The Family

It’s really not often I get a picture of all six of our dogs. While I was feeding Lucy this morning, most of the dogs were on the couch. So I put the rest up there and snapped a few pictures.

Lucy is in her chair about three times a day now. I really hate her megaesophagus.  I love her, and I want her happy and healthy.  And of course we do everything we can for her.  Our floors are kinda gross now, since she regurgitates still.  But we clean up after her and move on.  She’s a good girl and our special collie. 

The rest of the dogs are good.  Muffit goes hiking with my husband a lot. I don’t post about him much because I don’t do much with him.  Levi is retired, cranky, and jealous that he’s not my main companion anymore, but I train him some and go for walks and things and that makes him happy.  Tatum, Chase and Jet are my three main sport dogs now and they are fun to work with.

All in all, our happy house of six dogs is really peaceful. Everyone gets along and everything is going well. I miss Angel terribly, still.  The worst thing about coming back from trips is not having her here to welcome me home.

Everyone else is pretty happy and healthy though. But I don’t like it when the dogs get old.  I wish they were all young and healthy.

Lucy

So Lucy has Megaesophagus… which basically means here esophagus doesn’t work anymore. She has to eat a liquid diet and sit in her Bailey’s Chair for 20 minutes after each meal, and she eats 4 times a day. Okay sometimes just 3 if we get lazy and tired. It’s a lot of work. We adore Lucy and do what it takes to keep her fed and happy and healthy.

But sometimes she whines in her chair and we have to sit by her and keep a hand on her for her to be quiet. Sometimes she won’t potty before going into her chair, because she’s a stubborn collie girl… and other times she’ll squiggle too much and get her tail in a bunch and that’s uncomfortable. Maybe we could put a heated blanket under her to keep her more comfortable… but then again, she actually likes the cool tile floor so that might not be a good thing for her.

So we try to keep her comfortable in her chair. It has a 4 inch foam pad on the bottom, and a towel over that so if she leaks (she’s incontinent too) the towel will catch it. But if she goes potty before she goes in the chair, that would be best! Dang she can be stubborn.

Otherwise she’s doing really well. I can’t believe she’s 11 years old already.  Wow.  Time just flies, it seems like yesterday when she came to me from Chicago and landed in the airport and walked out of her crate. I still remember that day vividly.  I love my Lucy Girl.

Lucy

So, I’m thinking about calling a local Animal Communicator (aka Pet Physic) to come and see what our pack has to say. Mainly I want to know if Lucy is hurting or not. She regurgitates a lot, still, and I wonder if her throat is hurting her. It’s so hard to know. She eats just fine but her throat has got to be too raw.

And maybe if Patty the Pet Psychic comes, she can talk to our whole pack and see how they are. I emailed her, and she’s fine with having 7 dogs and 2 cats here to talk to her all at the same time! So I might give her a call… it’d be fun, I think!

Maybe she can tell me how to lose weight, LOL but if that was the case then she’d be super rich and wouldn’t live in Utah anymore!

I hate that Lucy has the megaesophagus, but she’s doing really well, I think.  I just don’t want her to be in any pain. Poor dear.  She’s still my baby girl even if she is 11 years old. Wow… I can’t believe it’s been 11 years since she came to live with us.

Lucy Goosey

I don’t post much about Lucy or Angel… Angel seems to just sleep most of the time now. Lucy was out on this pretty clear day and so I was able to snap a couple of pictures of her. She is a pretty girl, and doing well at 11 years old even with her Megaesophagus and her incontenence. We manage these things and love her all the time.

At least we don’t need any acne pills for her.. or for us! LOL. She’s not on any meds, actually. Sometimes we give her some Metacam for pain but most of the time she is doing just fine.

She doesn’t have much energy but she likes to chew bones (ones that she can’t swallow) and she likes to go on walks around the block and snuggle.

I’m glad she’s still doing well. We love our Lucy girl.

Lucy and Levi

Of all our seven dogs, Lucy and Levi have been with us the longest. Lucy is the cornerstone of our pack… she’s both alpha and she’s been here the longest. Levi came just 9 short months after her. They were my only two dogs for a while and I am quite bonded to both of them.

When they were younger they would fight about bones.. but now they don’t much anymore. I love how they were both chewing bones on this dog bed.  They actually don’t do this very often, either.  But they are the first smooth blue collies I ever had.  Lucy will be 11 in February, and Levi just turned 10. Wow, how time flies. I remember when they were little puppies.

I’ve been blogging about them for a while now, putting their info into web directorys sometimes too.  Lucy has the Megaesophagus, and she’s doing really, really well. She still eats four times a day and spends 20 minutes after in her chair. She put weight back on and is healthy and happy.  Levi is retired from dog sports but loves to guard bones and go for walks.

They are my pack cornerstones and they better be around for a long time still.

Chase Little Bed

I am one of those odd people who think that dogs don’t feel guilt. I think guilt is a human emotion. I am more of the mind that the dogs know Safe and Dangerous. And when you come home and your dog has gotten into the garbage and scattered it around, and he cowers… it’s not guilt. He just knows that you coming home with garbage scattered around is dangerous because you might explode for no reason that he can understand.

(oh and this is Chase trying to fit in the teeny dog bed I got for Jet. LOL)

Jet is in his chewing age now… he’s six months old and that’s to be expected. We do not, ever, get mad or punish him for chewing. Ever. We don’t do that with any of our dogs. We just direct him to something more productive. I do want him to know that some things are off limits, like cardboard displays or chairs or furniture, but I just push him away, tell him Leave It, and give him a bone that is a good thing for him to chew.

