The Kindest thing

Life is amazing. It is a miracle that we all take for granted every day.

Life is everywhere we look. Yet unbelievably fragile. We have not had much experience of just how fragile until recently.

All our pets had lived into old age so the death of a dog at under 2 years old is completely unbearably heartbreaking.

Oddjob quickly deteriorated with not being able to move properly, falling into his food bowl and on the last day not even wanting to eat and shaking non stop. He was soothed by me just laying beside him and stroking him very gently so that is what happened most of the day and night until we went into the vet and those words were uttered.

He was released from pain and his body resumed the usual form which made it even more apparent how out of sorts he had been.

I took him home and he has a special place in the garden as he has in our hearts.

Rhyme tried to lick him back to life and couldn't understand initially but he hasn't pined for him so hopefully he did. They were always together and Rhyme took such care of him.

We still don't have a full diagnosis of whether he had a glioma or just an abscess all we know is that something was inflamed in his brain that caused him pain and he wasn't able to use his body properly.

We naturally wonder what went wrong and how such a thing can happen. We think need to know answers to avoid this happening again.

But to be honest what we really, really want is to have our happy, full of fun and vitality, boy back. To hear snorting and snoring, to have to take shorter strides, to have 6 food bowls again and to get well and truly puggled.

My thoughts are he has work to do else where to help somebody that needs cheering up.

We have very lucky lives and although it is incredibly sad to lose him we were at least lucky enough to have shared part of his way too short life.

So this blog is no longer active. I'll just
leave you with a poem I wrote for him.


Why doesn't even begin to answer all the pain

When things don't make sense but we ask it again & again
What could have been changed so you wouldn't die
Who decided it was time to say goodbye
So many questions but the answers won't mend
All the heartbreak felt by your premature end
Whatever the reason whatever the blame
Having loved & lost you our lives will never be the same

Difficult Diagnosis

Well what a horrible, horrible time we have been having emotionally regarding Oddjob. Not knowing if we would need to make that decision that all dog owners find themselves having to make. Hard enough when it comes to an old dog like Flint but in youngsters.....

Mark has had enough on his plate - he does love a full plate, but sometimes it leaves little room for manoeuvre.

He has had to make some tough decisions made harder by the great dogs and partnership he has amongst the Team GB squad. He has also commenced a new project in his day job.

He spent the day last Tuesday taking Oddjob into the referral centre with me and waiting for the MRI scan results. As many of you know my day job is supporting Mark :) Not everyone knows it is definitely two way traffic.

Oddjob is often seen as my dog but he is just as much Mark's so you can imagine the emotional turmoil we have been in all this last couple of weeks. The visit yesterday (again Mark rearranged his work day to attend the vets) has still not really answered all the questions and we now have 2 possible causes of his illness.

We will get copies of his scans meanwhile here are examples of the 2 different options - Glioma or Abscess as you can see they are very similar (try to ignore the size just look at their appearance)

One way to possibly find out for sure is to drill a hole in his brain and drain a bit of fluid from his cyst. That test would let us know if he has a brain tumour which would be a very sad thing.

The other possibility is a abscess which will be treatable with drugs although this may be costly and take a while we are hopeful this is the correct diagnosis.

The scans are going off for more opinions as we do not want his head drilled and we have drugs for him to have for a while.

Meanwhile let us enjoy life while he wants to. Since doing the Ultimate Agility Foundation online course he believes that we need to do some kind of training each day. When he was so off colour I thought it would be better to keep him in quieter situations with just walks out and about. Now both his spirits and probably mine to be honest are better we do not want to waste a day :)

Obviously with his limbs going in all the wrong directions moving forward with any agility equipment training is out of the question but he can still do puppy proprioception exercises and basics like recalls and hand touches.

He was so happy and I thought it may be worth recording his ability to achieve movement related tasks as it will help track if he is getting better or not.

It is very easy to watch for good things when you think your dog may be ill to prove that they are getting better so a subjective look may be more helpful to the vet.

