Moved - 150% Corgi

I've seen a few new pageviews on this site recently, so it seemed prudent to post a note saying that I'm no longer updating this (obviously). For all your Corgi needs, please check out my new site, 150% Corgi:

Potty Problems...

So Marcus has an embarrassing little secret. He has some potty problems. I originally hadn't planned to post about it here, but apparently it's a funny story, so I figured I'd share it.

When we got Marcus, he hadn't been lifting his leg to pee for very long. As a result, he wasn't terribly skilled at it. Many times, he would put his leg down mid-stream, or he'd get tired of having his right leg up, so he'd put it down and lift his left leg. The end result was him peeing everywhere - on the backs of his paws, his belly, etc. I was sort of hoping that neutering would help a teeny bit, since many dogs don't mark quite as much post-neuter.

How wrong I was! Because Marcus doesn't want to pee a teeny tiny bit on 27 million things anymore, he now pees a whole lot in 1-2 bursts. Frequently directly into the backs of his front paws. The phenomenon has lead to Aaron giving him the nickname of "yellow paw". But it's not limited to his paws either. Sometimes, he decides to pee when his but is at a higher elevation than his face. In typical doggy style he's sniffing all over the place while doing his business, so he either pees right on his face, or ends up sniffing up his pee and sneezing.

Unfortunately, it's not just a pee-related issue. His signals seem to be somewhat crossed when it comes to going poop too. It seems that he seems to believe on occasion that he needs to poop in a high up place as well. The end result is that he sidles his little bunny butt up a tree, and then poops. Then, he freaks out because his poop comes rolling back to attack him! It's so funny to watch.

I am hoping that over time, he will get a bit more adept at keeping himself clean, but until then, it looks like we'll be giving him very regular baths.

Recovering

So, Marcus recovered quickly from his neutering. Too quickly if you ask me, because before we knew it he was up and running spastically around the house like nothing was ever wrong with him. And of course the moment that he could stand up, he wanted to start licking at his incision.

We tried numerous options to keep him off of them. We started with the bitter apple spray that the vet had given us, but Marcus quickly realized that it only tasted bad for a lick or two, and then he had unfettered access. Then we tried household methods - tee shirts, boxer shorts, anything that we could attach to his rump. No good there, he's far skinnier than Aaron or myself. We got a cone from the vet, but that lasted all of a few minutes, because as soon as we got it on him, he just started bashing his head against things to try and get it off. Not wanting him to knock himself senseless, I finally drove to the PetSmart and got him a doggy diaper.

As it clear from the image above, he was initially not too thrilled with the concept of wearing a diaper. He was confused by the fabric touching his legs, and seemed to be convinced that his hind legs wouldn't work anymore. After a while though, he was running, jumping, and back to his old self.




As a reward for all the misery that he had to suffer since his surgery, we took him to the Dog Park this weekend, and he got to run around and play with other doggies off leash. He was absolutely, positively thrilled. I am constantly amazed when we get him offleash - he can run so fast! He starts obedience classes on the 22nd of this month, and after that we're going to see what other classes he likes. Right now, I think he'd love agility, lure coursing, and tracking.

Sad Puppy :-(

It's been a rough time for my little buddy. Two weeks ago he got shots which gave him bad diarrhea and required a followup visit for the vet. While there we asked about the little scabs that had shown up all over his body (including areas that he can't really get to easily), and the vet also prescribed that we give him Benadryl for a bit, as it appeared to be an allergic reaction.

This past Thursday, he was finally neutered. I think that I took it worse than he did - it definitely was not fun leaving the vet's office without him. Fortunately, everything went well, and he was released sooner than we anticipated. He hadn't licked at his stitches at the vet's office, so he was sent home without a cone of shame. We did receive instructions that he wasn't to run, jump, or climb stairs for two days.

When we picked him up, he didn't even seem to recognize us, or to have a clue what was going on around him. He was walking very wobbly, and had a hard time raising his leg to go to the bathroom. So when we got home, I didn't think he'd be that hard to keep off the steps. I held him while Aaron went down to the car to bring up his travel crate to block the stairs. And of course, the second daddy was gone, he had a moment of lucidity, and went bounding down the stairs.

For most of the rest of the night, he did what you see in the picture above - laid around looking half asleep. We were told to feed him at 6, but he didn't end up eating anything until 11. He whined on and off through the night, which of course made me feel terrible.

