Annie's first trip to the hospital

Just back from the vet-bad news, now hopeful news. Annie was limping yesterday, and today, wouldn't put weight on her back leg at all. I took her to the vet after work, and he felt that her hip was probably broken. It is VERY icy in the yard, and I'm guessing she slipped.

It was too late in the day to give her anesthesia for the x-ray, so he gave her a shot of pain meds, and let me take her home. She has to go back in the morning for x-rays, and possible surgery.

HOWEVER-he said that it was possible that she just had a bad sprain, and that the pain meds might relax the muscle enough to settle things down, and we would know in the morning. He said that if she started walking on it, we would take a "wait and see" approach.

 He was SO good with her. He gave her a quick exam before checking the leg and hip. He confirmed my suscipion that she's almost completely blind. He thanked me several times for adopting her, saying he had a special place in his heart for Aussies. She got her shot, and blood drawn for pre-op testing, and he let us go home.

Annie, all goofy from the pain meds fell asleep in the car. We got home 2 hours later, I carried her in the house, and put her down, and she promplty hopped up and started walking around...on all four legs. I took her outside to do her business, and she ran across the yard.  Trying to keep her from running around is going to be my big challenge of the night. Cross your fingers that it's just a sprain!!!!

I think Dusty (my big black lab mix rescue) really deserves a lot of the credit for training Annie. The two of them are inseperable. When Dusty hears the lid coming off the treat jar, she comes running and Annie comes along. When it's time to come in from the yard, Dusty hears the door open, and Annie follows her in. They are lying on the living room floor together now, chewing on the same bone. I consider myself very lucky to have these two.

Learning so fast!

Annie now knows the signs for come, sit, down and stay. Good dog and bad dog are not coming along so well. I think it may be because of her visual deficit though...she seems to see motion ok, but static objects are a problem. If I put a dog biscuit on the floor, she can't find it. But she can see the sign for "sit" which involves moving the hand and forearm up. I've been using a "thumbs up" for good dog, but I think I may need to find another sign...one that has a motion to it.

I've ditched the idea of the vibrating collar. There seem to be only two varieties on the market...the cheap junk and the prohibitively expensive. I tried pointing a laser pointer on the ground in front of her, and she came running to investigate it. This may be the solution for getting her attention when she is not looking at me.

I had been worried about how Annie would do with my grandchildren. The kids can get pretty rowdy, and Annie does startle easily. Turns out that Annie LOVES kids, and I actually have to keep HER away from them sometimes because she won't leave them alone for a minute!

Here is a link to a video I took of Annie playing with the 2 year old.

Annie and Brecia

Took Annie and Dusty for a long walk today. Dusty gets to run off the leash when we get to the park, and Annie wanted to run with her SO bad! Now that we're home, I'm going to research the vibrating collars more and see if that would be a good option for us.

Some Days...

On a cold day like today, the best thing to do is take a nap with a friend.

It's bitter cold here today, so the dogs are only going out for short periods of time. Annie and Dusty were out, Max, the Maltese of course would have none of that...
I looked out the window, and saw Annie tossing something up in the air, running around and chasing it, and generally having a great time. Having no idea what she was playing with, I went to take a look. No jacket of course, and in my house slippers. What has she got? A dead grackle. I, of course, began shouting and clapping my hands for her to drop it...which, of course, had no effect on her at all. She finally noticed me sliding my way across the icy yard in my house slippers, and dropped the bird. I hadn't thought to bring something to pick it up with, so there I was, holding the poor thing by one claw, saying "Ew, ew, ew," the whole way.

I've been considering the vibrating collar suggested on some deaf dog web sites. Today would be a good example of where one would come in handy...although, it really wouldn't have made much difference. I still would have had to go out and get the bird. Maybe just not in my slippers.

We have now started working on "down". I was trying to use the sign for down that I found online, but for Dusty, I point at the floor and down she goes. It seemed silly to have different signs for different dogs, so pointing at the floor it is. She lost a little of the "sit" momentum, so I'm thinking I need to slow down a bit...and hold off on "down" until sit becomes a little more automatic for her. You can see her thinking every time I sign to her.

Whenever she has a toy or a bone, she runs around the house with it, and whines. My son Nate looked online, and found many posts about dogs with the same issue. Their owners said that the solution was to give the dog someplace to "bury" the toy. A pile of blankets was one of the recommendations. Thus far, it isn't working. Sometimes she finds a spot to hide it, and will settle down, other times I have to take whatever it is away from her, just to calm her down. Last night, NOBODY got much sleep because she was trying to play with and bury all of the toys at once!

Tonight, Annie sat with just the hand signal. I tried it three times to make sure it wasn't just a fluke. She learned it after only 4 days of hit and miss training. Such a smart girl!

Took a walk again this evening. This time, I put Dusty and Annie on a tandem lead, to try to avoid the leash tangling. I had to add an extension, as Dusty is so much taller than Annie. They seemed to miss the freedom of sniffing every inch of ground that we walked over, but this was a business walk, not a play time walk. Annie did fabulous, yet again. She had to stay to the left of Dusty, which seems to be her preferred spot anyway. A few times she forgot, and they got tangled, but not enough to even worry about. I call the walk a success.

We continue working on the '"good dog" sign. Every time she makes eye contact with me, she gets a thumbs up. She thinks there should still be a treat every time, and sometimes tries to sit-because she gets the "good dog" sign when she gets a treat.

I continue to be amazed at the intelligence of this wonderful dog.

On her first day with us, my son Nate took her for a short walk. She'd never been on a leash before, but she did amazingly well.

Today, she went for her first walk with Dusty. After about 10 minutes of leash tangling, they settled down into a nice pattern. Annie walked on the left of Dusty, and watched her for cues. I am totally amazed at how quickly this puppy is learning.

We also started some sign language lessons today. Thumbs up for "good dog" every time she makes eye contact with me. We've been working on "sit" right from the time she came home, and today she did it once without a touch cue. Very exciting!

Meet Annie

On January 10, 2013 I adopted Annie, a 5 month old Australian Shepherd from Teachers Pet Rescue. She is completely deaf and visually impaired. She joins my other two rescues, Dusty, a 3 year old Black Lab/Wolfhound mix and Max, a 10 year old Maltese.

Most of her first day was spent exploring the house. She's very shy, but does fine with the other dogs. She does bump into things a lot, so we are working on clearing obstacles. Dusty wants her to play, but she's still a little to nervous. I have to carry her in and out of the yard, she seems to be afraid of the stairs. I keep talking to her, as if she can hear me, and then I feel a little silly...

I'm doing some research now on training deaf dogs. This will be a joyous challenge!