Heart Worm Treatment completed, first time to board and an incident with my husband

It has been a long time, and in that time so much has happened. Max has completed his heart worm treatments and now has a clean bill of health. He did not fair as well this go around and ended up with pneumonia, which resulted in another overnight visit at the vet and additional medications.

Two weeks into his treatment we went on a family vacation. This was our first time to go away since getting Max, as he had just recovered from Pneumonia and was still in danger due to his heart worm treatment we elected to board him at the vet's office. He did very well and was more than excited when we picked him up.
At which time when we did pick him up he was given a clean bill of health and we were told the heart worms were gone (thank God)



Of course the excitement does not end there in our house, just tonight my husband was playing with Max in the backyard with the children. Max become guarded over his toy, a ball and became overly aggressive. He attacked dh, biting him two times, and tearing his shirt and shorts. DH had to run to the doctor, and I was able to calm Max down.

So while we have come a long way in a short period of time we still have our struggles, we are still working with Max and well the behaviorist will be here tomorrow and then again on Saturday. We are taking extra precautions till we work through these things and we will work this out.

Heartworm treatments round two

Max was able to get his second and third heartworm shots this past week. He did very well at first, however that all took a turn last night when he started coughing and vomiting. In fact he vomited blood, and lots of it. He stopped eating and became lethargic. We were able to get some fluids in him and will be following up with the doctor on Monday (yes we consulted with the ER vet and saw someone over the weekend)

Today has been very stressful for us, watching him close, making sure he is getting plenty of fluids and planning on another vet visit in the morning. I can not imagine losing Max, we knew it was a risk when we started treatments, but we thought he was so healthy other wise that we would not be facing this situation right now.

We do not let him runaround, he is not exercising, we take him out on his leash to go to the bathroom etc. We have keep him confined over the past week (really longer due to previous shot) We are doing everything the vet says to do.
If you have advice, suggestions etc. please feel free to give me some..

Second round of Heart Worm treatments start tomorrow

Well tomorrow is Max's big day. He will go in for his second round of heart worm treatments. The first go around he did very well. He did become more aggressive for two weeks the first time around. As the second treatment should be stronger I expect that from him again. We were lucky enough for him to not have any stomach issues the first go around. Lets hope that continues this time.

Other than that Max has been doing very well. Loves spending time with us and has really come a long way since January.

Max's aggression with men

One of the battles we have been overcoming has been the fact that Max does not react well to men The vet and behaviorist both say that chances are he was not treated well in the past by his male owner, it does not take rocket science to figure that out. Max would become very possessive with his food, me and the kids when my husband was around. I could feed him, the kids can feed him etc from their hands. My husband however could not go near him when he was eating without him becoming aggressive. Well for the past three weeks every meal he has gotten and every treat he has gotten has come from my husband. He is now eating from my husbands hand and is not possessive over food or us when it comes to my husband. He is also very excited to see him, loves on him and is reacting to him just like he does the rest of us.

Do not give up. Do what you have to do. All dog's and yes humans are trainable..

Heartworm treatment has started:

Today has been a big day for Max. I had to take him to the vet first thing this morning to start the process of heart worm treatment. We got there around 7:15, they did an xray right away and it was determined that while his heart is damaged he is healthy enough to receive the treatment. So around three they started the injection and sedated him for the night. I will get to pick him up tomorrow afternoon. Keep him and us in your prayers. He is a great dog and the next few weeks will be hard on him and us as we have to keep him calm..

Max is all better and doing well

Max is doing very well and is on his way to being a healthy pup. He now has a larger kennel that he is enjoying a great deal. Our next big adventure with Max will be treatment for Heart Worms, we will begin this the second week of April, our vet wants to wait till Max has had a chance to recover from this last sickness.

After heart worm treatment we will embark on having Max neutered. I have been lucky enough to have been introduced to spayGeogia.com. there really is no reason for Georgia pet owners not to have their dog or cat spayed or neutered. Considering that with the coupon given to you by the state you can have it done for a low price of $28.00.


Thank goodness there has been no drama or excitement with Max this weekend. I hope that soon things will settle down and we will be just moving along, a happy family of five and one precious dog.

What a Rollercoaster these last few days have been.

