Mini Oregon Coast Vacation

We were planning on going to the Oregon coast over Christmas but Violet wasn't settled enough at that time with the new puppy in the house that we decided it wasn't worth adding more stress onto her little fried brain. But these days they're doing pretty good so we went for a quick weekend vacation.

It was the same weekend the Rose City Dog Show event was happening in Portland so we decided to swing by and say hello to some Stafford friends - and a few other 'facebook friends' that I hadn't met before which was fun.

Tucker got to meet his Gramma Sarah - the owner of his sire

Here's Tucker meeting his pappy, Pirate, as well as another lovely Stafford named Mr Peabody.

Post by Nichole Hamilton.

And here's Tucker making some new friends of the children variety. 

Post by Nichole Hamilton.

Then onward to the Oregon coast! We got there with just enough light to allow for a short romp before retiring for the night but they had a lot of fun. Tucker played keep away with the ball, Sadie played fetch, and Violet ran around for 5 minutes before she went lame :(

This gorgeous pic was taken with my iphone of all things. I was kicking myself for leaving my Nikon in the room. The lighting was magical. This is Violet enjoying one of her few romps on the beach. Her knee grounded her to the room for much of the weekend. Poor bug.

The next day we went out and we had some blue skies.

Happy girl

I took Tucker out by himself so he could explore the beach on his own without the girls distracting him. Like a typical puppy he suffers from ADHD and nothing holds his attention for too long. Dogs, people, birds, rocks, sand, feathers, sticks - it was all awesome in his eyes.

Later that evening I let Tucker and Sadie play together. Sadie played ball and Tucker tried to eat her face whenever she came back with the ball. So basically they have their own versions of how this game is supposed to work.

Sadie is incredibly tolerant

Beautiful Manzanita

That night my little Tucker was tuckered - as was my husband

The next day, Sunday, was our last morning on the Oregon coast. First I took Sadie and Violet out and they romped around for 10 minutes before I had to retire her to the room again because of her knee.

Once Violet was done I swapped her out for Tucker. Sadie continued to play fetch while Mr Tucker ate sand and barked at seashells. Oh the life of a puppy.

Overall it was a great weekend. We got to meet up with friends we don't see very often, Tucker got to socialize with pretty much ALL of the Rose City dog show folks, Tuck got to experience new sights, smells, and sounds, all of which will help him continue to grow into a confident little dog. 

All the pics from this weekend can be found here: http://niroha.smugmug.com/Vacation/Oregon-Coast-January-2014

Violet Update - Bum Knee

Since moving to Staffordshire Manor, we've noticed Vi hopping occasionally, holding up her rear right leg. I know that is a sign of luxating patellas. I also know it really isn't a big deal most of the time and surgery is really a last resort. The vast majority of dogs live with it because their quality of life isn't impacted other than being an occasional annoyance on walks. In the mean time, Vi continued to live her life the best way she knows how - by rough housing with her new baby brother.

Violet injured her bad knee a few weeks back and things just haven't been the same since. She's been on Rimadyl for pain and inflammation, was put on crate rest, and we interrupted play time zoomies to allow the knee to heal and hopefully go back to normal - normal being occasional luxating patella but overall functional. In addition we partook in cold laser therapy and craniosacral massage. She enjoyed both - especially the massage - but I think her injury is just too bad to bounce back from.

Massage? Yes please - don't mind if I do!

The cold laser encourages blood flow through the injured area and encourages the body to heal the injured area more quickly - but I think this knee problem is just too much for this treatment alone.

Violet has a few strikes against her:

1) She has straight hind legs. Very straight. This just begs for an injury to happen on a young, athletic dog. It's funny to me that her rear legs are so obvious to me now but it took me a long time (years! Just shy of 4 of them to be exact) before my eyes finally saw it. So in case you need an example to know what hind legs that are too straight look like, here you go.

2) She's a bully breed. That means her blocky build puts more weight on those straight legs of hers.

3) Her play style is crazy. She runs fast - much faster than Sadie - and turns FAST on a dime. Going full speed ahead she will abruptly spin around and come out of it going an entirely different direction. This is why she rocks at the game of keep-away. Sadie turns like a tank and just can't keep up with her. I now hope Tucker also turns like a tank and will never mock them for their tankery again.