Also Flint (yes he is still here and still getting special treatment as "we don't know how much longer we have with him" 18 months on :)
seems to thrive on life. Due to all that has happened with house move etc although he gets special time, he also has to muck in with the others. New experiences, being out and about and even going to shows seem to invigorate him and have kept him going even though he is so thin that if he looses any more weight he will become 2 dimensional.

Getting Oddjob to preform tasks usually involves an opportunity for him to earn treats which is his main reason for being so I aim to keep giving him reason.

List of actions and current ability
Sit - achievable but can't maintain
Down - can do and maintain
Hand target - no problem
Walking beside me in a straight line - will need to measure but just about provided loads of treats keep head forward
Walking from back gate to field without spinning - really tries and can make it if he runs after other dogs
Recall - does at a run and maintains forward momentum
Front feet on a box - can do and maintain I had not done this for a while as I think he would have knuckled over so I think this is progress
Get off box with OK release cue - good understanding of cue and how to do it physically
Walking though a short ladder - again only did this yesterday as I don't think it would have worked to do it when he was poorly poorly so I think this also points to a progression.
Lured left and right turns - I don't really like luring but due to his natural spin to the right which he will do if over excited (not sure if related to his current condition or due to being with his breeder until 10 months old) the guaranteed way to see if he can turn is to lure. He turns comfortably both ways.

I think monitoring these will give me good indications of his progress along with giving him some fun and maintaining his ability to move.

As far as his drugs are concerned I love this How to give a dog a pill

In fact as far as Oddjob is concerned even the bacon is not required :)

Devastating News

What a difficult post to write.

Oddjob is an amazing dog. He has fitted in so well with our lives and our other dogs.

Rhyme thinks Oddjob is his own toy to wash and fuss over. Oddjob thinks Rhyme is his own personal groomer.

Flint has also taken to him and licks his left ear, although with what we have now found out is actually a bit weird.

Torro, Devo and Kodi all accept being pug nipped if they are trying to get attention from me at the same time as he wants it. Torro especially surprises me with this.

I had even started teaching him some agility basics and he is so willing to learn and loves trying.

It is hilarious that even though the majority of the time he follows me like a shadow he will stop up the field after training and not want to come back in. Both Rhyme and Kodi often tried doing this so we naturally thought it a collie trait. It really shows what an independent character he is.

Everyone of our friends, previous pug fans or not, have fallen in love with him in a very short space of time.

It doesn't seem like he has only been with us since June last year. He was 10 months when we got him so he is only 17 months yet he seems to have been part of our lives forever.

We noticed he was knuckling over on his front right leg, this then progressed to his left and his circling became more of a problem. His gait was not right either.

I had him booked in our new vets for the Tuesday after Easter and was even more concerned there when we noticed his nail beds were bleeding. Some people had had experience of a nail bed infection and this would have made him uncomfortable.

I researched nail bed infections and treatment was not too bad and recovery was good.

At the vets he spun and tripped and looked very ungainly. He will stop spinning if I ask him to sit so I can usually stop it. The vet wanted to let him keep doing it. It was very sad to watch and I started to worry.

After a thorough check the vet recommended an MRI scan as she was concerned of a spinal injury in his neck or a neurological problem.

Alarm bells rang and panic set in :(

Off to the internet - a good and not so good source of information.

There is a pug disorder called PDE which is found only in pugs and causes inflammation of the brain and is not pleasant.

Pugs can also get the same problem as Cavaliers where they have fluid on the brain and the brain pushes on the skull. Painful and debilitating.

Twisted tails are actually a deformity of the vertebrae and if the same deformity occurs in the neck then the spinal cord can get trapped and damaged.

So many worrying things to think of. The main worry was his unpug like lack of happiness. His willingness to be part of everything was the same which was sad as the stumbling became worse and he also flicked his hind right leg out too.

Tuesday was the day of the scan. We went to East Midland Referrals and saw Graham Oliver. He was very professional and even he had to smile when Oddob delivered a well timed pug snort right at his face. The vet nurse came in to collect him and Oddjob turned the full force of his charms on her. She mouthed "I love him" at me whilst Graham was explaining everything.

