What JLo and Jam Have in Common

We've been having a problem with Jam vomiting in the middle of the night. What seemed to work was a crate snack: a snack given just before bedtime. But right before we went in for our flu booster shot, Jam vomited again and he threw up all of the crate snack, mostly whole and undigested. At 2 am.

The vet put him on Pepcid AC twice a day and said to continue the crate snacks. That was Tuesday. That evening at obedience Judy, our AC, told us that perhaps another part of the problem was that Jam was eating too fast and not digesting his food. She recommended that we get some slow feeder bowls or put big rocks (or something he couldn't fit in his mouth and wasn't a toy) in his current bowl that he would have to eat around and would slow him down.



We had already changed to make him eat with Willow so that he would know not to charge her bowl after he was done with his. We had started feeding them separately, but realized it was better that they eat together. Just for fun, we got them each a JW skid stop slow feed bowl.


Jam usually finishes his meal in about 45 seconds. The first time we fed him with the new bowl it took him 4 MINUTES to finish his lunch!

Here he is waiting for us to put down the food in his new bowl.

I've been thinking a lot about Jam and his eating fast and being a service dog and being under such intense scrutiny. It's sort of like having the paparazzi always around. Just waiting for that unflattering photo to appear. Take the one above for instance. He's a little pear-shaped isn't he? We might even be talking about the beginnings of a booty.

Now, he hasn't jumped into JLo territory.


As you can see, poor JLo was caught showing some perfectly normal cellulite on her legs and the photo shows a substantial booty. Jam is quite a distance from a JLo booty and his fuzziness (as shown below) would certainly hide any unfortunately dimples.

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But he is under pressure to perform. Just like JLo. Does he feel the pressure? Is that part of his problem? At night when I hand feed him to get him to eat slowly, he sits very patiently and waits for each bite. He watches to see if my hand will go back up for more food, but he doesn't ever whine or act anxious or greedy.



But when he sleeps he lets it all hang out.



JLo wouldn't do that.

HRH Berkeley and The Red Tent

You may have noticed that we are a little light on news. I was away at a conference and Her Royal Highness (HRH) Berkeley has been away at SEGD in The Red Tent, a literary reference where back in biblical times all menstruating women got a holiday during their period and went off to get massages and eat treats in a red tent. Readers understand the reference. Most other people look at me blankly. Like the sophomore boys in the mezzanine on Friday...

"Where is Berkeley?" One boy who is also on the baseball team asked me. His four other friends looked at me inquiringly.

"Oh, she is at Southeastern Guide Dogs in the Red Tent." I winked. He screwed up his face and said, "Wuh?" A couple of the other boys had a glimmering of what was coming and I saw one boy even put out a hand as if to ward off what I was going to say next.

"She got her period."

He cringed. It was like I had thrown roaches on him. "Oh man! Gross!"

"I tried to hit you with a euphemism, dude. She won't be back until May 2nd." I kept walking and smiled all the way down the stairs. Boys! So easy to gross out.

Now there may be some of you who are like Fred and me who haven't ever had a female dog who was going to go into heat. We had no idea what to expect. We had heard that there were signs:

1. Swelling of the general area


2. Discharge/bleeding


3. Being the hottest dog on the block (attracting a lot of interest!)

Having no idea what swelling meant (how much swelling was swelling? When was it completely swollen? Did just the one little area get swollen or the whole bootie?), we had a couple of false alarms which resulted in my doing twice weekly bootie checks. Fred refused to have anything to do with HRH and her bootie. I think he might have actually run out of the room at one point. Or walked very quickly, while humming and ignoring me.

So on the day before my conference, that Monday morning, I did a quick bootie check and OMG! Swelling. I mean, SWELLING. In fact, when she walked away from Fred, he asked, "Is there something wrong with her?"

We are talking swelling akin to a baboon's butt. So, all of you newbies out there with a female dog who have never experienced a dog going into heat, when they say swelling, they mean, the entire area puffs out like a muffin top.

It looked super uncomfortable. All that day, she looked at me with crinkly eyes like she was having cramps and needed a Midol and a hot water bottle. She just wanted to snuggle. She didn't feel well. Poor little princess with the big bootie.

So when I got her home, I said, "We better try on the diaper, because I think her period is immanent." Fred didn't believe me, but he thought filming me doing that would be entertaining and informative. Here is the video.

After we took the diaper off, we discovered that she had gone into heat. Fred took her to SEGD the next day. I left for my conference. Then when I got back we had a big kitchen fire, so things been exciting. I should be able to post more now. HRH will be back on the 2nd. We had Bob for two days last week and we will have Elvis for several days next week.

New Coat Arrives!

On Tuesday Her Royal Highness's (HRH's) new coat arrived in the mail! Here she is posing with her new coat on. You can see NO BOOTIE! On Wednesday when we went to school, HRH was very interested in making sure that the Dean saw her in her new bootie covering coat. Here she is with the Dean. Notice the thumbs up sign! The new coat says Guide Dog in Training instead of Puppy in Training. That's a nice change.