult with will ask if it was done. And that is where we are now. She’s going to do some research and consult some canine urologists while we wait for the culture to grow. The reason for all this is that she was greatly impressed with the amount of pee Mike can produce. And how he seems to have very little control over it the fuller his bladder is. She was also impressed with our patience and humor with him. I get the feeling he was cute, adorable, but very frustrating to them all today.

My headache was exploding at that point so Lorna went to get him. She said the entire staff seemed to know him and got down on the floor to play as he was leaving. And during their mid-day lull, David, one of the long time techs there, had taken Mike out of his crate to play for a while and Mike was running all over the hospital. What is it about this pup that pulls people to him? What is it about him that makes him so damn adorable?

We have to wait until at least Tuesday before we know anything. One possibility, and I think there are only two at this point, is that they will do a dye test to see how his plumbing is arranged. There might be some sort of problem somewhere. The second possibility is that this is all in Mike’s wee head. That somehow it is a psychological problem, not physical. And even if there is a physical reason, we may still need to deal with the psychology of it, to teach him how to pay more attention to his body.

Mike’s largest art piece to date. It covers about 3′ x 8′ of floor in the living room. Starting with the bottom image, Mike stood up from where he was laying and headed toward the door. Almost there, he started to pee. He then walked away from the puddle to finish his walk toward the door where he then tried to tell us he had to go out.

A dog is considered a Service Dog (SD) when, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the animal can do one or more trained tasks that benefit the person with the disability (PWD).

(Keywords there are TRAINED and BENEFIT. But more on that later.)

Some states have Service-Dog-In-Training (SDIT) laws which offer support for dogs that are still training to be a SD. These laws offer the chance for the trainer/handler to take the dog out into Real World situations to better train the dog. I am lucky to live in a state that has an excellent SDIT law (same access as SDs). This means that I can take Mike anywhere I would take Joella even though he doesn’t know any SD tasks. But there are some common sense things that any SDIT handler/trainer should follow. These include safety reasons, health reasons, and hygiene reasons. This is why Mike does not go places. He’s not house trained yet. Reliable recall, loose leash walking, doing a solid down or stay – that means nothing yet if he can’t do the most basic of manners.

A friend of mine (coughElenacough) reminded me that Mike should not be out yet as a SDIT (meaning wear a cape). She’s right. The only place we have gone with the cape on was Waffle House a few weekends ago. He was only in there for perhaps two minutes tops. In Lorna’s pocket were some paper towels and some Clorox wipes for just in case. I took him in for several reasons. Topmost was to see how he reacted to so many new things at once. I was looking for fear or reluctance. What I got was excitement and a total lack of fear. If he were house trained, he’d be going out on every day I could manage it. He is at the age where he should start learning the basics of public behavior. But until we get him house trained, he won’t be going. Was I wrong to take him out into public wearing a cape? Perhaps, but I won’t lose any sleep over it. I had already spoken to the manager of the restaurant and gotten permission to bring Mike in. Not that I would need permission, but with his lack of bladder control, I thought it best to get it.

Yesterday, Lorna, Mike, and myself went to visit friends. We’ve known Lori and Gary for many years but had yet to meet their pup, Jack (an Aussie Blue Heeler mix). After meeting for dinner in Black Mountain, we headed to their house. Gary brought Jack out so the two could play outside for a while. We were afraid it wasn’t going to work out but they eventually decided playing was more fun than growling.

It was good to see Mike playing with someone new. He is a great runner and can jump fairly high and long. He also got to meet 3 new cats. What was good, too, was to see him interact with Gary. Being a lesbian couple in a rural area, we don’t have many men friends. It’s good for dogs to meet people of different genders, skin color, and vocal tone than their owners. Gary is a gentle man and Mike fell in love. Better still, both Gary and Lori fell in love with Mike.

The only bad thing about the trip was Mike peed in the car again on the way there. Peed when he got out of the car (we thought at first it was submissive pee in response to Jack but it wasn’t). He peed and pooped while out running. Inside, he promptly peed three more times. I took him out, he peed again. Inside, he peed yet again! Lori is a veterinarian and was concerned with his obvious incontinence. So, yeah, back to the vet’s office we go!

We need to work more on RECALL. He did do a SIT for me, though.