There was a long list of possibilities many of which were treatable so we left with a better outlook after so many thoughts of heartbreak over the weekend.

When we picked him up he didn't want to wake up and was shaking uncontrollably which was very distressing.

Graham showed us the scans. He had taken quite a few and was very thorough in explaining them to us.

The scans showed a large cyst at the base of his brain that looked like it had been there a while and was not inflamed, a small round possible cyst that had an area of inflammation around it and inflammation of the spinal cord just below his brain which could have been a result of either of the cysts.

Graham took blood tests and some fluid from his brain to be sent off for testing and also sent copies of the scans off to a couple of places for further opinions.

We have drugs for him to take for now to treat the inflammations and are going back again tomorrow for the results and details of how we will treat him.

He was quiet on Wednesday but came out on Thursday with the others when I was setting up the agility equipment. He must have been feeling a lot better as he decided to walk up the dog walk to get my attention. He certainly got that as I ran across to stop him falling although I don't think if would have. He was obviously pleased with this reaction as although I carried him away from it before I put him down he waited until I was moving the tunnel and run up it again. Mischievous little monkey - glad he has got his spirit back for now.

I am in between thinking hurray the drugs are working and he will get back to normal and then moments of tears when I wonder how he can recover from 3 things and we may loose him.

So everything possible crossed for a good visit tomorrow and meanwhile lots of puggles.

Starting Training

Oddjob loves being involved in everything. He also loves climbing on top of things. I have added to this love by rewarding him for getting onto a box as part of the foundation training I do. 



You can not put anything down without him climbing onto the top of it, looking very proud and waiting for a reward.



Moving a chest of drawers from the garage to upstairs was challenging as I'd turn round to see he had climbed onto a drawer I had put down. I absentmindedly placed a pile of 3 drawers on top of each other only to hear a clatter and turn round to see Oddjob valiantly standing on top of the fallen pile :)

We are still working through some basic foundation training - mainly circlework, waiting and playing (specifically tug).

Circlework is where I want him to stay in a heel position while I go round a 5m circle. He is fine on the right hand side. He struggles on the left as he wants to circle himself. Mark thinks he needs to do it to tighten up his tail curl. On that side I can only walk and reward every single step at the moment to keep his position. Like a pug I have my stubborn moments so I will continue to work on this.

Waiting is great in a crate and if I do it's your choice type games dropping treats in front on him so I know he has some understanding of it. What we haven't got understanding of yet is if I walk away. The will to be close enough in case I have a reward for him is too great. Slowly slowly is going to be the key. I am going to extend the length of time I ask him to wait more before I go back to trying to walk away. 5 seconds close by seems nothing but if every second takes me further away you can see why it gets harder. I will aim for 20 seconds before I try distance. I have been told that it may not be worth getting him to wait on the start line in agility. that may become the case but I would like to crack the behaviour away from agility first. If I don't need it thats fine but if I do it is easier for the dog to know the behaviour away from the equipment first.

Playing has always been a struggle I have with my dogs. I seem to turn them off the behaviour then have to do loads of work to get it back so it is not because of him being a different breed. What I have to keep reminding myself is that when I get the play it is with me - not with the toy. Torro and Rhyme will turn and jump up at me immediately they get a toy and want me to tug rather than running off to enjoy the toy for its own worth. 

Kodi loved all toys and would run off to play on his own. Getting the toy back took up valuable training time and discouraged us from using toy rewards as much I we would have like to.

Treats make for such quick turn over of training. Action treat treat eaten in a second action again etc. This may work in some environments. In Agility we need our dogs to be fired up and wanting to have fun with us. It is a game. The more we include play the more we will be able to get out of our dogs.

Play is usually interpreted as tug as it takes 2 and brings in natural instincts. Don't forget any physical interaction can be play. For agility relationships the key is the interaction needs to be between the dog and handler.

Well I will continue to teach Oddjob to tug for those very reason. 