Max started getting sick over the weekend. At first it was just the big diarrhea, but that lead to vomiting which lead to blood in his stools. We spent yesterday at the er vet and went through a wide range of possibilities. From Gastro Cancer to Pravo Virus. With the final diagnosis being HCG virus. Right now the doctors are giving me a positive outlook and think he will be coming home tomorrow. It was scary to go through but I am relived that he is improving and responding well to treatment.

On a positive note he is being exposed to other dogs while at the vet and seems to handle it well. I have avoided getting him around any other dogs as I was unsure of how he would respond.

Lets continue to pray for a fast recovery and that he is home with us soon.

Training, training and more training

Things are moving right a long with Max, yes we have had a few issues. He has been peeing inside and often right after we have let him out. So we are working on this and looking for any suggestions on things to do to discourage this behavior.

We really have three areas that I am working with him on right now, recall, who is in control when we walk and the leave it command. He does well with training and responds to myself and the kids very well. He seems to catch on very fast to what we are doing and loves getting praise.

When we first brought Max home, our walks were more him walking us, he pulled us everywhere and would not wait on us to go in a direction. When putting on his leash he would be turning in circles, jumping up and down and just not calm at all. We have gotten to the point now that he has to sit before he can have his leash put on, he has to let us go out the door first and has to either walk beside us or behind us. Our biggest issue on walks right now is his tendency to want to chase cars. So when a car goes by we all sit down, children included,  I tell Max "Sit, Calm" he is getting better, he does still jump up but will sit back down for me.

I am working with the leave it command because he likes to attack the childrens picnic table and outside toy box, as well as eat food off the floor the kids have dropped. So I am putting one of his average snacks on the floor and telling him to leave it. He has to leave it alone for one minute and he is rewarded with his favorite snack. His favorite snack is saved for leave it and recall only.

So as you can see we are getting there with Max. I am very happy to say that he is doing great with the kids and with my husband. I am so glad that Max has his forever home.

More pictures of Max

Just wanted to share some pictures of Max from this weekend. For some reason he is threatened by the children's old picnic table, he barks at it and attacks it. He does this with the outdoor toy box as well.
I have tried to explain to him that the table and box is not alive but for some reason he just does not understand.

 

  

  

  

 

The Behaviorist and Max

So it is the day for the behaviorist to come and see how Max is with myself, my husband and the children. She first does the Canine Good Citizen test and exam. I am very happy to report that Max passed with flying colors. She took his toys away from him and taught me things to do to help teach Max recall and not lunging for cars. Again, as I am not a behaviorist I am not going to provide any instructions as to what I am doing, I will just tell you that we are going on a lot of short walk's with Max, during which time we are trying to teach him that we are the leader and not him, that he can not pull us on the leash and he has to follow us. We are also working on his reacation to when cars or people go by. Him being a hearding dog he has a natural tendency to want to chase things.

At the end of the day the behaviorist assured me that Max was a very healthy dog, she took samples  of his BM to take back to the vet, the new vet we are going to, in order to check for signs of worms. From her examination, pressing on him etc, he does not appear to be in any pain and can tolerate pressure as a normal healthy dog would. She also examined some of his bm and to the naked eye did not see any worms. This is a huge relief as we are not going to treat him for the heart worms for at least a month to get him adjusted to our family and the new vet. She agreed this was the right thing to do. She also assured me that there is no indications what so ever that Max is unpredictable and should not be around children, in fact just the opposite, he would stand between the behaviorist and the children at first, protecting the kids. She watched as the kids played and ran with Max in the back yard and assured me that he is safe. I will still have to be careful with him and the kids as he gets to know us but there is no fear on my part of Max attacking any of us.

Max's forever home, be careful what vet you go to.

So after our Friday night disaster, lots of reading on my part and questions to my friends with pets we made the commitment again to give Max his forever home. We were determined to do what was best for all of us. Which meant that we needed to set boundaries for Max as well as us and the children.
I started the process of teaching Max Zen Hand, as I said before I am not an expert if you feel you want to learn more about what I did you can find instructions at http://www.dragonflyllama.com/%20DOGS/Writing/LTD.html.
Max took to the zen training very well and with following the guidelines listed in Lead the Dance we have come a long way. Max is now listening and following simple commands and loves to play the Come game. He will Sit, lay, and stay.

