A Chaotic Weekend

Our weekend began with a trip to Amber’s place for a puppy play date. Cessna and Aiden loved the time they got to run and play and chase the Frisbee around the field near Amber’s house. Amber had a good time romping around with Aiden and they tired each other out quite nicely. Gunner, our visitor for the weekend, didn’t have as much fun on the play date because he was stuck on a long leash because we weren’t sure about his recall. Gunner is a 105lbs (slightly overweight) male chocolate Labrador. He was donated to the Autism Dog Services program and is currently under assessment, but being already 14 months old and not overly obedient things are a little more challenging. I wish the director of training luck in the training process, if he decides to accept the challenge.

On Saturday we held a birthday party for our golden, Aspen, and our little 6 month old foster, Aiden. We had a total of 8 dogs in our 2-bedroom condo apartment, it was nuts! Aspen and Aiden had a wonderful party and Aspen was thoroughly spoiled by her friend Thor (10 year old 115lbs golden) and his mom Sharon. She got: a package of snausages, a package of dentasticks, and a bone that has minty flavoured stuff in it from them; fresh beef bones from her friend Harley (the balcony jumper) and his mom Darlene; a squeaky beaver from her friend Jetta and her mom Jess and then a knuckle bone from us in addition to her pink teddy and pool she already got. Aiden was also spoiled with a nylabone ring and a squeaky/crinkly stuffed turtle from us and a Frisbee from his friend Jetta and her mom Jess. In addition to having all of the dogs come over for the party we also made cake for them all to share (even though I am sure Aspen would have loved to have it all to herself). The cake was half rice and half coconut flour with peanut butter mixed into the batter and then some as icing as well. They all enjoyed it thoroughly!

Later on though Cessna began to develop hives and become quite itchy. We noticed the problem when she was running around like a mad dog and rubbing her paws on the carpet…not normal for her at all, even though she is quite an energetic girl! She was covered in red lumps and even her face, ears and legs were swollen. We gave her 2 Benedryl, an Aspirin and a fresh marrow bone to keep her mind off her discomfort. About an hour or so later the swelling and hives began to go down and happily this morning all the redness had disappeared as well. We are guessing she had an allergic reaction to the coconut flour or peanut butter, she has had peanut butter before but only in small doses since the first time she had too much and got the runs for a couple of days. I think we’ll avoid both because we aren’t sure if her sensitivity to the peanut butter has gotten worse or if it was just the coconut flour…better to be safe than sorry. I’m not sure why I keep getting blessed with these dogs with strange problems, but then I guess someone thinks I can handle it.

Today has been a little less eventful, but still tiring. Gunner has a great deal of energy, but being so large can’t be just left to his own desires. I never thought all four of our dogs could be nervous around one dog at the same time. Poor Aiden almost climbed our bedroom door trying to get in and get away from him. And Phoenix got slammed around the living room like a ball in one of those old arcade games. Only one and a half more days before his trainer returns…he really isn’t a bad dog, but he just doesn’t understand his size and isn’t used to being cooped up in a house all day. Our cat learned that he doesn’t understand his size when he had her pinned between his paws, not wanting to hurt her, but he’s 105lbs and she is only 13lbs maybe…luckily she’s a good sport about it all.