Meanwhile like many people I am tempted to progress to some agility equipment training. So being a bit impatient and wanting to keep physical interaction I devised a cunning plan on the straight line jump grids. 

As mentioned Oddjob loves climbing onto things. He also likes jumping into things. The previous owner left a low feed bucket which is ideal for pug jumping into. I rewarded any time he jumped in the bucket for a few days. Then put it at the end of a jump grid. We started with the last jump and into the bucket and back chained to doing 5 jumps now. Once in the bucket he immediately looks to me for a reward so although it is a little cheat he is still working for me. 

I am not watching his jump action as my focus is the bucket ready to verbally praise once he is there but Mark has seen him and says he bounces beautifully.

We have only done this a couple of times and I will leave this now for a while as he doesn't need to do too much jumping. I'm disappointed I didn't get Mark to video though.

I did get Oddjob to pose in his new coat though

Empowering the Pug

Oddjob is a great little dog and we are so glad we got him.

With all the moving, Olympia, Christmas and then concentrating on the Wag and Tone eBook it suddenly dawned on me that he just lives with us. By that I mean he doesn't have a relationship with us. Well not the kind of relationship that we normally have with our dogs.

Our other dogs were brought up with a strong working relationship. We spent time developing a strong foundation built on great a positive reward based structure. This structure created the work ethic as it is known within all the Border Collies.

The work ethic of doing something right in order to earn a reward creates a life where we work on avoiding situations that involve any correction. This means simple basics like understanding go to your bed are actually taught and rewarded so although they may have preferred not to go they will as they had been rewarded enough. This paid huge dividends in helping them (and us) cope with living in other houses.

I have spent time re rewarding this behaviour in their new house where the beds are in a different place. I have also rewarded sitting in gate ways on the way to the field to help them calm down and not crash racing through gates.

Torro Devo and Rhyme waiting to be called through the gate

You'll notice Oddjob wasn't there. He would just not understand that behaviour and until he learns how to "work" he is almost entirely likely to fail any attempt I made to teach it.

Being small and calmer he is not likely to harm himself racing through gateways and he generally just hangs around so doesn't need to know the behaviour. But he does so much want to.

Oddjob trying to work out what to do

Without going right back to basics he will never be able to acheive exactly what I want. There is no way I easily explain it to him.

So I called in reinforcements our friends Greg and Laura Derrett International Instructors, Handlers and owners of UKA and UKI. Luckily they have also managed to make time to create Ultimate Agility. This gives access to their knowledge and help through online courses. Again luckily for me (and Oddjob) they have just started one on Reinforcement.

www.ultimateagility.com

How perfect is that.

I know I love the way Greg and Laura look at dog training - how important it is to them to use positive reinforcement over any other training and how well they put information across. It will be a lot of focus on Oddjob and myself and it will be uncomfortable for me at times facing up to the things I could do better.

It will also be the best thing we ever could have done together and I am very confident that Oddjob will come out as a dog many people envy and I will be a much better dog trainer.

If you are at a point when you notice you are spending more time saying no to your dog than praising it then I would thoroughly recommend spending the money on this great course.

Agility training begins

Well despite the fact we didn't get Oddjob to do agility it goes without saying that any dog of ours will learn to do some agility.
As we are moving away and have passed UpAndover to a committee of club members I thought I would take the opportunity to train Oddjob in a foundation group.

The first week we only stayed 10 minutes as I wanted to keep his attention and so he would not to learn to eat off the floor as can sometimes happen :)

His attention was great although I didn't persuade him that it would be a great place to play. He was very happy to do loads of other things for treats though.
We will build play into it at home once we get set up again.

Last week we went again and without realising it stayed the whole hour. 
I chose to pick him up a couple of times to prevent habit forming of discovering the tasty horse droppings when I wasn't able to keep him doing things. I will probably train him to sit on a fold down chair or something if I mind a need to have to train in an equestrian school.
Enthusiastic is not the word - he was so bubbly about doing stuff. He ran over poles on the ground, in and out of boxes, along a dog walk plank and was just so happy :)

On Sunday it was the first Agility 1st Conference and they included doing some assessments for people that had just completed their modules. I had been asked if I would mind volunteering a dog and happily said yes thinking of Rhyme. What I didn't realise was that 2 of the students were doing assessments on dogs new to the equipment so they needed Oddjob.

