Our vet is a very nice lady who senses that Jack is a very shy, timid, pup…so she showers him with lots of love and attention, rather than jumping right into the checkup, shots and what not. She always says that he has an especially nice temperament and calls him a “good pup”.  He didnt even make a peep when given his two shots, one for lyme and one for distemper. She also took blood from his front paw to check for heartworm.  He isnt up for his next rabies shot until next year. (And our town actually does rabies vaccines for free every November at the fire house).

Jack was 11.8 pounds at last years checkup…and this year he was 12.6  The vet said that he is a good weight…but it wouldnt hurt if he lost the point 6. It should be a little easier getting him to run around outsisde, now that the weather is starting to warm up. 

We have also just set up a way for visitors to subscribe to our blog…so you can easily find out when we have added new stuff. Just go to the top right of this page, where it says Follow Jack and add your email address.  We are hoping to get some new pictures, video and info on here very soon…so stayed tuned… And just for a little teaser….Jack has finally mastered… ROLL OVER!!

We live in a condo complex with about 12 to 15 other dog owners which gives us a good chance to let our dog get to know other dogs.  This is what I’ve noticed about Jack and the other dogs who are all very friendly.

• 8 of them Jack just ignores
• 4 to 5 he will kinda play with and sniff a bit
• The last two Jack will just start growling and barking as soon as he catches wind of them coming.

He turns into Cujo!   I can barely hold him back, in fact he broke out of the mettle ring that holds the leash to his collar.

One of these dogs is a 6 month old French Mastiff who from the first sniff Jack was in attack mode.  The owner keeps calls Jack, “Killer”.  The other dog is a beagle and just like the French Mastiff, Jack didn’t like him from the moment they met.  I have no idea why he doesn’t like these two dogs, maybe they smell bad or something?@?

Does anyone else’s Yorkie-Bichon behave like this?

This past Saturday night was the worst. I suspect some of our guests at a party we had fed him some table food.  At this point we were only feeding him chicken and rice and had just started to see some improvement but that all went to hell in a handbag Saturday night.   Jack sleeps in our bed, and when he is about to throw up or go to the bathroom he is thankfully smart enough to jump off the bed first.  This alerts my wife (I’m a heavy sleeper and could get hit in the head by a brick and not wake up) that something is wrong.  We put him back in bed, but he jumped back down moments later…so I quickly rushed him outside thinking something was about to explode.  YUP!

During the night, Jack had to be let out 3 times and another time in the morning.  I’d be lying to you if I said we managed to anticipate all his movements as we found a few spots where he had gone to the bathroom on the rug.  Let me tell you that stuff is a pisser to clean up.  So after that night we did not feed him for 24 hours and then started him on a regimen of chicken and white rice only.

I’m happy to say that Jack is officially clogged up now and should be returning to normal pretty soon.   Just like humans who take Imodium, dogs will usually not go to the bathroom at all for a day or so until their stomachs start to feel better.  Jack’s tummy isn’t making those sickly noises anymore so we are on track for a full recover any day now.

Oh, and Jack LOVES chicken and rice!

On some other notes…Since I’ve been home pretty much 24/7 for the last 5 weeks because of my foot surgery, I think Jack has completely gotten used to it and has permanently affixed himself to my side.  He lays on my lap all day long, follows me from room to room and won’t even go outside with my wife unless I make like I’m going to out as well.  He’ll run up to me and stare at me until I come with.  Very cute, but he is going to be in for a rude awakening when I have to go back to work in a little over a week.

I will say that if we didn’t have him, my time at home would have been much harder.  He allows me to take play breaks, even though he still wants me to chase him around the kitchen table.  I can do that, but i’m VERY slow to say the least.  I’ve resorted to getting an old towel from the linen closet and playing tug-a-war until he tires.  Nothing gets his lower jaw quivering like a fresh towel.  I’ll have to try and capture, on video, when his jaw quivers with excitement.

I’m off to Chili’s with the Wife.  Have a good weekend everyone!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O7hfVNqdMc

Jack will stop after a few minutes, but to help your dog stop reverse sneezing a little quicker you have to get them to swallow.  An easy trick for doing this is to cover their nose and that’ll make your pup swallow.  I’ve tested this out on Jack and it works very well.  He will swallow and the reverse sneezing will usually come to an end.  I don’t believe there is a cure for it, but we are going to show the video to our vet when Jack goes in for his yearly checkup next month.

With Jack we have noticed over the past year he tends to lick and lightly bite on his legs until the fur is completely wet.  It doesn’t seem to get overly red or irritated though so part of me thinks that he is just cleaning himself.  However, Jack does not like it when you touch that area and will pull his leg away or even show his teeth a little.

I have been trying to pay close attention to him with the hopes of finding the cause of the allergy.  Maybe it’s the type of food he is eating or a treat that we give him causes the itchy legs.  There is no particular season of the year  that brings it on because he has been doing it routinely.  Magoo will literally spend thirty minutes just licking and licking and licking.  Sometimes you wish the little guy could talk and just say “Hey!  my legs are itchy” or “It’s nothing, I’m just keeping up my appearance”.

All in all it doesn’t look to be causing any damage to his legs, he never draws blood or irritates the area that much.  On our next vet visit we’ll bring it up and see what the doc has to say.