Vaccines and Worms.

I can't believe that it's Thursday already! It's been reasonably uneventful week for Oscar so far, I think he's settled in a lot more and got into our routine and we've become more used to having him around. And I've been bad and not taken him out socialising as much as I should have (S was ill on Tuesday and I was ill yesterday though, to have some kind of excuse).

Monday was a trip to the vets for 8 week vaccinations. We sat in a waiting room with some other dogs and cats and lots of people talking and waiting at reception and he remained completely not bothered. We went into the consulting room and he stood on the table and was totally chilled out again. The vet was very impressed with the size of him (this is the third vet he's seen!) but less impressed with his docked tail, commenting that it was "quite short". I just said "well, someone from here did it", that shut her up. It's not *that* short, not hock-length as I think is prefered these days but not a stumpy stub by a long chalk, it's about half-way to his hock and is fine. But other than that one comment the vet was really lovely, very concerned as to whether we were getting him out and about and used to everything.

Did I say that he had worms in his poo last week? Canine roundworms. Not nice. Well he did. I mentioned it to the vet and she decided he could do with another wormer in that case, a chewy tablet for me to give him at home the next day. All good.

He weighed him and generally gave him a check over and fuss and then the jab in the back of his neck which he didn't even notice. Good, brave dog. The ladies on reception made a fuss of him while I tried to juggle puppy, paperwork and purse so I could pay! Then is was back home. He slept a lot that afternoon and evening, a combination of the jabs and the business of the morning I think.

The next day I gave him his wormer. Later on, there was a poo and a worm. A worm which wiggled as it came out. It totally freaked me out, I'm usually ok with stuff like this but after seeing that (and having to send S out to pick the poo up!) I couldn't eat my toast. Then S took him out again because he seemed restless and Oscar pooed a worm out on its own. *vomit* Apparently it was wiggling as it came out! Poor Oscar that must have felt odd!

We kind of thought that was it, and that was bad enough, but then yesterday he decided to have a poo in the house (this is quite unusual and we can usually catch him and get him to got outside but we missed it this time) and it was FULL of worms! *vomit* and then while S was getting a poo bag he went AGAIN! Just a worm, then more poo with worms. *spews bile* Poor dog! Poor us! And no more since then, so hopefully that's it. But we'll be getting another wormer when he goes for his second vaccination. Sorry that was all a bit detailed on the poo and worm front wasn't it? But I guess it's all part of having a puppy.

The mites (this puppy is just a compendium of delights) had cleared up quite nicely after Frontlining but today there is a new crop of them. They will be smited but we have to wait until Monday to use the Frontline again. Until then it's natural remedy time, oh yes.

What else has Oscar been up to? I've started some clicker training and he will now "sit" and "down" on command. It's strange the clicker training because you do things backwards, you get the behaviour first THEN put the command to it. When I trained Molli the Collie I taught the command and behaviour almost at the same time, and it involved a lot more luring into position. With the clicker training I only had to show Oscar that lying down got rewarded twice before he started doing it himself. Then once he was doing it himself a lot I put the command in as he was doing it, then you just have to move the command to slightly before he does it and eventually he will do it on command. And I think you get a more reliable result over all. I have also been using the clicker to try and get him walking on the lead nicely. It's getting better but I think it'll be a slow process, he's not in favour of leads and not being in charge of where to go. ;-)

I've also been working hard on his manners, sitting and waiting before anything nice happens (doggy's teas, getting toys out, being greated and going through a doorway mostly). Just gently establishing control and leadership, no need to be loud or rough just avoid being a push over.

The playbiting seems to be calming down a little as well, after all hard bites resulting in whoever he was playing with leaving the room the hard biting has stopped. We are now working on stopping all bites with any pressure before putting any mouthing at all under some sort of control. I was reading around and apparently if you do it this way, phasing out the biting rather than stopping it altogether all at once, they learn much better bite inhibition, as in they know how hard they are biting and will be able to control the pressure of their bite under any stress. If you just stop it altogether then you can get a dog that just bites HARD as soon as it feels threatened, whereas a dog with bite inhibition will know how to just mouth without biting hard. Or something like that. Seems to be working for Oscar so far anyway.

I would like to say the same for the inappropriate chewing of household objects but I can't just yet and am not sure how to manage it. We are taking him to puppy pre-school tonight - a "family consultation" at the training school we will be going to (the only APDT approved training school in West Cumbria!) so I'm going to get some in person advice about the chewing then. For the time being just keeping everything out of his way seems the best bet.

Right, I'm going to sneak some mite cream onto his leg while he's asleep...

xxx