Dog ACL Surgery

We got the x-ray results, and Binsey has totally ripped her ACL!  It's a ligament that normally holds the thigh bone to the calf bone (or whatever they called are in dogs) and if it breaks, the bones rub on each other and it's really painful.  You wouldn't know it from the way she only slightly limps, and even the vet said she was jumping around trying to play with him in the exam room!  She's one tough cookie.

Apparently they get at least one of these cases a week at our vet's, which is surprising, but it's also a bit of a relief to know he does this kind of surgery a lot.  There's a 93% success rate, and half the time they still have a limp afterwards.

Right now I'm just glad we still have pet insurance on her!  She goes under the knife in a few days for the 2.5 hour surgery, and they might keep her for two nights.

The Dog's Football Injury

Seeing your pet feeling uncomfortably really stinks.

We were playing fetch with Binsey in the back yard, and while she was racing for the ball, like she's done thousands of times, she squeeked loudly (which she's only ever done a handful of times) and laid down.  We ran up to her and found a sharp rock wedged between her paw pads. She wasn't bleeding but she also didn't want to walk on it, so we took her to the vet.  He didn't find any broken bones, but gave her some arthritis drugs just in case and said she should stay off it for 5 days.  Fast forward to now and she's still limping.  So back to the vet.  This time, he thinks it might actually be her knee, and she might have the doggy equivalent of a torn ACL.  There's a surgery they can do for that, but she's back on the arthritis drugs for a bit longer to see if that might help make it better.  Surgery is always a last resort, and there's no guarantee it'll completely fix the problem.

And did you know that dogs can get seasonal allergies?  This year, and the same time last year, Binsey started scratching and nibbling at herself a ton.  Last year she got an allergy shot and that fixed it, but this year she can't get it until she's done with the arthritis drugs and some stomach drugs she's on too (yeah, that started the same time - and just know that a limpy dog with digestive problems is not something you want to deal with).  Poor thing is falling apart and she's only 3!

On the fun side, I just entered Binsey in a "Laziest Dog" photo contest on Dogbook (it's on Facebook).  You can see her entry and vote for it here.  If we win, we get a $250 gift certificate to LeLePets that I can use to buy a fancy new dog bed to replace the one she chewed up in the picture!

Sittin' Pretty

Binsey has a pretty new collar, thanks to my friend, Jackie, who got it for my birthday. Thanks Jackie!

Her sister owns a company, Souldier, and makes these in all sorts of patterns using recycled seat belts and vintage materials. Her main thing is guitar straps, but she makes all kinds of strappy things. Check her stuff out if you're in need of something like this. Binsey is quite happy with hers! Plus, I love anything that's made in the US and is nice quality and all that.

The Birthday Dog

Somebody just turned 1! We think Binsey was born around July 4 (the guy we got her from did not remember when the pups were born). It is crazy that the 4.5 pound roly-poly pup we brought home last August is now a 62 pound nearly-grown dog. We've been keeping a chart of her growth. Hopefully the slowdown will continue because I struggle to lift her!


She is getting a bit too large for the dog bed we bought last year (and had to hide from her for a few months because she was eating it). You can see she is unsure of how she feels about it.



In people news, we have been grilling out a lot. Last week, we tried out our new rotisserie with some pork. The rotisserie has a motor on one end, so you just put it in there with the rotisserie burner on, push the button and let it cook. Yum!

Time for bed

Here's what Binsey does when she wants to go to bed. I should note that she sleeps in her crate with this blanket, however she won't settle down in there until you give her a treat and rub her ears. She'll tote the blanket around wherever you are until she gets tucked in.

From Binsey

From Binsey

Good things

It's one of those days. I've got a big paper due tomorrow and a bunch of small but annoying problems have come up (one of which is that the study where I'm working looks like it was hit by a tornado with my journal articles all over the floor). So here's some good stuff that has been going on.

1. Binsey was sent out by herself to get the newspaper for the fourth day in a row. She successfully brought it back and dropped it on the doorstep. She also did not get mud from the gardening all over the carpet today.

2. I'm sipping a tasty amaretto flavored iced coffee (non-alcoholic - I have a paper to write!)

3. Our water & sewer bills arrived today and they were lower than usual.

4. The air conditioner is all fixed after 4 weeks of repair action and the service was covered by our builder.

5. Despite waking up to find I'd "ruined" my homemade yogurt by adding too much starter, I can still turn it into cheese! It's currently draining in a cheesecloth. I also discovered I can take the liquid whey and make ricotta cheese - so that's TWO kinds of homemade cheese!