Friday morning he was almost entirely back to normal. Which meant that he was incredibly upset by the fact that I said No whenever he tried to jump on something, and that I would not play fetch with him. I ended up spending much of my time reassuring him that he was still loved.

Today he was even harder to get to stop jumping. He's not really acting like a dog that had surgery just two days ago. I was surprised at how fast he has bounced back from the procedure. I honestly expected a day or two of lazy Marcus!

New Toy!

There will be a more substantial post in a bit, but I wanted to share this video of Marcus with his new toy!

Grooming + New Food!

Marcus has a slight problem. He's a boy. His aim is terrible. Half the time he either pees on his own feet, pees on his belly, or falls while peeing getting it all over himself. This plus a new hobby of rolling in dead things and poop meant that Marcus reeked. I decided to take him to Great Dogs of Great Falls to get groomed, because I'd heard good things about them. Also, I was hoping a bit of trimming of his belly fur and his pants would make him a hair less messy when he was going potty, and I wasn't really willing to go at him in sensitive areas with a pair of scissors. Let's not traumatize the poor boy before he gets neutered!

So he got a nice bath, a nail trimming, and a teeny bit of his fur trimmed, and came back to us smelling like a clean dog, and very, very happy. Marcus really loves being pampered. The groomer said he was a perfect angel the whole time he was getting done. And he has this cute little bandanna on that he seems to at least tolerate!



I've been doing some research on dog foods just for giggles, and I came across discussing of Proportions. Basically, there philosophy is that it's difficult to get all the necessary nutrition into a dry food. While dry food is still a component of the diet, there is also a dehydrated fruit and vegetable component, and a pumpkin and chicken stew component. It's apparently one of the more complete dog diets out there, without some of the side effects associated with a raw diet (like potential gastrointestinal issues, or nutrition issues).

I decided rather than to use their kibble that I was going to just use the kibble that Marcus is already on, and add the stew and fruits/veggies in the evening. He's been on it for two days, and so far he seems to really enjoy it. He licks his dish clean (and then some) and he gets more excited about it than basically anything else I've given him, save cooked lean ground beef. I think it reminds him more of human food as well, so he feels like he's getting the same food that his Mommy and Daddy are.

I've been pretty fond of it too. He's been playing with his food less and actually eating it more, and he seems to be begging for our food at dinner less (although, he's never really done it a lot). It adds about an extra $1.50 per day to the dog feeding expenses, but I think in the long run it will be worth it. I assume it'd be a bit cheaper if I went with their kibble and did the bundle deal, but he really likes his kibble and I didn't want to mess with that.

Fourth of July Weekend

We didn't want to do anything with potential for explosives of Fourth of July since we didn't really know how Marcus would handle them, so we ended up visiting my parents on the 3rd so they could meet Marcus. As you can see from the short video clip, Marcus liked having a huge yard to run and play in. It's really hard to video a fast moving Corgi.



While we had burgers, Marcus got to sniff things, pee on things, roll in things, and run around like crazy. He seemed to enjoy himself thoroughly despite the fact that it was really hot out. Fortunately, we kept Marcus cool with a combination of lot's of ice water, trips into the house, and a spray with the hose (which he was less than fond of).



Perhaps one of the funniest things to happen during the day was when Marcus met Pongo, my parent's African Grey. Pongo was alright with Marcus, so long as he didn't get too close to her cage. The problem was, Pongo kept whistling, not realizing that's frequently how we summon the dog. So Marcus would walk away, Pongo would whistle, Marcus would come running over, then Pongo would start growling at him for being too close. It was quite funny.

For July Fourth, we stayed in. We were near enough to some fireworks to hear but not see them. At first, Marcus seemed curious about the noises. Then I made the mistake of trying to take him out for his nightly walk while the fireworks were going off. He alternated between trying to run towards the fireworks and trying to run to the noisemakers that our neighbors down the street were using. As a result, he ran back and forth and back and forth until I finally managed to get him back into the house. He was a little skeptical of going outside afterwards.

I've ordered a couple packets of Proportions dog food. It should be arriving soon. We intend to keep Marcus on the kibble he is getting now, and add the broth and veggie packs from Proportions. Hopefully, he'll like it.