We continued to work with Max, as I was as committed as I could be to providing him with everything he needs we made the choice to take him to the vet. I told the vet to NOT trip his nails as he is so sensitive about his feet. The vet however did not listen to me and trimmed his nails, Max of course did not handle this well. Max was already over stimulated. When we got to the vets office that morning the leash I had been given with Max broke, he snapped it and got away from me. Ran into the road to chase the cars. Thank goodness there was a police officer directing traffic who was able to stop all cars and get Max for me. I am just glad I have been working out and was able to run after him with out hurting myself. So his day is not going well and to be honest neither is mine.

I go into pick Max up and the vet ask me to come to her office, she tells me that Max is not a dog to have around children, that he is unpredictable and if she were me she would put Max down. She went onto say that he has one testicle that never descended and he has heart worms, which she believes to be early on. So the neutered dog that was in perfect health now has some issues. My head is still spinning about the do not have this dog around children and you could leave him here till you decide what to do if you like. I of course took Max home with me, and then went to my pesties, chat board of experienced pet owners and asked for advice and help. With their help I found a behaviorist to come to the house and work with me and Max, to let me know if Max was in fact a dangerous dog .

I call a few other vets and get their opinion, several of them tell me we should retest Max before doing any treatments and that it is unfair for a vet to make that kind of recommendation to me regarding a scared, confused dog's behavior while at the vet. That in fact Max should have received no treatments on his first visit, it should have been a met and great. So I have now changed vets, Max has gone in and met his new vet and the office staff, walked around etc, but was not treated, the vet did pet Max and love on him. We will continue to go back to the vet's office one to two times a week over the next month. During which time I am going to work with Max on the behavior issues we are working with.

I am not an expert

I just wanted to clarify a few things before we get to deep into this. I am NO WHERE NEAR a dog/cat pet expert. I am not a behaviorist nor a vet. This is my experience with Max, our experience with Max, the mistakes I make, the things that work for us and the funny tales of things that Max does that I want to keep a record of. Also remember that just because it works for me does not mean it will work for everyone. Max has been a blessing to us and I have learned a great deal in the short time that we have had him, but I will make mistakes I will do things wrong. Do not feel like you can not give me advice or ideas on things that may work better for us. Keep in mind that I am new to this. While I had pets most of my life I have not had any for the past ten years so I am learning as I go. I hope that someone will get something other than a chuckle from my experience and that in a year, you will see that Max and our family are still trucking along and doing just great.

When we almost gave him back

Max has been with us for right at a month now, boy has our life changed a lot in that time.
I picked Max up on a Tuesday, needless to say he was a tad confused and shy at first. It did not take him long to realize that I was not going to hurt him and that I was going to play with him. He even started playing with the children as soon as they got home from school. But you see this is where I made some of my first mistakes. I forgot that Max was in fact a dog, who was not used to children. He loved their excitement level and enjoyed running with them. But I was not becoming the leader of the park, nor were my children. We took him on a walk, but really Max walked us, he was in control.
We figured out early on that Max was sensitive about his feet, I did tell the children not to mess with them but did not stress how important it was that they made sure they did not accidentally sit or step on his feet or tail. I did other things, things that most people would think of. I provided Max with a child free zone, and instructed the kids that they were not allowed any where near his water or food bowl EVER.  I thought I had done all that I could to make sure the kids and Max were safe. I was wrong. I forgot some very important things, one being that Max was new to us, that while Max was two years old, and trained he was not trained with us, and we were not trained. I did not think about how traumatic this must be to him, new family, new house etc.

Fast forward to Friday night, yes just a few short days after I got him, we are all sitting on the couch, JM moves and in the process ends up sitting on Max's back paws. Remember he is sensitive about them, he of course reacts and nips at JM> I of course over react and tell everyone he has to go. That my children safety comes first and he can not be biting my children. I even went to a pets chat board and posted that I had to get rid of him. (word of advice unless you are wearing your big girl panties, never tell a large group of pet owners that you are going to get rid of a pet) Thank goodness I did not take offense to the things they said to me, that I read every response and that with their help I was convinced that I was being an ass and not looking at this through Max's eyes. They provided me with great websites to help me train him, http://www.dragonflyllama.com/%20DOGS/Writing/LTD.html is my favorite and has helped us so much. I started reading all I could and asking them one million questions. They tore me a new on that Friday night, but in the end I am glad they did. They taught me that Max deserved this chance to be in a happy loving home. So we did not pursue taking him back, we instead pursued training him and well of course training us.