6. I saw a beautiful FULL double rainbow yesterday!

7. My wonderful husband has been working really hard to make our front yard look gorgeous with new flowers including three hanging baskets with petunias, and planting, lavendar, creeping phlox, saskatoon berry bushes and some kind of berry-bearing tree whose name I forget.

8. The dog escaped through the gate yesterday morning while I was upstairs getting dressed (with all the gardening the gate was accidently left open), and all she did was run around to the front door and bark to get back in! No chases, no nothing!

9. We finally hung up our most expensive wall art - our diplomas!

10. I had a nice chat with my awesome sister-in-law Anne today.

11. I'm done with my teaching assistant job for this semester.

12. Binsey is making cute puppy sleeping noises

13. It is a beautiful day - bright sunshine and not too hot.

14. All I have to do is finish this paper in the next 24 hours and I'm done for the semester! Just 5-10 more pages!

Training Continues

We're about half way through Canine Good Citizen training at Hacker's Creek Kennel here in Bloomington. We decided after boarding Binsey there over Christmas that we just had to go there for training beacuse she came back behaving WAY better than when we dropped her off. Jeff is a fantastic trainer and has basically devoted his life to training dogs, particularly labrador retrievers. He sells some of his trained dogs to families, so if you're in the market for a dog and don't have time to deal with all the puppy shenanegans, this is a great option! Since we've been working with him, we've even noticed that Binsey is listening to us more because we've learned how to be better leaders for her.


Sure, we did the PetSmart puppy class, but Binsey is such a strong-willed dog that she needs some extra training (or at least we needed extra training in how to deal with her!). Positive reinforcement only (treat training) is a great way to go if you have a mild-mannered dog, but for a brute like Binsey we needed more variety. Remember that Yuppie Puppy harness I was so excited about? It is not a good solution and I think it just brings out her husky instinct to pull! So we started using a choke chain (I hate that name), but Jeff explained to us how it's actually more humane because it distributes the pressure around their neck rather than just on the front with a regular collar. It's true - she stops pulling and doesn't cough/choke like she did with the regular collar. And now that we can "communicate" with the collar, she's listening to us more even when she doesn't have the chain on.



She's still a work in progress, but she's turning into a real sweetheart who loves to fetch and chew her toys and lie at our feet for belly rubs.

Here she is fetching for Paul (she decided for the past few months that she didn't want to fetch, and then one day she randomly decided she loved it):

Snow's melted

Well, it seems we're free of snow for a while. It's nearly all melted, so on Saturday we took Binsey to McCormick's Creek park down the road from us. The weather was great - in the 50s and sunny! Yes, finally sunny!

The park had some great things for retriever puppies, like sticks


and big leaves (note how suspicious she is of the leaf)


You may also notice that she's got a loose leash in the top picture - an important thing if you've been through any basic dog training. Well, it's not because of training. It's because we got this device for her from Yuppie Puppy. It's a harness that goes over her head with loops attached that go around her legs. If she pulls, the loops tighten and she stops. It is sooo much better than the nose harness we were recommended during the puppy training classes (she'd just freak out and rub her nose all over the ground trying to get it off). So for the park, we attach the Yuppie Puppy to the expandable leash and she can check out all the leaves, etc while still being able to keep her close if other people walk by.

Snow!

We've been hit by several snow storms, as has much of the rest of the country. While it's not so fun for us to shovel it, nor to try to drive on it when we don't have 4WD cars, Binsey is one happy puppy.

She really wanted to help Paul shovel...

So I brought her outside and she got right in there and told the snow where to go


And when the snow got out of line, she snuck up on it


Meanwhile, we're on week 3 of waiting for our HOA to approve our fence. It will be so nice to let Binsey run around off leash! And nice for us not to have to bundle up in our snow gear every time she needs to go out... Hopefully it'll come through soon!

New Couch

Big excitement here this morning at the Simacek house: we got a COUCH!
Here it is in all its sitting glory:


Also, it snowed a couple inches last night, and Binsey's face is loving it!

A Domestic Experiment

Today we decided that Binsey is finally old enough that we can comfortably move her crate from our bedroom to the living room downstairs. As she's gotten bigger, there is more of her that smells like a dog and as much as we like her, we'd prefer to have our separate sleeping spaces.