Lucy has Mega-esophagus and often regurgitates quite a bit. She is also pretty incontinent and will pee accidentally while she is laying down if we don’t take her out frequently.  But Lucy never, ever acts guilty for either of these acts.  I believe it’s because we have never punished the dogs for there being pee on the floor, or poop, or throw up… or the act of any of these.  So none of the dogs think these things are dangerous in any way and don’t show the ‘guilt’ signs that people interpret as guilt… but I interpret that the dog is afraid of something dangerous might happen.

I’m very proud of this.  I don’t want my dogs to think there are things dangerous in the world… mainly me or my husband.  I want them to feel safe at home. We train in other ways. We encourage success. We DO set boundaries and limits and the dogs have good manners.  But a growing puppy needs to chew, an incontinent dog is going to have accidents.  These are not reasons to punish… actually, there are not really any good reasons to punish.   Redirect, encourage, and set up for success. I love positive training!

Three Old Dogs

It’s tough having three old dogs in the house. Of course we love them all, and it’s not like we have to spend  lot of time exercising them and doing lots of things with them. However, as they age, we have to spend more on medical care. And make sure they get high quality food, a fair amount of exercise to keep them in shape, and good health care.

This picture is from May 5, 2002.  We got Angel back in 2002.  From left to right, Lucy, Angel (in my husband’s lap), and Levi is with me.  All our smooth blue collies.  They are such dolls and we love all of them.

Lucy now has megaesophagus and she’s just 10 years old. But we are thrilled that we are managing it okay and she is doing well. Lucy is also pretty incontinent and we need steam cleaners to keep the carpets clean, but we don’t have many carpets so that’s good! Angel is about 12 years old, we are guessing, because she’s a rescue. Angel is very healthy though and so we are happy about that. And Levi is 9.5 years old. He’s also very healthy but he does have arthritis now, typical of an older dog.

I’ll be a wreck when these three go.  I love them all. And Levi is my soul mate dog. They are unique and wonderful and we hope they live a few more years with us so we can cherish and love them!

Silly Lucy

We have a soft-tile floor in our basement and we often have to tear it up if one of the dogs has a peeing accident on them.  So quite often the tiles are up and being washed, some of them are scattered around drying.  The tiles have our dogs’ names spelled in them, and our cats. Though we don’t have Muffit and Tatum’s names because they came after the floor.

So Lucy is feeling better!  When she feels good and she wants dinner she brings me toys. With her megaesophagus she hasn’t been bringing me many toys in the recent past. But last night she was bringing me the H out of one of the floor tiles. I kept telling here there is no H in Lucy but she didn’t want to listen! I had to hide the H under the tv stands and then go and get her some dinner.

Oh but before I hid the H, I threw it for her a couple of times and she went and fetched it. She had fun and was prancing around like she used to. I’m so glad she is feeling better. We have been feeding her smaller meals, too, and she’s not throwing up quite as much.

She is still quite incontenent though and so can’t sleep on the bed with me. I really want to find some good diapers for her but I haven’t seen any that I really liked online yet. Anyone have any recommendations?

And as the days go on, we continue to deal with Lucy’s Megaesophagus. It’s not fun.. and each time we have to sit her up in the chair to feed her, I am saddened that she has this awful disease. And each time she regurgitates on the bed frames, I feel bad for her.

Her weight is holding steady at about 61 pounds, which is good for her. We don’t want her to get below about 58 or so.  She has been up to 65 in the past, but 61 is better for her anyway.  My Husband has been taking her for walks to the local park about three times a week, which is great for her muscle tone and strength. Plus, she loves getting out!

She usually still regurgitates on a regular basis though. Mostly after she sneaks a drink of water that we don’t know about.  Sometimes her food doesn’t seem to go down, though, and she’ll regurge the food too.  But for the most part it stays down.

She just turned 10 on February 15. And we realize that once a dog is 10, they are considered getting old.  I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since little puppy Lucy came to live with us.  I wish she would live as long as us.

We are managing the megaesophagus okay, I think. I wish she wouldn’t ever regurgitate, I need to look it up and see if it’s normal for dogs to continue to do so, or if there are ways to prevent it entirely.  All in all, our Lucy girl is doing pretty good, all things considered.

Lucy Is 10

Yay! Lucy is 10 years old today!  I’m so happy… last year this time when we were trying to figure out why she wasn’t keeping food down, and she lost so much weight, I was so worried she wasn’t going to live to 10 years old.  We found her megaesophagus though and she’s doing so much better now!  She’s still a bit skinny and she has bad days where she regurgitates a lot of her food. But for the most part, she’s doing well.

She loves to eat, and we feel bad that we can’t give her solid treats anymore. We do give her some, sometimes, just before we feed her a liquid meal. Kibble blended with water, mostly.

Sometimes she plays with the other dogs, and my Husband has been taking her to the dog park on a regular basis so she gets too exercise. So she is doing well, and we are happy for her.  Hopefully she’ll have a few more years with us.  Though we realize 10 is getting up there for a big dog.  She seems healthy otherwise. Well, she does have calcification of the lungs, still, but that doesn’t seem to be bothering her.

Yay for Lucy! Happy Birthday Funny Faced Baby Girl Lulu.