Hence Second Chance Max...

Why not to re-home your pet.

I wish that everyone who was considering adopting a pet could read this, or even those that are considering re-homing their beloved pet, or getting a new kitten/puppy.

Before I started this journey I had no idea what re-homing was, I soon found out it is a common used word in the pet world to indicate finding a new home for your pet, for what every reason you have made the decision that the pet you so much desired is no longer working out for your family. But before you make this choice I beg of you to consider a few things. I know that pets are not human, but they have feelings and they care. They become attached to you, they bond with you, get exited when you come home, stay by your side when you are sick and are there for you regardless of what kind of mood you are in. Some breeds are even said not to do well at all in a re-homing situation, as they will not bond well with new owners. For example the Chow does not bond well with new owners.

Consider if you will that your spouse, your mother, your father etc makes the decision one day that you have become too much to take care of, that you are a problem child and just do not want to deal with you anymore. So they place an aid in the paper, on craigs list or even better they just drop you off somewhere. Imagine how  you will feel, imagine going from living in your loving home with people that love you one minutes to being given to someone else. You do not know these people from Adam, they treat you well but imagine if you can how scared you are. You are sleeping in a new place, a strange place, you are eating different food and have different rules. I for one do not think I would be on my best behavior, how about you?

I have to admit that this is a lesson I learned the hard way, after having Max in our home for a tad over a week I almost gave him a way. I had some great ladies give me some awesome ideas and try to make me see things like Max did, to help me to understand what Max was going through. Again to those of you who helped me through this, those of you who suffered through my ignorance, thank you, yet again.

How we got to where we are!

Before you can understand how far we have come you need to know where we have come from, how we started on our journey to getting Max and how he became a part of our family. During the fall of 2009 I started talking to my husband about getting a pet for myself and the children. We discussed the pro's and con's of both cats and dogs. My husband shot down the idea of a cat very early on as he is highly allergic. This of course made the children sad as they wanted a kitten.

I, however, have always been a dog person. I had my wonderful Bear for eleven years, she was a chow that was given to me by my first husband. When I moved form the country, Mississippi, to the city, Chicago, I decided she would be better off staying with my ex husband who had land and was not going to be living in an apartment. I missed Bear and great deal and never imagined that I would have another dog, especially
once I had triplets. How on earth was I going to care for a dog as well as the kids.

Now that the kids are in school and I have time on my hands I thought it would be the best time to add a new member to our family and once my husband got on board there was no stopping me. I did my homework, contacted rescues and put my name on every list I could think of. I was addicted to petfinder.com, humane society web site as well as Craigslist (a whole different post)

A friend of mine associated with a rescue in the area contacted me about Max, after two other dogs fell through. She knew very little about Max, just that he needed a good loving home and he needed it fast. I contacted the owner as she was in the process of picking up ten rescues from a different state. After many questions and yes being lied to I agreed to go met Max. I of course, fell in love with him as soon as I saw him and he came home with us that night. This was three weeks ago, during this three weeks we have been through a lot and in the upcoming post you will see how we almost lost max not once but twice. Just so you know we are very committed to Max and there is no way he will be re-homed. My kids would be devastated as well I would.

Second Chance Max

Hi, there and welcome to our journey with Max.

You may be asking well who are you and who is Max. Max is our two year old sheltie that we rescued from a bad situation. I am a stay at home mom of bbg triplets who are now 5 years old. If you want to follow my life with triplets check out my other blog, this blog however is about Max and our journey with him, how he changed our lives and how we changed his life.

Our journey includes ups and downs, triumphs and joys. Like with any dog owner there is going to be good and bad, as well as close calls. Max almost did not stay with us, in fact at one time I was determined to re-home max yet again due to my own ignorance. That is why you are reading this and I am writing this. To show that you need time and that training starts with you, the owner being trained and not just the dog being trained.

There will be funny tales, stories that make you laugh and even at times I will post about dogs in need, a rescue who needs to be adopted, a dog or cat that needs a forever home.. Please do not contact me about one of these animals unless you intend to give them a forever home and not freak out at the first issue that comes up.

Enjoy learning about my journey with Max.