Add those three things together and add a luxating patella and you have a recipe for something bad to happen which is what has happened. 

She has gotten to the point where she is favoring that leg and in discomfort daily. I was gently feeling the troubled knee today and felt it pop and move with the most gentle amount of pressure possible. That's not good.

Is there something on my head?

So what's next? I have a phone call in to my regular vet. We have pet insurance and it is good insurance. I've called to make sure an MRI and the necessary surgery will be covered and they will since this isn't a preexisting condition. The patella only came to light after we moved - so we're safe there. So my vet will hopefully refer us for an MRI to make sure there isn't anything else going on besides what we think is going on. Best case scenario she needs her knee cap reshaped and bolted on. The MRI will tell us if my stoic little girl is hiding something worse than that.

They love each other - promise :)

Once we have the MRI results in hand we'll continue with our consult with Dr Fry, the local ortho surgeon. In the mean time, Violet is doing a lot less zoomie zooms and a lot more puppy squishing, like this:

I am worried a lot about the aftermath of this surgery. It's 6-12 weeks of pure hell filled with strict crate rest and strictly followed rehab. Violet is a young dog full of piss and vinegar. This isn't going to be fun. She's also special needs behaviorally. Traditionally the sedation medication of choice is Acepromazine, also known simply as Ace. The problem with ace is it sedates the body but the brain is still wide awake. So if they are angry, scared, nervous, etc they can't move their body or express themselves. When you have a fearful dog and now you've doped them up while their brain is still racing, you're setting them up to be a nervous wreck by the time they come out of it. 

So we have a lot of homework to do. MRI, surgeon consults, medication brain storming, rehab game plan figured out, and somehow keep a puppy trained, keep Sadie mentally and physically exercised, and keep Violet sedated, calm, immobile, and hopefully continue loving the puppy as much as she does right now. I can see she is hurting and her tolerance for him goes down as her knee begins to bug her.

She's a young, active dog with many years of crazy stafford shenanigans ahead of her. We need to get this behind us.

Keep us in your thoughts. We're going to need all the good vibes we can get to come out of this with our sanity and household harmony intact.

Just wanted to add some commentary about the pictures and Violet's activity level. After the initial crate rest we allowed her some more normal movement and some play. We interrupt the crazy zoomies she likes to do but let her play with him if they're mostly stationary. So even though the pictures may look crazy or bad for her knee, we're doing our best to keep her happy and to allow the bonding to continue between her and Tucker. I believe firmly the bonding is KEY to a life long happy household with Violet and Tucker, considering her behavioral issues.  We encourage stationary playing, discourage the zoomie zooms.

Doggy Update - Plus Swimming!

First things first - Tucker made his debut on youtube!

The pups are doing great overall. Violet is enjoying playing with the puppy and Sadie has started getting in on the action. He's growing big and at 12 weeks he weighed 14.8 lbs. So far he is trending to be in the mid to upper 30 lbs when grown. He is good natured, smart, and takes corrections like a champ. I don't think he'll be as drivey as Sadie which is a-o-k with me!

Tucker and Martok lurve each other

While I have enjoyed the fact that Tucker and Violet have really hit it off, it has brought an ugly health problem to the surface that had previously stayed hidden. Before we moved to Staffordshire Manor, we had a small city lot in Seattle. Since Violet doesn't like dogs she never played off leash at any parks. Now she lives on 4 acres and runs her fool head off. This made me notice her luxating patellas. 

Bitey face fun! 

Her right rear leg is the main problem. She hurt it pretty bad after a hard play session with some little boys and with Tucker and it just hasn't been the same since. The patella slips out a lot and by the end of the day she is lame again. Vet visits, massage, cold laser treatments, crate rest, Rimadyl. Next up is surgery. Bummer.

On another note, the pups have continued their swim sessions at Splashdogs. We do this because it's warm water and jets provide a nice low impact exercise session and deep stretches that is good for all the dogs. Tucker went for his first session. We had him in watching Sadie squeal, bark, and have fun fun fun! He was very curious about this wet stuff Sadie was so excited about.