We moved her crate down there late this afternoon and put her in there after dinner. So far, she's been pretty quiet there apart from a few grumbles and some whining. Hopefully tonight will be a quiet one!

Puppy Graduation

Today Binsey graduated from her puppy class at PetSmart. She's really come a long way from jumping/nipping constantly while ripping our clothes to shreds, to now when she can sit nicely to meet new people.

Here's the little trooper (she still has to wear the donut for another week or so):


And here's the whole class - there was just one other dog, a lab/terrier mix the same age as Binsey, named Luna. They became good buddies through the class and I'm sure they'll miss each other!

From snow cone to donut

Well, it turns out that Elizabethan collars turn into chew toys as well. Binsey chewed off a good chunk of it, so we had to find another option. I like to call the E collar a "snow cone" for the following reason:



Thankfully, they make alternative safety collars for dogs, and we found this one called the ProCollar, which inflates like those airline neck pillows and looks like a donut.


Hopefully she won't find a way to eat the donut!

Puppy Fun

Here's some pictures of Binsey with her holiday fun stuff:

Grandma sent her a card, which she enjoyed playing with after she stole it out of my hands while I showed it to her.


My parents sent her a screaming monkey toy (actually, two toys, but so far she hasn't ripped apart the first one). She's a little startled by the screaming, so she sneaks up on it, rather than charge it, after we throw it.


We also got her a cheap soccer ball to chase around, but she decided it was more fun to pick it up in her mouth and tote it around.


It may be impossible to get her any toy that doesn't turn into a chew toy!

No litters of puppies, thank you.

On Monday we had Binsey spayed. She spent the night recovering at the vet's and came home yestrday afternoon. It all went very smoothly and she's doing very well. Now she has two weeks to heal, and after 10 days she can have her stitches taken out. I was scared about the incision because they said it'd be pretty big, but it's only got three stitches and really isn't all that gross looking. But, last night she was licking herself, and we were worried she might take a nibble at the stitches (she didn't, thankfully), so she's stuck in an "e collar" now.


It's a little big for her, and she can't navigate too well with it on, but at least we'll all be able to sleep peacefully now (she's on some good pain meds). Given how much she likes to chew, we didn't want to take any chances! She shouldn't need it after a week or so, and she really only needs it when she's going to take a nap in her crate.

After this is all done, she can finally go to the dog park and work out all that energy she's storing up!

Backseat Driver

In the garage, Binsey tells her chauffeur to hurry it up, please!


We've since bought a hard plastic kennel for Binsey to stay in for her car rides (much safer for her), but on this day she stayed on my lap in the back seat and fell asleep as usual. Something tells me she's not going to be a big fan of riding in the kennel versus on my lap!

Sayonara, Grasshopper!

Binsey is an avid hunter. She likes to chase bugs, and until recently enjoyed eating them. Now, she just likes to pick them up, taunt them and then crunch them in her growing adult teeth. Here's one that she decided to sneak into the house in her mouth (still alive!). It lasted about a minute before she crunched on it and spat it out. So gross!



At least I know I'll have someone to kill bugs when Paul's not home.

Packing on the Pounds

Guess who's tipping the scales at almost 25 pounds now!


She eats so fast we have to give her her meals in that green/purple thing next to her. It's a food-dispensing toy that she has to push around to get her kibble. It's great because this way she has a "job" to do and it occupies her for up to 45 minutes - much better than the 15 seconds it takes her to inhale a meal from her bowl.

That's Pants!

You might not be familiar with the phrase "that's pants" since it's used only in the UK. It means "That stinks" or "that's awful". Well, it certainly applies to things around our house right now as Binsey is learning not to jump up on us. We took her to her first puppy kindergarten class this Saturday, and the trainer said she acts just like a normal puppy, but when she jumps up she also tries to bite and tug on our clothes, frequently ripping our pants. Not so much fun. In fact, that's pants!

And related to the puppy class, once again we were the only ones in the course. That sounds like a good thing, but really the classes are important for doggy socialization etiquette so you really want to have other "students". So the trainer gave us a private lesson, but signed us up for a different class that starts next week with at least 3 other puppies. We've already started to notice a difference in her behavior since that lesson, so we feel really good about this trainer!

Binsey supervises our yard work

From Binsey