New Dog, Old Dog

SUMMARY: And you *can* teach them all new tricks. (Remington and Sheba updates)

Backfill: Added Sept 27, 2019 from email of Feb 22, 1995.

Remington is a sweetie, now that he's suddenly (as of mid-December) decided to act like a grown-up. Still, every once in a while, finds something exciting (like a bag of recyleable cans that we hadn't quite gotten around to putting away) and spreads it around the yard, but mostly is quite good.

No more dreading the return home from the moment I leave the house, wondering what he'll have found and torn up. Yay!

We've just started a tracking class on top of all of the regular obedience classes and the tricks he's been learning. It's pretty interesting stuff, dogs' noses. We'll see how well he does; to practice tracking, however, we have to go find a relatively untraveled field while he's just learning, so it'll be harder for me to keep up with it.

Sheba is stiffer all the time. Wanted to do x-rays to try to confirm arthritis or whatever so we can do correct treatment instead of guesswork, but leg x-rays need general anesthesia. At her age, need to do blood test first to make sure kidneys and liver are functioning correctly. And--blood test shows that they aren't. So we're in the process of deciding what to do next, how much $$$ to spend trying to track down the various problems.

She still loves to go for walks, even trots and runs for short spurts, but stumbles over her own back feet sometimes. However, she has now learned (at the age of 14!) to Sit, Down, Come, Shake, Crawl, and even hold a biscuit on her nose. Never could teach her when she was younger and more interested in everything else in the world. Now she's apparently jealous of attention and treats!