Learning "Sit Pretty"
We have been hard at work over here learning all sorts of things and directing all of that puppy energy into some pretty amazing stuff. This past week I decided to try “Sit Pretty” with Japhy. It’s one of the harder tricks to learn, especially for big thick dogs, but he’s making some good progress. At eight months old, he’s still not great at maintaining balance, as you’ll see in the video, and he sometimes uses my hand to keep himself standing upright. But if you need a smile, this video should maybe do it.
Enjoy! (more below the video)
On another note, Friday night a friend was in town and we worked on a photography project in the studio until about 2 a.m. Japhy was in his kennel, but I could hear him moving around so I know he didn’t sleep well until I came to bed shortly after 2. The next day (yesterday) we slept a little later than usual and then ate breakfast, went for a walk, ate lunch, did some short training sessions, and he seemed fine. Around 3 p.m. I needed to work on art festival prep—matting and signing photos and such—as my first festival is next week, so I kenneled him to avoid any catastrophic mishaps involving my prints and his teeth. At 5 p.m. I let him out to eat dinner and he came out slowly, acting very tired. He wouldn’t eat his dinner. He climbed up on my bed and went back to sleep. Aside from stealing the adhesive strip backing from a photo protective sleeve yesterday evening in the studio, and then picking up his Fi Dog collar from its charging base this morning and taking it back to bed with him, he has mostly not been his usual energetic, troublemaking self. He hasn’t eaten breakfast this morning, except for a couple of slices of banana dipped in peanut butter. He’s drinking water, but mostly he’s just sleeping. I’ve given him two 1000mg tablets of Vitamin C (one yesterday afternoon and one this morning). I’m watching him closely, and there are no upper respiratory symptoms. But as you might imagine, I’m very nervous. If he’s not back to his crazy self by tomorrow morning, I plan to call our vet.
I’ll be glad when we have reached the point, months or years post-distemper, when him getting sick doesn’t scare the bejeezus out of me. Of course, after two dogs dying of cancer in five years, and then dealing with distemper, I may never get to that point.
Please send us some good vibes, fellow Love Dogs. I’ll keep you posted.