Year in Review

January
 Pyg had his 1st birthday! Maisy celebrated her 7th gotcha day. And then got diagnosed with entropion and corneal dystrophy by an ophtalmologist.

February
 I got engaged, and then realized that meant I would soon have four dogs.

March
 Maisy re-grew her bladder stones. Napi joined the "cool dogs club" and started taking fluoxetine/Prozac.

April
 After a diet change, Maisy's re-grown bladder stones disappeared. Thankfully.

May
 My friend Megan lost her Buzz. Pyg and I went backpacking!

June
 We all moved in together.

July
Maisy got her first leg towards her RL3. Napi celebrated his combined birthday/gotcha day. Fenced yard!

 August
 Lola turned 4! The second book in Denise Fenzi and Deb Jones' Dog Sports Skills series came out. I'm incredibly proud and honored to be apart of these books as the editor.

September
 Lola and Pyg failed the CGC in a most hilarious fashion. Maisy "graduated" from the ophthalmologist. We took all four dogs camping.

 October
Maisy had her 8th birthday. We celebrated Pyg's 1st gotcha day.

November
 My friend Nicky lost Shanoa. I applied to grad school.

December
We increased Napi's fluoxetine/Prozac dose. Denise Fenzi and Deb Jones' Dog Sports Skills Book 3: Play finished the first round of edits. I got married.

Napoleon Updates: Class and Meds

Napi and I have now gone to three sessions of our "class" (actually just a couple friends and I renting a training space and each doing our own thing). Napi and my thing is to sit and eat treats while other people and dogs are in the same building. I'm really pleased with how he's doing, actually. The first time we did something like this, he wouldn't eat at all.

Here's a 3 minute video showing how Napi is doing. We are sitting right next to a half-height door, so he cannot see - but can hear - what's happening in the next room (my friend and her boxer working on personal play). About ten feet away to the left, there's a closed door to another room, where another friend and her two dogs were.


 Overall, I'm quite please with Napi so far. Obviously, we have tons of work left to do, but he's making nice progress.

On the medication front, since I cannot afford to take Napi to see Maisy's old veterinary behaviorist, I had our primary vet, Dr. Jessy, consult with Dr. Duxbury on the phone. This is an awesome (free) service. The result was a nice discussion of our options. The first thing we are going to do is increase Napi's Prozac dose. If that does not work, we are going to switch to either Paxil (Maisy's drug of choice) or possibly amitryptiline (which I know basically nothing about and am possibly spelling wrong; I think it's a tricyclic?). And depending on how that goes, we will experiment some more with trazodone, clonidine, and/or Xanax.

I really just want my poor boy to be more comfortable around the house. As it is, the noises that my other three dogs ignore (even Maisy, who used to bark at basically nothing) set him off in spasms of barking. It's annoying to listen to and undoubtedly painful for him to live like that.

I must have a thing for reactive dogs, because I'm just in love with this dog. He's so sweet, affectionate, and funny. If we can just get his anxiety under control, he'll be perfect.