Lucille goes for a ride

Mama doe, Lucille, got to take a ride yesterday in the back of the hay transport vehicle, our Honda CRV. She has been complaining and rubbing up against anything she can find, to the point where she rubbed off a big swatch of hair on both sides of her neck. Best we could tell after minimal research was that it was either lice or mange (caused by mites) neither of which we were capable of treating.

So while The Husband was in work yesterday, I packed her up into the CRV with a little help from my neighbor, Don on the Hill. She was surprisingly well behaved sporting her pretty collar and leash (both from Sophie). We had to wait in the car for about 45 minutes, but then she walked right into the vet's office like she owned the place.

Other than doing a big P&P in the office, twice!, she was a very cooperative patient. Although she tested negative for both lice and mange, the default diagnosis is mange, which is often missed in the skin scrape and blood test. She has to return in another 2 weeks for a follow-up shot, but will otherwise be fine.

As for the wayward hound dog: I took him up to Don's house to wander because it is much farther from the road than our house, and because he has always been much better at staying with us when we walk up there. Maybe because Don and his dog Bandit weren't home, or maybe because he is just in his bad boy phase, he took off again. I gave up waiting for him and took Sophie home as soon as Don came back. Woody turned up about an hour later looking for us...bad boy...but yes we did praise him profusely when Don brought him back here.

The Obedient Wood Man, part 2

Really the earlier post should have described him as the disobedient one as well, but we are staying focused on the positive because we are working on positive dog training.

Wood Man has been out on the leash only since the last post, because he has discovered that he can easily jump the fence in the back where we let the dogs out to go to the bathroom. He is not happy with his leash-only walks, even though we graduated to the 20-ft Flexi leash. He nearly pulled me off the porch onto the concrete the first time I took him out with the longer leash, but that's definitely my fault for not explaining how this works.

Yesterday, since I did not have to work, I thought I would try to let him go free and test my recall abilities. I am a failure! He went out at 9:30 am, and I didn't get him back until 1:30 pm—and only then because a neighbor helped me. Susan from the horse farm called him to her, and he immediately turned around and ran back to the house...go figure!

At least my "No Road" training seems to have paid off. For all the hours he was running yesterday, he never went out in the road, even though another neighbor was directly across the street playing Frisbee with his dogs.

These photos are post-party. He was totally exhausted for the rest of the day, barely getting up off the chair until bedtime.

A tired dog IS a good dog! If only I could get him tired in some less dangerous way...