Sadie has fun in there! Tucker finds this intriguing :)

He only got in the water a little at the end. More next month :)

Tucker

It's probably time for me to make my announcement here about the newest member of the Hamilton-Coon family. On Friday, December 6th, I flew down to Nashville, TN to pick up my precious cargo - a puppy we decided to name Tucker. I won't go into the stressful details of that trip, but long story short I made it back to Seattle on Sunday,  December 8th. I flew first class on the way home with him - best decision ever. No regrets.

There are many reasons I decided to sprinkle a little chaos into my life. One is for selfish reasons - my girls are 9 months apart. NINE months. That means I'm going to have my two girls going through end of life stages together. If I could change that time line I would have given a 4-6 year gap between Sadie and my 2nd, but this is how life dealt the cards. Plus I like dogs. They're the best thing since sliced bread. 

I've gotten lots of advice about adding a 3rd. Some key ones I took to heart. Make it a boy and get him before Violet turns 5. The reasoning for that is I already have two girls and adding a 3rd bitch, especially with Violet, would be a horrible idea. And when they hit 5 they begin to become less tolerant of other dogs overall and less likely to accept the new comer. Violet turned 4 in September. We moved into a bigger house with a huge yard. Finances are tight because we just bought a new house but excluding that, the timing is now.

I had a short list of prospective parents to my future puppy. I wanted a healthy pup physically, but even more important than that is he have a rockin' personality. No jackasses allowed. I already have one fickle creature named Violet - I wanted to minimize my chances of getting a troubled terrier personality. I found out a dog on my short list sired a litter with a bitch of sound temperament. I looked. I spoke with the breeders. I thought. I went for it.

In addition to the sound temperament, I wanted him to be sound physically, to the best of our ability to detect, as I want to do agility with this little boy. There were two boys in the litter and I didn't care which one I brought home - maybe even none at all if they weren't a good fit. But the breeder did right by us and picked out a little boy with an awesome personality. He's responsive to the girls signals and gives lots of clear signals himself. Respectful of space and usually a very polite little guy. And he really rolls with the girls' punches. I just love his personality. Not a snarky bone in his body

His coloring is red smut, meaning his red coat has black ticking in it. I think he'll be bigger than the girls. I think he'll probably be about 16" at the shoulder and weigh somewhere around 38 lbs.

Violet has been doing well. Every day she gets better with him. We started out with Tucker being mostly separate from the girls and have allowed them more and more mingle time as  we go along. I was lucky enough to take three weeks off to help with the integration.

We got our first snow today. Nothing like watching a puppy play in the snow for the first time.

So far he has been a wonderful addition to the family. We're looking forward to him growing up into a handsome young man.

Post by Nichole Hamilton.

New Paint!

It's amazing what a new coat of paint will do for a room. When we bought the house there was a lot of this burnt orange color. Someone said it's like an Arizona orange color, and I think that's exactly what they were going for since that is where the previous owners moved when they sold the house. Paint color is a very personal thing, so I don't want to outright say the color was ugly because to someone else it was beautiful - but it didn't suit us at all and it made the room so dark.

The new color may look white but it's really a beige. Technically the color is Devine 'Ash' and once we get some white trim up for contrast the difference will become more apparent. Later, perhaps a 2014 project, the kitchen cabinets will be painted. The color chosen for that project is Devine 'Almond' which is a light blue gray. The almond is also used as an accent wall in the entry room and family room so it all ties together.

The large beams in the ceiling are painted a very dark brown, almost black. We may decide to paint those beams white but we're taking it one thing at a time. Adding a little more light, new paint on the kitchen cabinets, new appliances (no more black, please!) and then we'll see if the beams still need a makeover.

Connecting to this room is the entry room, which used to be the original living room. We use it as a sitting room and for the dog kennels. The same orange color was use on most of the walls. The same Devine 'Ash' was used in this room to connect it to the kitchen. And in this room is the 'Almond' color which will go on the kitchen cabinets. The same ash color went down the hallway, which isn't pictured.

The orange paint is on the right wall and against the wall the couch is against, which isn't picture in this photo. Didn't look good - to us. Now that I'm getting this blog post put together I don't think I realized I lacked a picture of that horrible paint and how it made the room look. Oh well.

After paint make over - I do like the colors. The creamy beige is growing on me. Not sure I would have picked it myself as I am more of a cool beige person but I don't think it would go well in this house with all the wood. You can see the orange on the left side.

The family room was also painted but that will have to wait for another post. Still working on photos of that room.