A bit of a conflict as I haven't done anywhere near the prep work and haven't even decided on whether to train a run or a stop so not at all ready for equipment. However the instructors had worked hard in order to do the assessments so quickly and I did not want to let them down so Oddjob joined in.

Well I found it much harder to join in with a group with a small dog as it was harder to look up from him to the instructor. It was more difficult for me to give rewards at the right time and place as I had to bend down. It was even more difficult to see where he was LOL.

All that said I'm a quick learner and will get that mastered in order to train him as he was great. 

Karen White who runs Pugilty was one of the instructors so it was a bit nerved racking. She said that often people don't expect Pug's to be so athletic so are always pleased with their first performance.

Well that may be true but he was good and I was pleased. He just loved having a go. 

What I was even more pleased about was when I sat on the floor with him in between goes he played with my fleece scarf for a while.

We won't do any more equipment based training for a while now and when we go back to it he will remember the experience as great fun.

As an instructor of a club we often find that with dogs and people new to agility it is better if they come every week to keep up with each other and don't miss out on anything new. Conversely over the years we often have to dip in and out of training with our young dogs due to time constraints and have found that it has worked in our favour with the youngsters coming back more eager and confident about the last stage. It is often said that dogs are latent learners which is why that works. Hopefully it will work with Oddjob too.

Oddjob also attended his first Wag and Tone class which he thoroughly enjoyed.

.

Mud Pies

I totally mistimed my dog walk on Wednesday and despite blue skies and a bit blowy when I left the car 10 minutes later we had torential rain. As Sandrine would say il pleut comme vache qui pisse.

The Collies continued to have a blast running around. Myself not having the correct clothing on and Oddjob were not so keen.

We bravely carried on albeit a bit of a shortened route and as the rain got worse even a couple of the collies started looking at me for ideas of where to shelter. Oddjob was sorted walking directly behind me using me as cover.

My initial idea on the walk was to work on Oddjobs unhappiness with mud. Not far from where we park there are quite a few molehills. Ideal not too muddy but dirty and weird when stood on.

On the way out before the rain we stopped and Oddjob was given his precious chicken in exchnage for putting his feet on the molehills and due to clever plavement of reward was enjoying eating as his feet sunk into the molehill.

As we hurried back towards the van in the pouring rain I glanced at the molehills and was delighted although surprised to see Oddjob look up at me and deliberately plant his front feet onto the molehill and await his reward :)

Very pleased with this as he demonstrated that he was happy to work in such miserable weather and that he was liking the molehill game. What I wasn't so pleased about was that as I bent over to reward him a gap opened between my relatively waterproof coat and my not waterproof at all and already soaking trousers revealing an area of skin that created a lovely watercourse for the rain down - well I'll say no more LOL.

Last night I took Oddjob along to UpAndOver Dog Agility Club foundation class for his first taste of an agility class and so we can list that he started his agility career with them as it may be a long drive to take him to classes once we move. He isn't really ready for full on classes yet as he is still learning about learning and having fun with us. He wasn't overwelled or noisy and paid attention when called. He climbed on the wobbleboard and walked on a seesaw plank, He got in and out of various boxes and go on to the stools. He even did a recall over a pole on the ground to me and then back to give Dee a puggle. He did the boxes, stools, wobbleboard and seesaw quite happily with a great attitude but was not rushing to get to me over the pole on the ground. I do not want him to learn to do anything slowly so will work on recall speed before revisiting any obstacles. It was great to have a chance to have a taster though and helps steer our training for the next thing.

As it is quite dirty at the equestrian centre I didn't take his brand new favourite tugging toy instead opting for one of Rhyme's similar to another that he plays happily with. It was not a sucess with him so I also have to add playing around distractions to his list of things to do.